ten.

our sweet little sawyer is officially 10 months old! sadly, there are no pictures with this post... that is because our little man does not sit still long enough for pictures. period. every picture i have from the last month is of the side or back of his head while he darts away. he is speed crawling everywhere, standing in the middle of the room hanging out for long periods of time, and even taking a few steps!! he took his first "step" on thanksgiving, but he's definitely not a walker yet. he mostly takes steps when we hold things out that he wants, then just dives for them. sawyer has two teeth right now (both on the bottom) and loves food. everything he hated as baby food, he loves in solid form. favorites right now are pears, peas, and yogurt. he loves to clap for everything and wave all of the time. any time he hears the word "hi", he thinks that's his cue to wave! he just gets more precious every day and i love him to bits.

2.5

our sweet hadleigh lynn is officially 2 1/2 years old! i definitely have a love/hate relationship with this age. hadleigh has quite the dramatic personality (gets it from her mama) and everything she does is definitely taken up a notch. she can be sweetest girl ever, offering up hugs and kisses all over the place... and in the next second is kicking and screaming on the floor in an all-out temper tantrum. she goes to time out for her fits, so she has learned that if she goes to time-out and stops crying, time out is over. if she gets sent to time out for anything else, she immediately starts saying "all done fits! all done fits!" like it's her free pass from timeout. it's hilarious. i try to tell myself "this too shall pass" and enjoy the fun parts because there is so much fun in her right now! she is such a funny kid and is starting to really talk a lot in the past few months... putting more words and sentences together. lately, she has also become more defiant, so the phrases i hear most frequently are "please stop", "please don't do that", and "please put me down." she exaggerates the please and makes it into a 5 syllable word and it's hilarious. the past week or two, she's also been saying "that's a great idea", "you betcha" and "you got it!" a lot. love it. she knows all of her abc's and the sounds they make... we're learning on writing our letters. she knows her colors, shapes, and numbers up to 10 (10-20 are kind of hit or miss). she's super smart and loves to learn and be read to. she has mastered the art of the iPhone... she can unlock it, find her games, and start playing without any help. she also knows how to rearrange all of the icons into folders that mama does not know how to fix :) she loves to go on walks (and collect leaves and sticks and flowers like in the picture above) and do any outside activity... slide, sidewalk chalk, bubbles. loves them all. she currently hates the idea of potty training, but that is soon to be a non-negotiable and we're going to master the potty! i have a whole bag of dum-dums waiting for bribery! she loves to play pretend, so we play with babies and tea parties a lot. this is a definitely a super fun age -- i'm trying to enjoy and soak it all in before my baby is all grown up!

9 months!

dear sawyer,

you are 9 months old! you are the most fun, laidback baby i know. so fun and smiling all of the time. you are getting so big! we just went for your 9 month check-up and you weighed 18 pounds 7 ounces and were 27 1/2 inches tall. i can't remember your head size, but it's in the 75th percentile... you have a big noggin right now. you are wearing 6-9 and 6-12 month clothes and size 3 diapers. you LOVE to eat, but are super picky. you hate most vegetables and aren't a big fan of trying new things. right now, you are loving peach yogurt, cheerios, any fruit, and apples with chicken. you love to bang toys on everything and make noise, climb the stairs, and get into everything. if mama tells you "no", you just laugh and get into everything even more. you say mama and dada now (you said dada first) and love to clap. you think it's hilarious when you clap and people say "yay!" makes you clap even more! you still think your sister is the coolest person you know... i hope this lasts for a while! you are crawling like a madman, standing up for long periods of time (holding on to nothing!), and have started standing up from a sitting position without pulling up on anything. it's only a matter of time before you start walking and our lives become even more chaotic! you are such an incredible blessing to our lives, and we love having you around!

love,

mama, dada, and hadleigh

roar.

8 (and a half) months!

this is a little belated... but my favorite little boy is 8 (and a half) months old! sawyer can only be described as a hot mess. he is into everything -- pulling everything off bookshelves, climbing on the fireplace, climbing up the stairs... he's everywhere. but he has the sweetest personality and does nothing but smile and laugh all day, so you can't help but let him do whatever he wants :) he's finally starting to look like he's getting bigger... wearing 6-9 or 6-12 month clothes and has just upgraded to size 3 diapers. he eats two meals a day right now and loves bananas and mum-mums. we tried some baby food with chicken tonight and that was not a hit at all. we're working on using a sippy cup... so far, he hates his cup, but he'll do anything he can to get ahold of hadleigh's and take a sip of whatever she is having! he has decided that he is too busy for bottles. it routinely takes an hour to finish a bottle now, and we're lucky if he completely finishes one a day. he is having too much fun bear crawling everywhere at warp speed, pulling up on everything, and starting to let go and stand on his own!! he loves to play with anything that he can hit and make noise with, loves climbing, and loves loves his sister. this week, he started to reach for you when he wants to be held, and it is so precious. loving every second with my hot mess :)

up!

sawyer pulls up now... onto his feet. this is a pretty regular thing in our house as of the past few days. uh-oh.

tiny.

tiny went for his 6 month check up today (a month late) and is just that... tiny. with a big noggin.
he weighed 15 pounds 2.5 ounces, which still puts him in about the 5th percentile. he's 26 inches tall (around the 15th percentile). i can't remember the measurement for his head, but it's almost in the 70th percentile! wow.

seven months.

little man is 7 months old! i skipped his 6 month blog and he has seriously changed so much in those two months! he's babbling all of the time (or "talking" in a scream), getting into everything, and CRAWLING! he is all over the place and such a mess. the second picture says it all -- he is ornery and all boy. he started crawling at 6 1/2 months and he's already trying to pull up on stuff. he's only been trying for the last 2 days, but he's already mastered pulling up to his knees and trying to figure out how to get on his feet. wow. he's ready to be on the go! sawyer is currently wearing 3-6 month clothes and they are actually starting to get tight (yay!) and size 2 diapers. we're eating stage 2 baby food every night -- he loves anything with bananas. i've started giving him baby mum-mums and he is actually starting to eat some of it rather than just mush it into his hand. he loves taking baths, being read to, being tickled, and pulling sonny's ears (poor dog can't catch a break with both hadleigh and sawyer around!). he's such a sweet boy and is always smiling or happy. seriously. rarely do we ever hear him cry anymore -- if he does, you know it's naptime. he is such a blessing and i can't wait to see what the next month brings!

horse says neigh.

the first weekend of august (our first as illinois residents), our park district hosted an event called "party in the park." it had a ton of games for kids, pony rides, and a petting zoo. hadleigh got to go on her first pony ride and feed some animals in the petting zoo. she had so much fun riding the horse -- she kept telling jered that horses say neigh, and she was petting the horse the whole time!

chloe is 4!

chloe has actually been 4 for almost two months now, but i'm just now putting up the pictures. when we were in arkansas, we got to go to chloe's birthday party -- a skating party! i didn't know how hadleigh would do with it, but she absolutely loved it. as in loves skating, threw a fit when i took the skates off and made her leave. obviously, skating and cake with pink icing were big hits with hadleigh.

july.

arkansas.

we went to arkansas the entire month of june, but with the chaos of moving, i never got around to posting about it. so here it is! we made the brave decision to drive to arkansas and back -- 16 hours both ways! -- with a toddler and a 4 1/2 month old (plus a dog). thankfully, we've been blessed with great travelers, and it went great! so we got to spend a month hanging out with family, playing a lot, and doing a little napping and swimming in between! hadleigh had the best time with her uncles -- man, uncle ravy, and gikle. sawyer spent his time cuddled up with nana and nama and loved every minute of it! we also took hadleigh to her first movie in the theater -- toy story 3! she loved it. we entertained her with food and she probably ate her weight in popcorn, but she was so well behaved -- quietest kid in the theater except for when she was telling everyone else "shhh!".

on the go!

here's a recent video of our tiny tot CRAWLING! he started trying as soon as we moved to chicago, just army crawling and dragging his body around with his fists. then this past sunday, he figured out that he could use his hands and go places and he was gone! he's still spitting up everywhere too, so it's made for lots of chaos, but he's having so much fun!

we love our cousins!

hadleigh and sawyer spent the day playing with katie and leah today -- they had so much fun! so much fun that they both were out cold as soon as we got in the car to drive home and went to bed without any fuss! we're sure going to miss our cousins when we move to the windy city...

happy sunday.

5 1/2 months.

sawyer is 5 1/2 months old now! i meant to write this when he was 5 months old, but i obviously forgot. sawyer is finally getting big and is all over the place! he never really is still. he's rolling all over the place and sitting up for a little bit by himself. he sits in the tripod position for a few seconds, then gets distracted and falls over reaching for toys. he also 'scoots' places, but only uses his stomach and the side of his face to scoot. he actually gets pretty far that way. he loves chewing on his fists and hanging out with mama. hadleigh is by far his favorite person though. he also discovered the dog this week and has taken a liking to pulling his ears. he's wearing 3-6 month clothes and weighed 13 pounds 2 ounces at the doctor yesterday. i'm pretty sure that knocks him off the growth chart, but he's definitely making progress. he has starting eating baby food and is going so great! bananas and squash are the favorites. baby food is currently on hold because we are on day 3 of a head to toe polka dotted rash. not sure if it was from baby food or a soap that we used right before the rash. that, along with his eczema all up his arms and his face that i can't get under control, won him upcoming trips to the dermatologist and allergist! i'm sure we'll get him figured out soon enough...

cutest kids i know.

pictures are done and i love them! sweet babies at 2 years old and 5 months old.

sneak peek.

i had hadleigh and sawyer's pictures taken yesterday. this was the first picture of the day. she LOVED the photographer... and the camera. kept saying "like this. watch!" and striking a pose. what a ham. sawyer still hates all things camera, but hopefully we get a few cute pictures of him.

teeny.

little man went for his four month check up a few days ago... we have a tiny kiddo on our hands. boppin' right along in the 5th percentile. he's 24 inches tall and weighs 11 pounds 9 ounces. we changed his feeding yet again. his skin has been a big mess since we started all formula, so now we are on soy formula to see if maybe he's got a milk sensitivity. so far, so good. skin's looking better. the doctor said, "if it's not one thing, it's another." so true.

i scream, you scream.

we all scream for ice cream.