9 Months!

Our little guy turned 9 months over a week ago! He is getting so big and learning so much! A little over a month ago he started army crawling and learned quickly how to get ALL around the house. I don't know if I just forgot what this stage was like, but he now gets into everything!! When he was just scooting/rolling he stayed around our living area, now he likes to venture out to every room of the house and knows exactly where the naughty things are. He's just so funny to me, I'll see him all of a sudden booking it to his room and he goes behind his door to play with the door stopper or he'll book it to the bathroom to play with Layla's potty chair or he loves going under our table and chairs in our dining room to get to Elv's food or our wine bottle rack. And when you say "Gibson, no" he just turns around and smiles at you like, "What? I'm not being naughty, am I?" :). He seems to understand "no" now, but doesn't always listen:). Him and Layla have been playing really nicely together for the most part. It probably helps that he's very laid back and doesn't care (most of the time) if she takes his toys or if he get knocked over. He's so unlike her with getting hurt--he falls SO many times a day and hardly ever cries about it. He pretty much always has about a dozen bruises on his face/head, but he just isn't scared of anything so I can't really stop him from getting hurt! That could be trouble later in life!! A few months ago I would have said that since he's been such a happy little baby that'd he'd be really relaxed with crawling around and such, but he's super adventurous and curious about everything he sees. He'll do maybe 8-10 normal crawls at a time, but normally it's only when he's going a short distance to get to something. I think that he thinks that army crawling his faster, so if he starts crawling, he switches to an army crawl to try to get there faster. That's probably for the best:).

He had his 9 month appointment last Friday and as I always had with Layla too, I hardly answered "yes" to any of the questions they asked about what he's doing:). He's not pulling up on things, he doesn't play peek-a-boo, he doesn't clap, hmm, I forget what else. I remember them asking the peek-a-boo question with Layla too and thought it was a weird question--doesn't that depend on if the parents teach the kid peek-a-boo?? Anyway, the doctor said that considering that it's more like he's 7 1/2 months, he's doing really well and is right on track with where he should be. He's healthy and that's what matters:). Here are his stats. He seems to be thinning out a bit:).

Height: 29" 75%
Weight: 18 lbs 13 oz 25%
Head: 44.8cm 25%

His schedule is still pretty much the same as last month I think, except that he has more "real" foods now and doesn't always like his bottles. He hardly spits up at all anymore! It finally has ended (I forgot to put that last month, but I think around 8 months is when we realized it had gotten a LOT better)!! He's had a couple of colds recently and then he seems to spit up a bit more, but other than that, it's not much at all.

I just wanted to document their arm difference for my sake. Gibs' is maybe thinning out a bit more as he spreads out, but it's still definitely thicker than his big sister's:).

Playing nicely...

It's so funny now to see him stand--Layla looks so tall!!

His 9 month pic...

Of course sissy had to have her pic taken too:)...

He loves to be by her. Hanging out in their jammies...Layla plays with her toys quite often up on the couch or on her little table, he can now reach things that are any bit at all close to the edge--it'll be even more trouble when he can pull up on things (he's on his knees here)! She'll need to find a new spot to keep her toys away from him!

And nice time together quickly turns bad when he starts pulling on her hair...typical little brother:)...

She thinks that she needs to dump out ALL of his baby toys out the basket to play with...she says she does it to be nice to him, but she probably just wants to play in the basket:)...

Again, in the basket after church last week...

Sometimes to get Gibson to sleep longer (he likes to get up at like 7:30/8ish--he goes to bed at 7, but putting him to bed later doesn't seem to help him sleep in any longer), he'll fall asleep in our bed. It doesn't happen much anymore, so I thought I'd better get a picture of it while I still could:)...

And then when Layla woke up, she wanted to join:)...which reminds me, that 2 nights ago Layla gave up her pipe!! We've been saying for far too long now that one of these days we need to take her pipe away, so we finally did it! I was afraid she'd stop napping, but then thought I should take it away while she still for sure needs a nap b/c I thought that if I took it away when she was close to giving up naps (she still naps 2-3 hours/day), she might give them up completely. She gave her pipe to Gibson. Although, when it was time to go to bed, she was NOT so happy about that decision and wanted one of his:). It took her awhile to fall asleep, but eventually she did. She woke up at 6 which if very unusual for her, but I went down there and she just wanted to pray and then went back to sleep. Gibson had been making noise a bit before that since he's been sick, so she may have heard him and then probably looked for her pipe but couldn't find it. She's struggled going down for naps and bed since then, but after she falls asleep, she sleeps okay, so hopefully just a few more nights and she'll be more used to it. Oh, and I was debating whether to tell her that we were "sending" her pipe to a friend's baby so that the pipe would be totally gone from the house, but she said she wanted to give it to Gibson since he has lost some pipes recently, so we thought we'd try that. I ended up just putting it away to get it out of her mind. And Gibson looks pretty silly with a pink pipe:). It's weird though now that she'll never have her pipey (as she calls it) again. Just another step towards becoming such a big girl:).

Layla, Gavin and Gibson bonding:)...(Gibs left the pic about 1 second later, he wasn't so into the bonding) :)...

Gavin came over to play the other week and Layla and him enjoyed playing with L's campers in Gibs' room...poor thing, they shut him out of his own room:(...

"Shoot, mom, I can't get in":(...he was hurrying to keep up, but wasn't fast enough:)...

Everyone hanging out together...of course they were posing nicely for the pic right BEFORE I took it:)...

Playing nicely together...

Tri-ponds and the Hudsonville Fair

The end of August we took the kids to the Hudsonville Fair. I had entered Gibson in Right to Life's Precious Baby Contest, so we went to vote for him (while donating money to a good cause) and check out the fair (he didn't win:( ). My dad and Joyce were also working at the Beaver Dam food booth, but it was so crowded and seeing that they don't have high chairs, we weren't sure how we'd fit in there with the kids so we opted to get our food from the outside window at the Beaver Dam booth.

Enjoying her bbq and fries...

Em, Mike and Gavin were there, so Layla and Gavin went on a ride together and both seemed to enjoy it. Joe's parents and sister were also there that night and so was Heidi, so pretty much our entire family (except for Steve) was at the fair that night.

It was a bit bright:)...

The only game they did was the pick a duck game. They each had fun choosing their duck, although I'm pretty sure Layla would have kept picking if she could have:).

There were a few different prizes they could choose from based on the number they selected that was on the bottom of the ducky. I tried to convince Layla to select one of the little rubber duckies they had, but of course she wanted the largest toy possible!

And of course this is what they both did as soon as they got them:)...

Silly kiddos:)...

Layla also enjoyed checking out the tractors. We walked through all the animal barns too. She liked looking at the animals, but the only animal she wanted to touch was they bunny.

Inside the booth barn she got a sticker and a tattoo that she was very excited to show off:)...

And since he didn't make any of the other pics, here is proof that Gibson was there too:)...

He now enjoys her prize at home:)...

Also in August, we went with some families from church to Tri-ponds in Allegan. It's worked out great this year that all of the places we've gone camping have been pretty close to home! We tried keeping Gibson on towels, but that did not work so well:).

I thought that since "pond" is in the title, the ponds would be a little more active. One is a fishing pond, one is, um, something else, and one is a swimming pond, but there is hardly any beach at the swimming one. Nonetheless, Layla enjoyed the small beach area. Overall, Tri-ponds was really nice! Our site was decent size and grassy and the pool area was nice too. After being to quite a few different campgrounds in the past couple of years, we have definitely learned what we like about each one and what we don't.

Gibson playing with his buddy, Owen...

Layla in the pool with Anika...

Staying warm after swimming!

When we go with our friends, we typically put the kids to bed on time and they therefore miss out on smore time. Layla stayed up a little later than normal on Saturday to join in on roasting marshmallows.

Yum!

The kids before bedtime...

Laura, Logan, Wendy and Kevin gathered around the fire...

The kids had fun running out into the field that was behind our sites--Layla had fun trying to keep up:)...

End of Summer Camping Trip

Our camping season has sadly come to an end:(. We've had a great summer camping although it was definitely work taking (and packing for) a 2 year old and a baby. This last time especially was a bit more challenging since Gibson just wants to move all over, but we still had a good time! It's been fun watching Layla enjoy camping--she still talks about it and I have to remind her that we can't go again until next summer:).

We went to Oak Grove in Holland (by the beach). It was similar to Sandy Pines in that it had a lot of permanant trailers/mini houses--it wasn't what we expected, but we had a good time! They did have a hot tub that us ladies (except for Jill since she's preggers) got to enjoy for a bit Saturday afternoon so that was nice. Heukers and us came out on Thursday and Coppesses and Konings came out on Friday. Gibson and Layla had colds (as did Maddy and Jonathan), so that made Gibson a bit grumpy, but overall, he didn't do too bad. They slept good which is always a concern of mine with all of us in the same room! Elvis didn't join us this time since Lindsey and me and the kids wanted to go to some garage sales on Friday, but with the storm Friday night, it was probably a good thing he wasn't there (he has some major storm anxiety issues and would not have enjoyed hearing it in the trailer and would have kept us up!).

Jonathan and Layla playing golf with a bat:)...

This is how they say "cheese" :)...

Maddy and Gibs hanging out in their excersaucers...they were handy to keep the babies contained!

Apparently the sky was interesting:)...

Mickey figured out how to peak out of their camper:)...

Snack time!

The babies playing...

Saturday it rained, so we had to make use of Heuker's tent thing...we would have been a lot wetter without it!

Layla loves playing with Kali. It's cute to watch Layla follow Kali around like she thinks she's such a big girl like Kali:)...

Jill and Ella hanging out with Lindsey and Madison...

How many dads does it take to put on a baby's sweatshirt? :)

It was quite muddy!!

Chatting over dinner...

The babies eating together...Gibs' face was as messy at Maddy's, you just can't tell b/c his food was light colored:)...

Being a good big sister by talking to her bro...

The babies staying warm...

Mason, Jonathan, Layla and Kali playing...

Ella and Layla...

Layla's strange "cheese" face again...(Layla is actually not all that short, well, compared to national averages, she just has really tall friends:D)...

Gibs exploring the trailer...it worked well to just keep him in there some of the time so that he could move around--after the rain, it didn't work so well to have them move around in the mud:)...

Lindsey with Jonathan and Madison and me with Layla and Gibson...

Me relaxing with my kiddos...

The kids could enjoy their sidewalk chalk since hardly any cars drove past (and they were very careful to watch for cars coming)...Layla drew that moose--just kidding:), Joe had fun drawing too:)...

Layla has quite the imagination, at home when she colors, she'll draw something that slightly resembles a triangle and will say that she drew a house:).

We had a fun last camping trip and it will be sad to pack up our camper for the winter. It's weird to think about camping next year with an 18 month old and a 3 year old--I'm hoping it'll be less work, but that might be wishful thinking:).