holiday pictures sneak peek

Joseph Martinez Photography

I LOVE our holiday family photos! This was our first photo shoot with Kyle and we got pictures we'll love forever. The second I got them back, I looked at them for an entire hour (there goes his morning nap time, oops!), and ordered our Christmas cards. I can't wait to send them out!

9 months

Kyle, you are 9 months old today! At 9 months, you are so much different than at 8 months. You're turning into a little boy before our very eyes; a sweet, determined, funny, handsome boy!

Here's some facts about you at 9 mos:

• At your 9 month check up you weighed 22 lbs, 4 oz and were 29.5 inches long. 
• You pull yourself up on anything and everything and walk along the couch and furniture.
• You are an expert crawler and getting faster every day!
• You love to crawl to any cord you see and pull. Trouble! We still have some serious baby proofing to do.
• You also love to close doors.
• You sit in the shopping cart like a big boy (see above). You're really good until the end of our shopping trip, when you try and stand up, crawl out and grab everything in sight.
• You are such a good eater. You eat all veggies and fruits I give you, except eggplant - which is so gross anyway. You also aren't a huge fan of asparagus, but you'll eat it mixed with banana or apple.
• Your diet includes pureed: broccoli, zucchini, squash (yellow and butternut), green beans, yams, banana, apple, pear, peas, carrots, cauliflower, oatmeal, avocado, asparagus. I'm still making your food, which is time consuming but still pretty fun.
• You just started eating puffs and you're already good at picking them up and getting them in your mouth. You like to chew them with your front teeth :) Once you've mastered puffs, we'll move on to Cheerios and then soft steamed veggie pieces.
• Speaking of teeth, you now have 7! Your teeth are coming in left and right, all over the place. Right now you have 4 on the top and 3 on the bottom.
• You're still nursing every time you wake up, and right before bed.
• Your bed time is 8 pm and you usually go down without a fight. You wake up around 7 or 7:30 am. Daddy gets you up, changes you and brings you to bed for some morning snuggle time with Mama.
• You're still taking 2 naps a day: around 10 am and then at 3 pm - both unpredictably range from 1-2.5 hrs. You really wear yourself out now that you're crawling and standing/pulling yourself up all day long.
• You are talking so much. You say "baba" "lala" "mama" (although you don't know what you're saying yet) "aaaa" and you just started screaming. You open your mouth and eyes really wide - it's so hilarious.
• Your favorite book is "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" You love to pull the flaps and turn the pages before mom and dad are done reading them.
• You love the animal sounds. Oink oink and ribbit ribbit make you laugh the most.
• You get so mad when we change your diaper - which is all day, every day. Sometimes when I sing the Sesame Street song it makes you forget how mad you are.

Your doctor said babies usually start walking 2-3 months after they pull themselves up... so it looks like you'll really be getting around the house sooner than later! Only 2 more of these updates before I have a 1-year-old boy. Hard to believe!

christmas bucket list

Having Kyle has made me about 8,533 times more excited for the holidays than last year. I know he's still young and probably won't have a clue what's going on, but everything is just going to be more fun with him around. Brian & I even bought his big Santa gift already!

I wanted to make a Christmas bucket list so I don't forget all of the festive things I want to do this year, so here goes:

1. Pick out the perfect tree & decorate as a fam.
2. Get a special ornament for Kyle's 1st Christmas.
3. Send out photo Christmas cards with personal notes on the back.
4. Figure out a cute way to display the Christmas cards we receive.
5. Put up our outdoor lights soon after Thanksgiving... (last year they went up less than a week before Christmas, hilarious!)
6. Find the best neighborhoods to drive around and look at lights.
7. Don't wait until Christmas Eve to do my shopping (like I do almost every year!)
8. Take Kyle to go see Santa.
9. Take Penny to go see Santa at PetSmart.
10. Make a festive holiday breakfast for Brian.
11. Make peppermint hot chocolate with marshmallows. 
12. Invite my niece and nephew over to decorate Christmas cookies.
13. Buy cute stockings! (Need to get on this one ASAP)
14. Make a new Christmas playlist, with lots of new Kelly Clarkson songs and give copies to my friends :)
15. Schedule dates with friends.
16. Practice silent night on the piano and have it perfected by Christmas morning.
17. Get one new decoration for our house that I LOVE!
18. Continue our annual tradition (me & my sis) of taking the kids to Breakfast with Santa.
19. Hang mistletoe in our kitchen.
20. Watch tons & tons of Christmas movies.
21. Read Christmas books to Kyle.
22. Surprise someone with an unexpected gift.
23. Buy Kyle Christmas jammies.

crawlin' and throwin'. nbd.

Kyle is officially a crawler! He woke up from his nap yesterday and decided it was time. Of course his motivation was Penny - he's been trying to crawl to her since the first time he laid eyes on her. Now he is constantly crawling to her, or her ball. Oh, and his other new trick is throwing! He actually picks up balls and throws them across the room. Yup, I seriously play catch with my 8 month old. How is this happening?

So far life is actually a little bit easier now that he can get around, because he's not so frustrated all the time that he can't go anywhere, and isn't constantly looking for my hands to pull himself up. But I think we're still in the honeymoon crawling 101 phase, because he'll still sit still and play for a good chunk of time before he takes off.

PS - Day 1 of crawling he found the remote control and got the battery out, and day 2 of crawling he tried to stick his finger right in the socket and then pull off the protective cover. Fun times ahead!

snuggle buddies

This may be my favorite photo yet. My 2 little loves snuggling on my lap in bed this morning. Melts my heart!

I'll just pretend he didn't grab her ear and pull 3 seconds later ;)

12 years

This weekend Brian & I continued the tradition of our annual Knott's trip to celebrate our date-a-versary, only this year we had an extra little guy tagging along with us! We had so much fun, even though we didn't go inside the park - we ate at Pink's (yummmmmy chili dogs) and did a little people watching and shopping. Next year we will definitely be taking Kyle into Camp Snoopy for some kiddy rides!

I think we've been to Knott's every year since we started dating, but we didn't think to start taking the picture with us holding up the year until the big "4". And sadly we missed year 9 :(

2001 - skinny babies!

2005

2006

2007

2008 - and no beard... what?!?

2009

2011

2012 - 5 months pregnant

2013 - with our baby boy :)

trick or treat!

On Halloween, we took Commander Kyle around Grandma Suzie's neighborhood to meet the neighbors and of course everyone thought he was adorable :) He even grabbed some candy from Ken's bowl! (Which mommy ate... plus about 50 other pieces of chocolate. Oops.)

After we made the rounds, we had a nice quiet night in with Grandma with some sloppy joes and cole slaw. Yum! The perfect 1st Halloween for our little guy.