sooo big

just this morning, my mom said "how big is charlie???" and he put his hands over his head and she said "sooo big!". i said - when did he learn that? my mom said - oh a few days ago! so apparently i spent more time skiing in big sky than with charlie. when i get back from green bay i need to post pictures of our big sky and green bay trips. but for now i will put a little video up of charlie showing off his "sooo big" skills.

snow and friends

we had our first big snow storm of the season last week and lucky for bill he was on call :). lucky for me my mother in law - laura - was planning on coming down to babysit charlie while i went to a Christmas party, but it was cancelled and she still came. it saved me! we got about 14 inches of snow, but the worst part was the wind and drifting snow that came with it. when i opened our garage door the morning after the storm the snow was past my knees! with our snowblower tucked in the shelving in our garage i started to shovel us out. it took awhile and i don't know what you do with a baby when you need to shovel for a couple of hours!

snow pictures never show the depth of the snow very well, but here are a few pictures we took a day or too after while playing outside.

this is on the side of our house and normally the ground is slightly sloped from the fence up to the house, but you can see how much snow was drifted next to it.

all rosy after being outside. i can't wait until we can drink hot chocolate with tons of marshmallows together!

a group of our friends are part of a gourmet club where we are supposed to follow a predetermined gourmet menu. we have been straying more and more from the menu and for our december menu we decided to just get a couple papa murphys pizzas and hang out. it was wonderful.

here is charlie and me with nicole and her son, addison. i feel like it was just yesterday when nicole and i were at dunn bros drinking chai, both pregnant and overdue and thinking we were going to be pregnant forever. guess not. now our two boys are 8 months old - crazy.

how cute is this! charlie pushing addison on his truck.

dog wrestling = funny

on saturday, we had our great friends ryan and katie over to visit. they have a yellow lab named bailey and lily and her enjoy wrestling. charlie found it quite funny when the dogs wrestled.

8 months!

here is our adorable 8 month old baby!

grabbing a fist full of lily's hair is charlie's way of petting lily. check out his big belly and cheeks!

at 8 months he is:

*crawling well

*walks while pushing a truck

*babbling like crazy. i think he almost says "dog" when he sees lily, but i am probably hearing things :)

*he still loves to eat. he consumes about 4 big meals and nurses 6 times a day

*loves seeing his daddy

*sleeping better at night, but still gets up around 4 am for a snack

*points at everything with his index finger

*whenever he meets someone he likes to touch their nose before anything else

*loves reading interactive books like "where's spot?" and touch and feel books

*smiling more than ever. he is such a happy boy. i think he is getting to be a more easy going baby...as long as i keep him full he is happy as can be!

improvement...

well i think setting "rules" for myself at night has helped a bit. charlie's waking up stints are getting shorter and he is dealing with it better. last night he went to sleep at 7 and slept soundly until around 3, i fed him and then he was down again until 5:30 when i fed him again and we slept in the chair until 6:30 together. sleeping in a chair might sound pretty rough for a lot of you, but we have this amazing recliner and it is so comfortable (if you are having a baby - you must get one)!

i guess letting him cry it out this past time must have really helped him. we had let him cry it out before, but never saw much of an improvement. maybe he was just ready for it now. either way - i think we are moving towards better sleep habits.

while charlie doesn't sleep perfectly at night, he still is taking at least 2 naps for me - usually between 1-1.5 hours long. not bad. i think i would rather have those nice breaks during the day then have a perfect night and no naps!

sleep - where are you????

charlie is almost 8 months. i thought we would definitely have a baby that would be sleeping like a rock by now. i mean bill and i used to race each other to sleep before we had kids - we both fall asleep in seconds and sleep the whole way through. that does not happen for us (mostly me) anymore.

for awhile charlie was sleeping until around 4, eating and then going back to sleep until around 6:30-7ish (pre-daylight savings!). now - not so much. currently, he goes to sleep around 7ish and then ends up needing a few comfort pats before 11pm. he wakes up/gets restless at 11:30, 2-3, 4-5 and then wants to be up for the day at 5:50am! what?? it used to only takes a pat on the back and he was back to sleep, but lately it is requiring more effort. the issue i have is that i am a zombie at 2-3 am and cannot figure out if he is hungry, etc so i usually feed him because it is my easiest option and means i can go back to sleep earlier. however, last night he did his freak out at 11:30 (an hour after i had finally gotten into bed) and i was still somewhat with it. so i let him cry it out. i knew he wasn't hungry or sick (as the case has been the last few weeks). he cried until 1 am and then was out until 4:30 when he ate and went back to sleep. i think charlie is now dealing with more separation anxiety at night than before so once he wakes up and realizes he would rather have us with him he works himself into a frenzy.

as i was laying in bed trying to sleep through the crys i made some sleeping ground rules for myself so when i am delirious i can follow them. 1. once i hear him up i can go in and give him a "you're ok" back rub and pacifier. if he doesn't fall back asleep - i leave and let him go to town. 2. after i leave i can't go back in. easy to say hard to do.

one thing that happened last night is that he learned how to pull himself to standing in his crib (good thing bill and my dad put it to the lowest setting this past weekend). i had to go in and lay him back down and put the railing up. he really didn't like that, but at least i know he can't flip himself out of the crib!