Your Uncle Brett and Cousin Kyle are in town, and they came over this afternoon to see you. I was working in my office and the nanny was watching you when they arrived. She came back to let me know you’d all arrived and I came out here excited to see them. They didn’t even acknowledge me; they were so excited to see you.

Kyle hadn’t seen you since the Fourth of July so he enjoyed seeing you crawl, roll around, sit up and try to stand. He is so gentle and sweet with you, and even held you and carried you. He likes all of your toys, and was always at the ready bringing you new toys or laying all of your toys around you.

This evening we all went to the CU game and your dad stayed home with you. But before we left we couldn’t resist taking a picture of all of us in our CU gear.

I returned home from my trip today with great anticipation of seeing you. There were babies on my flight and on the bus home, and so I was constantly hearing them and thinking of you. When I walked in you saw me, smiled, and shook your arms over and over, around and around, with excitement. I grabbed you and tried to hold you close, and you almost immediately tried to straighten your legs to a standing position. You were standing on my hip with your bottom out in the air and your top half being held close to me by my arms. It was an awkward position and I kept trying to bring you in and hold you next to my side, in standard baby-carrying position, with your legs on either side of my hip. You kept trying to stand. I actually was having a rather hard time holding you as you kept trying to do this so I set you down and you immediately scrambled to grab on to me and you pulled yourself up. This is definitely the new move that you’re working on perfecting.

Today was my first full day without seeing you. It is a sad milestone. My body woke around 3 am ready to feed you, and I sadly sunk back into the bed with the realization that you weren’t in the next room and that I couldn’t get up and see you. I cannot wait to get home and see you tomorrow!

Today I received a of you from your dad. You had crawled under the Exercauser and were just hanging out. Now that’s a new way to enjoy that toy!

A recent development is your frequent making of a fishy face. You’ve been doing it for about two weeks. It’s hard to capture a picture because you don’t hold the face for very long, but finally your dad was able to get a snapshot.

You’ve also gotten pretty good at clapping. You often do it on your own, without us prompting you. I took a bunch of pictures of you today with your Emma train set, and you even clapped during some of those.

Today was another new food for you and your dad picked out turnips. We were so interested to see what you’d think, especially because they have such a strong and unique flavor. But you gobbled them down, showing as much if not more enthusiasm (gauged by how quickly you open your mouth to signify your desire for more food) than you have for some of your other favorites like avocado, sweet potato, and pears.

This morning your nana and I went to a large sale for all things baby-related. Based on all the promotion of the sale ahead of time I imagined it would be pretty big and chaotic, but I had no idea exactly what to expect. Well it really was impressive with the quantity of things for sale and people running around trying to find items. I was so thankful your nana was with me. People had brought big laundry baskets or bags to put items in, but we weren’t that well prepared. Your nana resourcefully saw a large baby tub for sale and grabbed it for us to use to hold our items. Even with that we were struggling to contain all of our finds and to move them around.

I had really hoped to find you some puzzles and toys, and beyond that wasn’t looking for anything else specific. There were a ton of clothes, but you’re pretty much set there. I did pick up a sweater and a jacket and your nana bought you a cute dress. I also got a float with a sunshade for use on our trip to Costa Rica. But our biggest score was in the toy department. We got many smaller toys and two big toys, including the ‘award-winning’ zebra, Ryan. We put about half of the toys away so that we can rotate them in and put away some of your current toys in a week or two. But you immediately got to play with Ryan, and you enjoyed crawling up on him, playing with his many features, and even pulling yourself up on him to stand. I think he’s already your buddy.

In the afternoon we went to several studios as part of Boulder’s Open Studios. It’s one of your nana’s favorite events, and she’s come out several years to attend. We had lots of fun going to people’s houses and studios to see their artwork. You slept for a little bit and were very happy the rest of the time, observing all the people and art around you. A couple of the artists expressed their pleasure that we were introducing you to art at such a young age.

Today we woke up to snow and I couldn’t have been more excited. Winter is my favorite season. Your dad mentioned that this was the first time you’d seen snow, and I corrected him by reminding him that you’ve seen snow lots this past spring. You were born in the midst of a huge snowstorm, and of course there were some storms from February through May. We’ve also taken you hiking and snowshoeing in the snow.

But, of course, you haven’t really played or experienced the snow much. I wonder what you’ll think of it this winter when we get you all bundled up and take you out to play. It’s amazing to think that you’ll be running (or walking at least) through it in just a few short months! The snowsuit that we bought last winter isn’t going to work for these occasions; it doesn’t even have holes for feet. When I bought it I didn’t think ahead to the fact that you’d be walking and ready to play in the snow. But it will be perfect for when we carry you for snowshoeing or hikes.

You are three quarters of a year old today. You are as active and happy as ever. You still prefer to army crawl your way around, but you have really picked up the pace and make great time getting wherever you want to go. You enjoy exploring the house, opening cabinets and drawers, crawling under things, and playing with doors (moving them back and forth). You’re working on standing. You are still a really good sleeper at night, a great eater and an open-minded consumer of new foods. You smile big when you see yourself in the mirror, when you see someone you love, or when we make you happy by doing something silly. When you are most happy you wiggle your arms and shake them like you just can’t contain the excitement, and you sometimes also shriek with joy. We are having so much fun with you, and we really do do anything in our power to solicit a smile or giggle.

You are getting so active that your monthly birthday pictures are getting harder and harder to capture. I still try to lie you down in the crib to catalog the moment, but each month the pictures get blurrier and blurrier as you show off your ability to move. I tried to capture you standing, since this is your newest move, but it’s hard to get a picture because you don’t stay standing for long before you tumble over into our waiting hands.

We introduced you to watermelon today. Watermelon is one of my favorite foods, and I ate lots of it while I was pregnant with you. Your dad frequently shops for food on his way home for work, and last summer he’d ask me what I wanted. I’d ask for a watermelon, and he’d always oblige, even though it meant he had to ride home from the store with a watermelon on his bike. I was excited to see what you thought of this food. It was a mess, actually, because we tried to puree it for you. Of course it just turned to liquid, so it was really hard to feed it to you. You didn’t seem to mind, though, but you did have a funny reaction. You kept blowing out of your mouth so that your lips fluttered and watermelon juice went flying. It was hilarious. Thank goodness I got a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X13IUQu23Mc&feature=channel&list=UL).

You have become quite a mover in the bathtub, and thus, bath time has become a bit stressful for us. To date you’ve been in the little baby tub that we’ve used since you were born. But you’re way too long for it, and the little lip on the far end of the tub acts as a perfect handle for you to grab onto and pull yourself up. Baths have become a constant struggle of wrangling you to sit down, and to sit still. You keep ending up sideways in the little tub.

A couple of weeks ago the doctor suggested that we could utilize a laundry basket for baths. She said that when placed in the tub, the water can flow in and out, and it’d provide you with a contained space but still enable you to have some room to move around. We tried this twice. It was not a great success. You are so mobile and antsy and curious, and it is just so slippery, that it was just a stressful mess of you lunging for the sides and trying to pull yourself up and us constantly having to keep our hands on you to attempt to wrangle you back to a sitting position.

So we decided to just buy a bath mat and sit you up in the entire tub. The bath mat helped immensely with limiting the slippery factor, though you still spend a lot of the bath time trying to move yourself to the edge of the tub and stand up. Bathing you is an adventure and an exercise in constant vigilance. I know that in all instances we must be super vigilant while you’re in the tub, and we always are, but this is a whole other level of supervision which includes us constantly hovering over you with our hands always at the ready to catch you when you try to stand. I know many people include baths as part of the daily bedtime routines for their children. There is just absolutely no way we can do this. It is so chaotic and stressful, such a production. Right now we do it a couple of times a week, and that is plenty for us!