9 months and Filled with Adventure

Can you believe my baby is 9 months old?

Me either.

It seriously chokes me up to think that he is growing so quickly.

Can he just stay my baby forever? Here are some of things he has accomplished thus far:

*mastered the art of crawling and mischief
*opening up all doors and drawers
*crawling over to our stairs and almost falling down several times
{it is time to get the baby gate put back up}
*says "mamama" on a regular basis [I love love love this one!]
*pulling anything and everything out of my kitchen/bathroom cabinets
*become a human vacuum
*pulls himself to a stand on almost anything
*stands up at night in his crib and then cries because he cannot figure out how to get back down
*can crawl up to the second step of our stairs- downstairs baby gate is now up most of the time when we are down there :)
*loves to eat small finger foods such as bananas, rice, strawberries, bread, cheerios, veggie puffs, graham crackers, etc.
*drinks out of a sippy cup at meal time
*still LOVES sweet potatoes and carrots baby food
*has his two bottom teeth and must be working on some more lately {he has been unusually crabby}
*sleeps from 7pm-7am most nights
*crawls over to me and tugs at my pant leg and cries to be held
*loves attention from the older siblings
*still takes a pacifier and loves to hold his silky blanket when he goes to sleep
*is a total toe-head :)
*has our whole family wrapped around his pinkie

We sure love you little E

randomness...flashback to Summer

what a relief it is to know that my journaling from Disneyland is finally complete.

it felt like it took forever.

I was looking back on some pictures from this summer that I never posted and these ones all made me smile :) *Robby in the Bumbo chair with his beloved papa; like I've said before mr. R would love to forever be our baby :)
*a random occurence with some fun headbands.
*Maddie wearing her all-time favorite "cherry shirt" as she calls it. Right now, it is successfully hidden at the top of her closet. When I bring it down again, she will probably wear it every single day it's clean until we "lose it" again.

*even Robby wanted to join in on the headband fun. Daddy was not too excited about that one.

and once again you can check out his "perma-frown" that he has perfected

*Lori (my sis), Eli and I at Zack's baby blessing dinner. Unfortunately, I had to work that night so I am decked out in my navy blue scrubs. I will have to get some pictures of him on my blog one of these days... he is a cutie and quickly becoming a mini-linebacker :)

Papa Toronto's birthday dinner; he just loves my kids= the grandkids, and is always so good to them. the end result: my kids are all obsessed with him. {by the way, can you believe how grown up Robby looks in this picture...blows me away}

California- Part 1 DISNEYLAND

*we ended up leaving on Tuesday evening (Sept 8th) around 7pm....quite a bit later than initially planned. Poor Jesse had some work problems that came up last minute that he had to take care of. I was also exhausted because I had worked the night before; leaving me awake for over 24 hours= cranky mommy. We almost cancelled our trip completely {thank heavens we didn't}. Because we left so late, we didn't arrive at our hotel until around 2am. Maddie and Eli both slept almost the entire way, but Robby was a different story. He had taken a late nap and slept until 5pm, so he was WIDE awake until around 10:30pm. We both thought that all three kids would be so tired that they would just stay asleep as we carried them inside. That didn't happen. Then we thought that surely with it being so late they would all lay down and go right back to sleep. Again, that didn't happen. We were laying down trying to get some shut eye and Robby was literally RUNNING around the hotel room. This of course kept Maddie and Eli wide awake and laughing. We finally resorted to plan B and set up the one man tent, zipping Robby inside that sucker and after 5 minutes of crying he layed down and went to sleep. But at this point the other two were still awake with Maddie starting to wander the room and Eli was totally busting up laughing in his pack'n'play. All Jesse and I could do was look at each other and laugh. Finally I resorted to climbing in bed with Maddie and around 4am we were all eventually asleep. Needless to say, we were all pretty tired the next morning.

*that morning we got up & ready for the day, sang happy birthday to Miss M, and had brought one present for her to open. Included in it were the sunglasses that accompanied us to Disneyland. We then loaded up the strollers and walked over to "the Happiest Place on Earth." We stayed in the Best Western right across the street, making it so convenient. Even though Robby was Mr Cranky to a T, we had a great time! Some of the highlights include riding Dumbo, spaceships, Autopia, Pirates, It's a Small World, etc; eating lunch in Toon Town; meeting 3 princesses with Miss M (even though we waited almost an hour= ripoff); watching the Celebration Parade in the evening.

*we ended up leaving right after the parade passed by Main Street and headed back to the hotel. All three kids fell asleep fairly quickly and we all entered dreamland by 10:30pm- HOORAY! *my three kidlets outside our hotel and READY for some fun!

*my cute hubby with the kids for a sunglasses photo* Maddie loved being able to wear a special pin for her birthday....if you can't tell :)

*all the employees at Disneyland would wish Maddie a happy birthday as we walked around. finally she turned to me and said "Mom, why does everyone know my name?" I never thought about how creepy that might be, to not understand how people would know this tid bit of information. After I showed her that her name was written on her pin, she was okay with it.*Mommy and the kids

*Maddie at the Sleeping Beauty castle...I had to practically drag her out of this one *Mommy riding the carousel with Maddie & Robby

*Dumbo ride: Robby had a really hard time waiting in line for this one. He kept yelling "my turn" when people would get off the ride and was trying to climb over the line dividers.

*It's a Small World

*snack size cheetos were a must at Disneyland *I think that this ride was probably the favorite for all three kids. They had updated it with more dancing people & they all looked around in amazement *riding the train

*we ate lunch at Toon Town, which consisted of Robby wandering around the entire time. even though we brought lots of snacks and juice boxes with us, we had to buy lunch. It was such a rip off and next time we will plan better :)*Mark Twains riverboat tour

*Tarzan's jungle playhouse; Jesse took the kids on this and I stayed with Eli as he snoozed in the stroller

jungle cruise; Robby totally jumped and hid when the piranha's came out of the water

*the infamous spinning teapots, or "puke" cups as I call them. Jesse was kind enough to take one for the team and ride this one with the kids*me & my little E; the big kids and Jesse went off and rode Autopia while we hung together. I ended up taking Robby & Madde back on Autopia for round 2 after they were finished. I think that it might have been the all-time favorite ride for Robby. He LOVED steering the car

*waiting in line for the princesses

*Maddie loved being able to meet some of them, but it was sad that you wait in line for such a long time and then only meet three. She kept asking me afterwards where Cinderella, Snow White & Sleeping Beauty were.

*Miss M with Jasmine *Ariel*Maddie was in heaven when she finally met Belle. she walked right up and proudly announced that Belle was her favorite. what a cutie pie!

*our 1 family picture

*I could eat this little guy up; that is how cute/smiley/cuddly/loveable her really is

*Robby pretty much gave me this look the entire day, we call it his "perma-scowl." this kid does NOT function well sleep-deprived.

*and lastly the kiddie spaceship ride. after this we got some dinner and only ate part before Robby had completely LOST it. So what to do? We packed up our food and headed out to watch the parade and then quickly walked back to the hotel.

a few tidbits I learned for next time:

*arrive much EARLIER in California= better sleep for the whole fam

*somehow find a way to bring the double stroller, it has so much more storage space and can hold all three kids- when needed; plus the seats recline for naptime and there is a canopy to shade kids

*if at all possible plan on 2 days at Disneyland so you aren't so rushed into fitting EVERYTHING in on one day

*stop at Subway and bring your own Subs for lunch

California- Part 2

*the second day of our trip we decided that we needed a day of relaxation...and what better place than the beach?! We loaded up the car and began driving. We stopped at a Subway and brought yummy subs, chips & drinks and headed down to Huntington Beach. It was a beautiful midday full of sand, smiles, cold water, laughter, a watching my brown children run to their hearts content kind of day.
*after the beach, we went back to our hotel and rested a bit, and got ready. the original plan was to meander down to Santee Alley (sp?) before heading over to Curtis Morgan's house in Arcadia (one of Jesse's mission friends). The traffic once again was quite the shocker! It has been awhile since we have been to California and traffic is as awful as it used to be. We ended up bypassing the shopping and barely made it to the Morgan's house instead. It took us 2.5 to 3 hours to get there. Wow, I have never been happier not to live there. The crazy thing was on the way back it was only 30 minutes.
*we ended up staying an extra night and then headed out bright and early the next morning. Even though we had a blast, I have to admit that it is always heartwarming to pull into your own garage and know that you are HOME.

Eli was full of smiles...as long as he was on the blanket or in his car seat. The moment I set him down on the sand he threw a fit. Apparently he has not yet learned to appreciate sand; perhaps next time. Until then, I am perfectly content to let him stay clean and dry.

this picture of the waves makes me want to visit the beach again soon

Miss M buried in the sand

like I said...E was perfectly content chilling in the car seat; at least at this point. by the time we made it home from the trip not so much. for a few days after the vacation he would tear up at the first sight of his seat. not much fun to be stuck in a seat for pretty much 7 hours nonstop

it makes my heart happy to see my two "big" kids building a friendship with each other...it reminds me that there is life outside of constant fights

this is proof that I indeed made my appearance at the beach. sometimes it's so nice to be the camera-woman :) you avoid embarassing swimsuit pictures

*

on the way to the Morgan's home, Eli and Maddie totally crashed in the car. We were laughing so hard when we saw that Maddie had fallen asleep with a pushpop in her mouth and couldn't help snapping a picture of it.

yummy.

after my photo shoot of the other two, Robby insisted I take a picture of him. he grabbed the pushpop from Maddie's mouth and told me "take a pi-ture of me seeping mommy." Do you believe him?! He is rapidly turning into such a ham!

a random cactus that the kids excitedly told me had "mickey ears." Just a little obvious that we had returned from Disneyland