8 Months Old!!

Henry turned 8 months old on 10/26. It is hard to believe our sweet baby is that old. We are having so much fun with him. His personality is certainly developing, and he is becoming more and more vocal and is developing his likes and dislikes. This is entertaining for us to watch his personality come out. I am going to try to streamline my monthly Henry updates so it is not just a huge paragraph. Here goes...

Eating: Still nursing about every 3 hours. He eats fruit around 8:30 each morning and sometimes cereal mixed with it. I have discovered that he doesn't really like the cereal, but that plain fruit he will generally eat now which is great! Banana is his favorite, so I can mask most vegetables with a little dollop of banana on the tip of the spoon. He eats a vegetable or veggie/fruit mixture most evenings around 5 or so. He doesn't love baby food in general, but he does tolerate it now and does not cry. We introduced little finger food rice cake things, and he really likes those. I think he is going to like to feed himself. He has 4 teeth (two top, two bottom) and the ones on either side of his front teeth are coming in currently. They are about to break through. Eating in a restaurant is getting difficult. He lunges for everything on the table and screeches loud so everyone can hear-we have to go to loud places from now on to drown it out! He sits well in his high chair at restaurants, though, and will eat a mum-mum for distraction.

Sleeping: He takes a 2 hr nap starting around 9:30. I have started to push his afternoon nap later so that he can be happy later in the evening for when Steven gets home. We push for laying him down around 3:00 and will usually sleep around 2 hours, then gets a bath at 7:00 and lays down for the night at 7:30. So, in general he is staying awake longer stretches now. We were getting up with him in the night, but the day he turned 8 months old we decided to stop going into his room to pat him at night. He is doing great with it. He still wakes up, but self soothes now. It almost seemed like he was getting madder with us going in and patting him, so this is much better. When he wakes up he is so happy. It is so sweet to see that smile after each slumber.

Playing: Henry loves playing on the floor and can play by himself for a long time. He goes from toy to toy and hits them, examines them, and puts them in his mouth, pokes at the buttons, etc. He kind of rotates in a circle on his bottom and then eventually gets on his belly and plays that way for a while.  He also loves to play with us on the floor and loves "pea-pie" and "where's Henry". He is not crawling yet, but when he gets on his belly he raises up on all fours and this week has been really raising up his booty and rocking back and forth. I think it is only a matter of time before he crawls. EEK! He does fine with the jumperoo and walker for a while, but is entertained for longer periods of time on the kitchen floor if I give him a wooden spoon and rubber headed spatula. That can keep him busy for quite a while! Who knew? We got him a swing for outside and he loves it. Smiles and smiles, then gets really calm and will even close his eyes. Can stay in it for a LONG time. Likes books...looking at them and chewing them, too. 

Other: Henry lets us know when he does not like something. He arches his back and fusses when he does not want in his car seat or to be put down or if he is tired (see the last 2 pictures for examples of this! He was ready for nap, but I was trying to do a photo shoot!). He squeals and screeches A LOT now. He knows to cry to be picked up and immediately stops crying. Stinker. He definitely knows me now and has had a little bit of separation anxiety at church. It is always bad timing at church for some reason so he is tired when it is time to go to nursery anyway, but he cries in there and we have gotten called to pick him up early a few times. Just this week he was fine in my arms, but as soon as I handed him over to the nursery worker he puckered out his bottom lip and started to really cry. When I picked him up afterward he wanted me and no one else. Cried with Daddy! Shocker! He still does great at school, though, and is happy when I drop him off and when I visit him. He tucks his head in to our shoulder a lot now and it is so sweet. He is very loving and will "hug" us, too, by putting his arms around our neck and squeezing (unprompted!). It is SO precious.

Happy 8 month birthday, baby boy. Everyday with you is a sweet adventure!

Henry's hair is getting unruly as you can see here! I am not sure what to do with it....

Sweet baby blues

Chewing on everything

Handsome

love the profile shot....love those chubby cheeks

oh, the displeasure sleepiness can cause:)

this is how he ended up on his own after his "fit"...that's what I get for waiting to do his photos right before naptime

Happy Fall, Y'all!

The last couple of weeks the fall weather has been encroaching upon us, and this weekend I think it finally hit! I have put away all Henry's summery clothes now and it has been fun to pull out a whole new wardrobe for him:) We have been home for the past two weekends which has been so wonderful since it seems like we are traveling so much. It is nice just to veg. out sometimes! Below are some random pics of the past 2 weeks. The video (that I hope will work!) is of a game that Henry and Steven play. It is so cute how Steven will roll the ball, Henry will pick it up, and hand it back to Steven to start the process over again. Who knew something like that would be so entertaining to watch?Anyway, Happy fall, y'all!!

I think I have been pretty slow in the whole food department with Henry. It is just easier to nurse him and not worry about all the extra stuff that goes along with feeding! I finally got him something to self feed with, though, and he does great with them. Here he is with a rice wafer thing called a mum mum. He says, "Yum, yum!" This is one time when his instinct to put everything in his mouth actually pays off!

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On Sunday 10/14 Henry's top two teeth emerged. It was interesting trying to get a picture of them:)

This is the best I could do....for now. I know soon they will be visible with no problem!

While Henry is not crawling yet, he is scooting all over the place on his belly. Here he was into his diaper bag and my school bag, then we looked down again and he had slowly gotten underneath the sofa!

He seems pretty pleased with himself about it! The injury under his eye is by his own doing...he rubs his eyes so hard when he is sleepy. We put him to bed one night and the next morning when we got him up it looked like he had been in battle through the night!

Henry has always been a strong stander, and he loves it, too. We can stand him up at the music table (or anything else his height), and he is able to stand for quite a while on his own.

Looking so big!

I just thought this was funny....I had given him a mum mum and the remainder of it was stuck to his top lip! He was just talking away and it was stuck there...he didn't seem to mind!

Over the weekend we got some chilly weather so Sunday I dressed him in this warm outfit. He was looking so handsome!

Little pumpkin

Again-loving to stand.

We went on a walk and had to dig out the hats! I bought this one when I was pregnant just hoping it would fit. I shoved it on his head and he tolerated it:)

When we came inside, we took off the hat and Steven took off his hood. I thought it was so funny that they both had this crazy messy hair:)

Title Schmidle

I never know how to title my posts. I used to do so well at doing them weekly, but now that I am working I just do them whenever I can. Therefore, the events included in a post are random and have no pattern now...oh well! I say title schmidle. These pics are of the end of fall break last week through this weekend. Biggest highlight for Henry: his top two teeth popped through last weekend! I know he is going to start looking different so soon with not only 2 teeth in his mouth but 4, so I am taking lots of pictures these days! Love that gummy grin and hate to say goodbye to it...although I know these teeth are gonna be cute too:)

We went to our neighbor's first birthday one evening last week. Rylan and Henry are pretty close in age! I have a feeling they'll be good buddies! He had a super hero themed party-too cute!

Henry in his spidey shirt with his favor. He is looking like a chunk in this pic, huh?:)

On Friday Steven's mom came to visit for the day. Since I was on fall break and Steven was working, we ran a bunch of errands and went to lunch together. It was so nice to have her to stay with Henry in the car while I ran in and did all my errands. We went to dinner that evening all together.

I love this pic of Henry peering over the edge of his swing at Steven. He loves it!

Thanks for visiting me, Grandma! I like talking to you.

And playing with you!

On Saturday Steven went to the UT/Miss St. football game, so Henry and I headed to TN. I stopped by the assisted living facility to see my Grandmother and met my mom there. Grandmother is in the later stages of dementia, so it is hard to get her to focus or follow her train of thought. She loved Henry, though, and it was so cute to see her talk to him. I like this picture of Grandma looking at my mom:) She kept telling my mom what a fine boy Henry was.

Once she finally zeros in on Henry she just loves him!

She talks baby talk to him and gives hugs/kisses.

Henry was a happy camper while visiting! He is wearing his "I love NY" outfit from his aunt Heather who we were going to see next.

Grandmother was showing Henry one of her stuffed animals. He approved!

Here he is checking her out! I think Henry is Grandmother's 10th great grandchild.

Whenever we travel we have Maggie with us. This is what we see in the back...her hovering over Henry and him checking her out. This pic doesn't show it, but he usually smiles and talks to her a lot. So cute!

Next we headed to Steven's dad's house and met Heather and her family there to spend the night. Making caramel apples is a tradition for us, so this year Henry got to be involved!

Kaia rolling the caramel apple in M&M's. YUM!!

The kiddos with the finished product. The looked beautiful!

And they tasted awesome, too!

Henry has been protesting baby food at home....crying every time, not opening his mouth, spitting it out, etc. Uncle Jimmy thought that sounded like a challenge and volunteered to feed Henry his green beans this evening. He did great! I am not sure what it was, but Henry ate them really well. Must be something about that uncle!

Henry with his Gramps!

Tried to get a picture of all 4 grand kids after church....this was the best we could do:)

Back at home, this picture is of Maggie cuddled up next to Henry licking his toes which he thought was really funny:)

I finally bought some food for Henry to self-feed. This is a mum mum....he did pretty well eating it!

On Friday we decided to head to the pumpkin patch at a church right by our house to get a few pumpkins and a few pictures, of course.

Henry got to pick out his very own little bitty pumpkin..."he" decided on the one with the really crazy curly vine still attached to it!

On Saturday we went downtown to a restaurant we wanted to try. Then we went to Big Spring Park to walk around since it was a gorgeous day! Crazy we've been in HSV for over 5 years and have never been there. I guess that is what having a kid will do for you! Henry loved watching the ducks and fish. Let's face it, he loved being outside. He is a boy after all!

What a sweet baby!

Attempt at a family photo........

We got to see the fish go for some bread...it was crazy! There were TONS of huge fish and they were really loud as they went for it. We'd never seen anything like it!

Loving time with my boy!

What a cutie!

Curious boy!