Alex is 8 months old now and he has 4 teeth and is crawling and pulling himself up onto things. He loves to "climb" on things, like me, Dan, pillows, Tucker and his toys. And he is just so proud of himself! He gets himself to standing and then starts to bounce and forgets he can't stand on his own yet and just... tumbles! And he laughs and gets right back up! He's trying to "cruise", too. He'll stand next to something and walk along it with his hands and then move his feet to catch up with himself. He is actually getting really good at balancing himself. I don't think it will be long before he's trying to walk on his own. Look out world!
Our friend Windi lent us a baby signing video and Alex just LOVES it. We've been doing the signs for water, eat, more, shoes, bird, fish, ball, milk and sleep and we think that he is trying to do some of them back to us, but we can't tell what they are yet. He definitely understands them, though, and when I ask him if he wants to eat and do the sign for it he grins and bounces! He still loves bath time and has a lot of toys that he splashes around with. I'm usually pretty soaked after a bath. Our bedtime routine has really helped with him going to sleep on his own, too. After the bath we do lotion and jammies and then a little snuggle. Then I wrap him up in his blanket, lay him in his crib and turn out the light. Sometimes he stays awake and talks to himself for a few minutes, but mostly he can hardly wait for me to lay him down before he drifts off to sleep. It's wonderful!
Speaking of talking to himself, Alex is really jabbering a lot now. He definitely says DaDa and MaMa, and he's even starting to use them at the right times which is very exciting for us! He usually says DaDa when he's "wrestling" with Dan, and MaMa when he's upset or hungry. I guess he's pretty clear on what our roles are!
We've struggled with ear infections and are currently on our 5th antibiotic. Poor little guy just can't seem to shake this last one. He's such a trooper though, and even though he doesn't feel good he is still a very happy and good baby. We're going to see an ENT soon and will talk about putting tubes in his ears. Everything we've heard about tubes has been very positive, so while we are sad that it has to happen, we are glad that it will help him.
Ok, here are a ton of pictures and captions. Enjoy!
Back in early October we went to a pumpkin farm with our friend Windi and her little guy Oz, and the Whites came with us, too. We had a great time even though it was super windy out. I love this picture becuase Alex is gazing up at Dan. Isn't that sweet?
Here are Oz and Alex discussing the qualities of pumpkins. Either that or talking about the current state of their diapers.
Here is the cutest litte pumpkin you've ever seen. You can see his bottom two teeth really well in this picture. He's really started to get a lot more hair now, too.
Alex and his big hairy brother Tucker. They play so well together, Tucker is so patient with Alex.
And there are always a lot of kisses exchanged between the two of them.
Grandma and Grandpa Garcia came to visit and Alex had some quality diaper time with them!
Alex had so much fun playing with them! Grandpa was giving Alex kisses on his back which just CRACKED him up, it was awesome!
I think someone was getting a lot of snuggles and kisses that weekend. Can you guess who that might be?
Alex just LOVES containers. Buckets, boxes... anything he can fill and empty and beat on.
Remember me saying he likes to climb things? Here's proof! Crawled right up onto his box of toys to get to the toys on the other side of it. He hung out on top of it for quite a while and was as happy as he could be!
Alex's daycare had a little Thanksgiving lunch for the kids and their parents. I went and had turkey and mashed potatoes with Alex, he loved them both!
It has been very cold here recently and so we've been bundling Bug up from head to toe. Here he is in his super cool tassle hat and matching mittens. Doesn't he look cozy? And the best part is that he doesn't mind either that hat or the mittens and will leave it all on so we don't have to worry about him getting cold!
Dan's sister Kathy and her family came out from California for Thanksgiving and stayed with the Whites. We went over a few times to visit and let the cousins all hang out together. Left to Right is Kyle (6), Zachary (7), Justin (11), Alex, and Kailey (5). That's Elly in the front, she LOVED having all those kids in her house!
Alex was hanging out with the boys, Cousin Zach and his Uncle Matt.
Kailey just adored Alex, and I think the adoration was mutual. Alex watched every move that Kailey made and was always looking for her in every room. Kailey was SO good with Alex, she played with him and all his toys, brought him stuffed animals to snuggle and even read all of his peek-a-boo books to him.
Well, that's it for now! We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
