Zaiden 9 months

Zaiden has discovered his freedom this month. He is on the move and loves to explore. His personality is also starting to come out more now that he is on the go. He loves to wait until you are not looking and go straight for something he knows he is not supposed to have....and with a big, dimple smile on his face. He also likes to explore Zander's toys a lot more than his own, which has created a few brotherly battles already. Zaiden continues to think Zander is the coolest guy ever and there are sometimes Zander agrees, "come one little buddy" and other times, not so much "no, no baby" Not only is Zaiden crawling, but he is also trying to stand up and gets up onto his knees on any toy or stool he can find and was already caught standing up in his crib when he is supposed to be napping. His only words so far are "dada" but he is beginning to sign "more" although I am not sure he fully understands it yet, but just knows he is supposed to do something. He is starting to get his first 2 teeth and seems to always have his hands in his mouth. He is beginning to eat more foods and has now had pancakes (not so sure about this) and french fries (double fisting these!) He continues to be a cute, smiley, mischievous guy who loves to laugh.

Zaiden 8 months

He is on the move! 8 months brings a big milestone as I think we can now officially say Zaiden is a crawler. He is just beginning to actually crawl only a few arm/leg moves at a time, but he seems to have mastered his own method we like to call the inchworm. Zaiden gets himself up onto his hands and knees then will dive forward and will keep doing this pattern until he reaches what he wants. He can cover a pretty good distance when he is motivated (usually to cause trouble like emptying a box of wipes at daycare!). In all aspects he seems to be such a big boy. He continues to love the attention of his brother and will try to get his attention by laughing or squealing at him. He loves to get hugs from Zander. Zaiden is also starting to give "high 5's" when we ask. He continues to be a good eater and is making great progress as a sleeper (thank goodness!). He continues to be a happy little guy and loves to give smiles and coos, although he did not have many for the camera this month.

This was the closest smile I was able to get on camera this month! 

He had a lot of fun at the children's museum 

Our little inchworm showing off his skills 

Holidays

The best thing about the holidays is spending time with our family and this year was extra special by having the addition of Zaiden to our family. Zander loves being a big brother and it was great to see them spend so much time together. Thanksgiving was spent in Wisconsin and we enjoyed some mild weather and spending some time outside. The month of December was filled with many Christmas events as Zander was old enough to be really excited about the season. He could not wait to get home after our Thanksgiving travels and put up our tree and Christmas lights. He did several cookie/candy baking projects with mom. We made a trip to Milwaukee to see the Holiday Train with Aunt Abbie and Uncle Garrett. We met up with friends over Zaiden's baptism weekend to see the zoo lights. The weekend before Christmas, we spent the weekend in Chicago celebrating our own family Christmas. The weekend started with a trip to see the play Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer play (unfortunately Jasmine and Zaiden stayed home due to Zainden's injury/illness). We then had a family dinner at home followed by a Christmas box of (matching!) family pajamas, movie and snacks for a Saturday night movie night. We then got up Sunday morning to unwrap the presents under our tree followed by breakfast in our pajamas. We then traveled to Wisconsin to spend time with friends and family for Christmas. Zander was very excited about having Santa come visit and he asked Santa for a Teddy Bear which he was thrilled to find under the tree Christmas morning (and even requested some new toys for Zaiden). We then continued our travels to Iowa over the weekend for a busy few days visiting friends and family, although the trip was cut a bit short due to the arrival of an ice storm. We have enjoyed spending the rest of the week with a lot of family time. We rung in a quiet 2016 at home and spent the rest of the day gearing up for Iowa's trip to the Rose Bowl (with a disappointing finish). We look forward to many good things in 2016!

Holiday Train in Milwaukee 

Zoo Lights 

Some Christmas baking projects

 

Family Christmas at home

 Santa was good to the boys! 

Starting a new year cheering on the Hawkeyes with dad 

7 months

It has a busy time of year, but we still had to take some time to celebrate Zaiden's 7 month milestone. He is a very active and busy little guy. He is getting so close to crawling as he scoots around very easily in circles and is beginning to push himself backwards and is starting to get his knees under him. He will also stay on his hands and knees and rock if he is placed there. Parker and Zander continue to big his biggest motivation, although this Christmas season the tree became very appealing he made some good efforts rolling to rip apart a few presents! He has pretty much mastered sitting and can reach very far to get to the toys he wants. He grasps toys very easily and although still puts most things in his mouth is staring to use the toys too (he likes to bang a hammer from a toy he got). He also continues to be very interactive and talkative and likes to take turns and will sometimes copy people (especially blowing raspberries). He is feeding himself baby cookies and has a pretty good appetite taking most of the foods we give him. Thankfully he is sleeping better for the most part, with the exception of did not have great sleep over our travels. He did also have a milestone of his first (2) ER visits this past month as he had a nursemaids elbow (dislocation of the radius bone), but at the same time was coming down with a virus and was running a fever which threw off all the doctors and delayed the elbow diagnosis and the generally pretty easy job of popping it back into place (I now know how to do it in case it happens again!). He was a trooper and I think actually enjoyed some of the extra cuddle time with mom! Life with kids is always an adventure!

I actually got a lot of smiles for the camera this month! Isn't he so cute!! 

Zaiden's Baptism

We were feeling very blessed last weekend when we were able to get friends and family together to celebrate Zaiden's baptism. Dan and Kelly agreed to be his god parents and made the trip to Chicago with their family to celebrate his big day. We had a fun filled weekend with their kids including a trip to the zoo to see the zoo lights, pizza night and lots of kid play time. We enjoy the church we attend and had a very nice ceremony. Zaiden did really well through the whole thing and looked adorable in the same Christening outfit we had custom made for Zander's baptism. We look forward to becoming closer to our church community as we look forward to possibly having the boys attend school there in the future.

Fall Fun

This fall we have had a good mix of fun weekend events and quiet family weekends at home. We are still adjusting to being a family of four, but seem to be getting into a good rhythm. Our weeks are generally pretty busy with both Jasmine and Zeb at work and both boys at daycare, but we still manage to have some fun family time including some trips to the park during the unseasonably warm fall weather and a few nights out for pizza. Our weekends at home were often filled with trips to the YMCA, the parks, spending time in the yard (Zander loved helping with the garden and helping with other yard work tasks), baking cookies, and crafts (Zander really wants to go to school and loves doing crafts at daycare and home with mom!). Some of our fun weekend trips included a trip to the Children's Museum in Milwaukee, the Exploratorium, apple picking in Wisconsin, Circus night out in the park, Cheese Fest in Wisconsin with Aunt Abbie while we went to a football game, a trip to the Pumpkin Patch with Aunt Maggie and a train Ride with Aunt Nellie and Abbie! We also had a fun Halloween this year and Zander was very excited to choose his costume and was a hit with all the kids at the Halloween festival......He chose to dress up as Elmo and chose Cookie Monster for Zaiden. We are a busy family and love spending as much family time together as we can.

We are also trying to give Zander some extra one on one time including some "dates" with mom or dad. He is a fun, imaginative and super smart little guy! Some of his current interests are identifying letters (the D is for the Doughnut store!), time (he always asks what time it is and is excited when he knows what some of the numbers are.... it's 5:00 or 8:00) and he really likes money including asking people (all of my co-workers at a recent pot luck or my grandpa) for "more monies" and finding out how much his toys cost (most of them cost $60 according to him!)

Painting pumpkins 

Our little Elmo, Cookie Monster and a Halloween cooking project (dirt!) 

Fun at the Exploratorium 

Taking a train ride to one of our favorite destinations....the doughnut store and the park! 

The boys hanging out together a the Play Place 

Family Photo at the Pumpkin Patch 

Apple picking and petting zoo 

6 months

Zaiden is a busy 6 month old little boy! He is now sitting really well and can sit for at least 5 minutes at a time. His favorite thing to play is sitting at his piano and hitting the keys. He is also trying really hard to craw. He scoots all the way around when he is on his tummy and can sometimes inch forward or backwards a little bit. Other times, when he is really motivated to reach a toy, he will just fling his body forward to get it. He is also "talking" and babbling a lot and now loves to say "dada." He continues to charm everyone with his smile and dimple (except for the camera) and loves to laugh. He often thinks big brother Zander is hilarious! He is also eating baby food and does pretty well most meals. He is also improving in the sleep department.....yay! 

Playing with his toy and sitting up like a big boy

Aunt Maggie spent a lot of time to finally catch a smile on camera!