One...Two...Three Strikes You're Out!

We've been practicing counting quite a bit with Nolan, and today we had some fun singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game. I caught the action on video...enjoy! By the way, he's 18 months old now...can you believe it?!

Nolan is walking!

I meant to post this much earlier, but with the new editor in blogger, I couldn't figure out how to upload videos. So today when I saw my friend Sarah's blog and all of her videos, I knew there must be some way to do it. By switching back to the older version, I was able to do it. Enough of that mumbo jumbo...here's the video. He started walking at about 11 months and is getting really good at it now. This video was taken 11/02/09.

Gimme Three Steps!

This is just a quick update for you all, but our little guy is a walker now!  On Thursday he took a step to me on his own (apparently though he's been doing that at daycare too, but I just don't count it until I see it!).  Then on Friday he took 2 steps.  On Saturday he was an ambitious little guy and took 5 steps or so.  It is funny because we were at a potluck get together with some of my Army friends and my friend Polly had just taken Nolan from me to hold him.  As many of you know, Nolan can be very attached at times, and he was just so anxious to get back to me.  So, Polly stood him up on the floor and I reached my hands out to him to get him to walk to me and that's when he took all those steps!  What a fun event :) 

Moving and Shaking

Does this face spell trouble??

Target: Football

On the move!

After a week in Hayward, Wisconsin and plenty of floor time, our little guy is now crawling! Watch out world, here comes Nolan :) He picked up a couple of other skills this week too...waving "hi" in response to other people, going from laying down to sitting up and shaking his head "no." Today he also pulled himself up to standing using the couch, the TV stand and the bookshelf. He then started pulling down anything within his reach. You can tell he's so proud of himself when he does these new things. He gets the biggest grin on his face and his eyes just light up.

Ryan and I have now started the baby-proofing process by covering our electrical outlets. We moved his crib down so that he won't fall out when he pulls himself to standing. We'll also have to rearrange our DVD player and Nintendo Wii so that he can't pull those off the TV stand. Although the basement and upstairs doors are usually closed, I'm now very aware of them and am pretty paranoid that I'll leave them open. I think this might mean a lot of extra door-checking in the next month or so!

8 Months Old!

Today our baby is 8 months old! It is hard to believe it, but he's growing so fast and he's learning new skills every day. Here's a recap of his recent achievements:

He now has 3 teeth...two on the bottom and one on top

He is pulling himself up to standing and will stay up for quite a while

He is practicing for crawling, although he hasn't made that transition yet

He is saying "dada" and "mama"

He is waving at us--sometimes with both arms and sometimes with just one

He's eating all sorts of new foods including cheese, peaches, yogurt, bread, peas, carrots, green beans, avocadoes, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, rice cereal and oatmeal

He's sleeping through the night on most nights and has a fairly consistent bedtime

In general, I have to say this is such an amazing and fun time to be Nolan's mom. He's a joy to have in my life. While the first three months of his life were demanding and difficult, the last few months have been such a pleasure. He's a happy, laughing, giggling, curious baby. He loves snuggling and giving his mama hugs. Ah, I am a lucky woman!

Father and Son Moment

So Proud to be Standing

Nolan is a Rollin'

That's right! Even though Nolan has rolled over from his tummy to back a few times before, today he really figured out how to do it. I've put him on his tummy over 8 times and each time he rolls over. I think the key for him is to use his baby back arch to propel himself. What a thrilling thing to watch. Enjoy the video!