Max is 9 months old!

Wow, Max has accomplished so much in the last month! In fact, at his nine month well check today, the doctor said that he's doing so much that he's all messed up. In other words, his brain is working hard keeping up with all these new developments. Unfortunately, I think these new milestones are all affecting his sleep as well, and he's not wanting to stay asleep. He wants to practice his new skills instead of sleep! Here's a list of his new accomplishments this month:

• he got another tooth on the bottom and three more are close behind, making eight total teeth
• eats finger foods and loves feeding himself
• waves bye-bye/night-night
• clicks tongue and loves when you click back
• likes growling back and forth with people
• gives kisses by smacking his lips
• likes to dance whenever any music comes on by bobbing head and/or body up and down
• he practiced all month and finally started crawling one week before he turned 9 months! First he went from being on his belly to sitting up, then he was doing a move where he would do a push up and balance on his toes with stretched out legs, then he did the crawling position and rocking on his hands and knees, he could crawl backwards for awhile, then he finally took off!
• a few days after he started crawling, he started pulling up to his knees and then to standing soon after that
• he likes to pull up on the ottomans and bite off the leather on them; not sure what to do about that
• he also likes to pull up on the piano and play it; he's so tall, he can reach the keys already
• and as of today, he can clap his hands

avocado!

The Plank

You see his tan lines? He even has tan lines
on his wrists and ankles where his rolls are.

We'll blame this on the angle of the camera : )

Whew! Needless to say, Max has been busy! He's also been busy growing. He weighs in at 23 pounds and is 31 inches long. At the doctor's office, the nurse asked me how much I thought he weighed, and when I guessed 23 pounds, she laughed and said, "Thant's a little ambitious, don't you think?", and I was right on the money! He's about the size of a 15-18 month old. Slow down, Max!

Spiderman!

This year for the 4th of July, we went up to Dallas to hang out with family. While we were there, we found out about a special event at the Amazing Jake's fun center at the mall...breakfast with Spderman! Knowing that Jed is a huge fan of Spiderman, we knew we couldn't miss this! So, everyone headed out to the mall at 8:00 on Saturday morning to go eat some breakfast at the buffet and meet Spiderman. Most of us were excited to see Jed meet Spiderman, but I think Grayson and Garrett were way more excited about the breakfast buffet! We ended up spending half of the day there playing games, riding go karts, playing mini golf and lazer tag, plus riding the carousel and the little train. We got our money's worth and stayed for the lunch buffet as well. Jed loved the whole experience, but his only regret was that he didn't get to wear his Spiderman costume since we left it at home in Austin.

Breakfast!

The big kids are still fans!

Lazer Tag

Riding go karts w/ cousin Grayson

Mammy was brave enough to ride w/ Garrett driving!

The spider with 7 legs

Cardboard Creations

I found out about this amazing video/story about a 9 year old kid who created an ellaborate arcade out of cardboard. You can watch the video here. It's pretty inspiring! I knew Eli would be inspired to make his own creation after he watched it, and I was right. For his first project, he made a football game where you pull back the die with the rubber band and try to make it through the field goal to get points. I'm looking forward to seeing the next game he's going to create, which Eli says will be a soccer game. What a great way for him to use his brain this summer! We had a talk about "plan B", trial and error, and it's also a lesson in patience!

I got the die in mid air!...see it?

Kids!

Our friend, Heidi, has her own urban farm, which is much more involved than ours, and she lives in a neighborhood just 2 minutes from us. They happen to have goats and one of the mamas just had babies, so we went to go see them. Baby goats are the cutest! She had three baby boys, so I welcomed her into the three boys club. I'm glad I didn't have all mine at once though! They are named Old Spice (b/c he was stinky when he came out), Jake, and Donny V.

Unfortunately, we heard some sad news yesterday that one of the baby goats didn't make it. They had to put the darker brown and black one down because they discovered he didn't have a hole for poop to come out. Poor thing! He wasn't eating and had a huge belly. I'm sure he was miserable. So sad.

Here's Jed with Jake

Mama and Old Spice

The brown one in the back is Donny V.

Max and Jake

Fun Times!

the jumpy seat!

Eli took this one of Spiderman

Eli reading books to his brothers

the superhero costume Jed came up with

Max 6-8 months

He is the size of a toddler, literally!  Max was just under 23 pounds and about 30 inches long at his 7 month appointment.  He's in 12-18 month size clothes.  It looks like he should be walking, but for now Max is just rolling to where he wants to go. He finally started sitting up by himself a couple weeks ago. That stage was short (a little over a week) but sweet because I could sit him down next to his box of toys, walk away, and he would still be there when I came back. Now he can go to a crawling position from sitting and then rocks back and forth on his hands and knees like he's going to take off crawling. Not yet, Max!

There are now four teeth (or toofies, as Jed calls them) in his mouth! Max eats like a champ and seems to like baby food more than Eli or Jed ever did when they were babies. We've started some finger foods as well, which he also likes. The boy just likes to eat!

Max still just goes with the flow. Even when he should be fussy due to the fact that he needs to nap, he still is generally happy except for some eye-rubbing and minimal fussing. I don't get it, he'll take only and 30 min. morning nap, we'll go swimming at the pool until past naptime but he's fine. He'll conk out a couple minutes after we get in the car to head home though.

Another new thing Max has started doing is babbbling! I love the baby babble. So far, he's only saying /ba ba/ or /ma ma/, and a few /guh/ sounds. Max likes to try copy us, especially Eli or Jed. He laughs back when we laugh or grunts/growls back to us. It's a fun game!

Oh, and his hair seems to be thicker and getting some curls in the back. It's still blonde with some red tint to it. He has more hair like Jed did and it's blonde like Eli's was...a good combo!

Father's Day

We had a great day celebrating John! It started with a loud, chaotic breakfast that involved loud, hungry boys, waffles stuck to the waffle iron after I forgot to grease it, and bacon grease spilled on the floor. Just another day in the life for us. We just had to laugh, and John said that we would look back on times like that and wish for more. True! Then John decided he wanted to mow and take it easy at home. He let Eli and Jed wash his truck, which was a great idea. Then we watched nature shows during rest time and learned about sharks. To top it all off, John watched some of the NBA finals game with his boys. A perfect way to hang out with Dad! We are all thankful for the amazing Dad he is!

This is the collage of trucks and that Eli made John for Father's Day. If you know Eli and how much he loves trucks, you know this is a perfect way for him to show how much he loves his Dad.





Max hung out in the swing and watched all the action from a safe distance.

Pink and Sparkly!

See my glittery pink toes? They are well deserved. I got a pedicure after surviving another week of single parenting while John was in Germany. They make me so happy! I had to bring a little more girliness into this household somehow!

Mother's Day

So, for Mother's Day this year we went to a jousting tournament. I'm a mom of three boys, and I'm okay with this. I actually thought it sounded like fun family time. It was a real tournament with real armor and everything. These people were seriously into this competition. I thought it was going to be more like a renaissance festival-type setting, but it was more of a sporting event, so there weren't that many people there for people watching. However, the boys loved seeing the knights in their armor and watching them on horses. All in all, it was a fun Mother's Day with my boys!

Tee Ball

Did I mention that Eli did t-ball again this year? He played through the YMCA once again. It was controlled chaos as usual. Eli did well and understood what was going on a little better than the other kids on his team. I think he was one of the oldest, if not the oldest on the team. We had fun getting to know our neighbors, who also had a son on the team, during the tee ball games. They also have 3 boys, all a year older than our boys. We'll be hanging out with them more often!

in the outfield w/ his new friend who lives down the street

The Phillies team picture. Isn't the little guy 3rd from the right the cutest little thing?

showing off his end of the season metal

Helpful Big Brothers

Eli has been a big helper lately. He especially loves helping out with Max. He feeds Max, reads to Max, gives him toys, makes him laugh, and distracts him when he's upset . Jed is good at entertaining Max, which can be very helpful as well. They are great big brothers!



Eli reading to Max...fun for both!



Eli feeding Max and Jed cheering him on...Max loves it!

Here's Jed entertaining...he was doing this face to Max before I took the picture.

Playdates with friends

Jed and his friend, Maya, at the zoo.

All of the boys' friends are girls in these pictures. They do have friends that are boys, but most are girls. I guess they know how to impress the ladies and treat them right!

feeding the goat at the zoo

beautiful peacock at the zoo

Max and his friends, Eliza and Harper. They are all 3 weeks apart!

Eli with friends from school at our after school playdate at Doc's.

playtime with all the Perkins boys!

Ninjas!

3 ninjas!

Boone "played" with Jed's Spiderman figures, and it resulted in this. It was very tragic! Jed was not happy about this!