We went in with Don's parents on a rock climbing wall for Christmas for the boys. We've been debating whether to get a swing set or a trampoline or something like that for awhile. We have a large lot but the majority of it is wooded so we only have a small flat area in the backyard. We found this "mountain" and it has been a hit. Declan constantly climbs on it, plays in the middle and jumps from it. It was perfect!
We traveled to MN for Christmas and stayed with Don's parents along with his sister and her boyfriend. It was a great 4 days, despite some rough nights with Tate - we did a lot of relaxing, eating, drinking and laughing. Unfortunately there was hardly any snow, but we did get the boys out on the lake down the street.
Eek, it's been a long time since I posted. Tate turned 1 right before Christmas (12/22) so we had a couple of celebrations. On his bday I made chicken parmigiana from scratch and we had my parents and the neighbors (Tate's godparents) over for dinner and cake. It was a perfect low key celebration and a great way to savor the end of his first year with us.
He is healthy and a big boy, around the 90th percentile for height and weight. Declan was also tall, but Tate is a bit more "solid" if you will. He's got a nice round tummy and thick legs. He is solidly walking and we dropped the bottle cold turkey right after Christmas without a hitch (which was surprising). He had become accustomed to walking around the house with it, sucking away - very cute but I was worried he'd get too attached to it if we kept it around much longer.
He is starting to comprehend more, just saying a few words like Dec Dec, dada, doggie and a little bit of mama. But he definitely understands quite a bit of what we say which is neat. We are definitely busy lately!
It's official, Tate is walking. He started taking some steps 2-3 weeks ago and then last week he really started moving. Over Thanksgiving weekend he seemed to switch off between crawling and walking and now he is walking every chance he gets. His teachers told me today that he was their busiest baby! He is so excited about his new skill, he has no interest in eating, going to bed or doing anything other than running around and testing out his new skill.
He has also become very LOUD over the last couple weeks. He has always been such a mellow baby and now he loves to use his voice, laugh, wave bye-bye and play chase.
When we do get him to sit still to eat he is really enjoying whatever the family is eating. In fact, he often surprises me with the foods he enjoyes - a couple weeks ago he was devouring the homemade PF Chang's style chicken lettuce wraps I made.
The first year can be long at times, but it really is amazing that he's almost one.
We finally got around to getting Tate baptized on November 20th. It was a great day, and his godparents Larry and Kaye (next door neighbors) were able to join us.
7 months, 6/13/08 - Standing while holding onto couch
7 months, 06/07/08 - Crawling
7 months, 06/02/08 - First teeth
7 months, 05/27/08 - Pushing to Sitting Position
6 months, 05/08 - Sitting
5 months, 04/18/08 - First Swim
4 months, 03/08 - Rice Cereal
2 months, 12/07 - Smiling
Tate's Milestones
4.5 months rolling over both ways and solids
7 months sitting up
8 months crawling
9 months pulling up
9.5 months cruising (and trying to stand unassisted)
