Sweet Paisley girl

Paisley in her pretty paisley dress.... 

Beth & Paisley are HERE!

So Beth and Paisley arrived on Wednesday evening and we have had a great few days with them shopping, eating, swimming, playing and more shopping. There has been lots of the two babies riding in the back seat together...

Paisley and Anders posing for a little photo shoot -- she is all smiles but Anders is thinking "why is she touching me?"...

 

Sweet Paisley girl eating naked...

Beth bought us some fresh homemade mud masks at Bathos in downtown Franklin, so last night we smeared it on and watched "Glee"...

Last night we decided to go for an evening swim.  We had the babies all suited up and ready to go, but when we were walking down the hill to the pool, dark stormy clouds came rolling in.  So we headed back to the house and decided it would be best to go swimming in the morning...

After a morning swim down at the pool, they had bath time together.

Off to eat and shop more this afternoon, so thankful that we still have several more days with Beth and Paisley to keep eating and shopping :)

TONS of pictures from our family picnic!

One evening this week we decided to go have a picnic at Centennial Park.  The day had been SO HOT, so I thought we would melt while eating dinner.   But instead it was a BEAUTIFUL evening.  We all ate our sandwiches from WhichWich and had so much fun!  

Anders pushing the carrot back into his mouth...

Bella had so much fun too!

Crawling away...

Blowing kisses...

Swinging with Daddy...

Anders loves playing with his ball popper...

Earlier this week I had one of my more brilliant ideas -- to take our dining room bench and cubes to create a play pen for Anders.  Before when I was giving him full reign of the kitchen, dining room and family room, I felt that he just continually explored one thing to the next.  So now that he is contained in the smaller play area, he plays and entertains himself FOREVER!  

  

Here the air from the ball popper is blowing in his face...

He's not sure he likes it...

We need to work on our manners :)

Anders likes to put his foot up on the table, for now we just think it's funny -- I guess we will eventually need to start teaching him proper table manners...

Anders' Bathrobe

Anders has grown out of his hooded, bath towels -- they are too short and hardly wrap around him anymore. I need to get new children-sized, hooded, bath towels for him.  But the other day I decided to grab his bath robe instead, if nothing else I knew it would be SO CUTE on him!

After bath-time he fell asleep and took his nap snuggled next to Bella...

Eating, eating and MORE eating

We have been introducing new foods to Anders every day and it is so much fun to see what he likes.  Last week I made both of us grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.  Even Bella had grilled cheese -- she got the crusts off of Anders' sandwich.  Anders ate the ENTIRE grilled cheese, only two small pieces were sacrificed to the floor.  It took him about an hour to eat it, but he kept wanting another bite...

"Mom, this chewing stuff takes forever!"

Anders likes filling his mouth so full that the last piece of food will start puckering out of his lips -- thankfully he always chews and never chokes. It cracks me up to see his puckered lips with a little chunk of watermelon or squash sticking out.

Other new foods we have given him: broccoli, pasta, carrots, vanilla pudding (only because Todd had made it and we decided to share very little with Anders -- he LOVED it), chicken, kiwi, and eggs.  He really loved having scrambled eggs for breakfast yesterday...I am thankful because I can fix that!

Anders is 10 months old!

Anders turned 10 months old this week. He has changed so much in the past few weeks, and he is developing so quickly. I swear last week he sat up in his crib and just a few days later he started standing up and walking around the perimeter of the crib...it is all happening so quickly!

So here is what he is up to these days:

Getting around: He officially "crawled" yesterday and stayed up off his stomach for about 4 "steps". Since then he continues to crawl around on his belly, but in the past week he has gotten so confident sitting up from his belly. He has started standing up on furniture. Before he just got up to his knees, but now he can fully stand up on his own and move along the couch or ottomans. I think we have Aunt Katie & Uncle Chip to thank for that new trick -- they kept encouraging and practicing with Anders.

Eating: Anders has been eating finger foods for about a month and is doing much better. His accuracy for getting the food from the table to his mouth has greatly improved! He LOVES feeding himself watermelon, yellow squash, cherrios, cherries, black beans, cheese, bananas, sweet potato fries (yes, I know that is bad of us), green beans, and puffed O's. He is eating yogurt for the first time in the picture above. He drinks from a straw and has skipped right over sippy cups. I am enjoying giving him new things and seeing him stuff his mouth full!

Playing: He loves crawling around and exploring everything. He often races off to Bella's food & water bowls and her toys, but he also likes his own toys too -- especially any kind of ball. He loves playing with the Ball Popper that Haley gave him. He will start clapping his hands when we sing "Patty Cake" to him and he loves hearing us sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider". He will roll a ball back and forth with us (most of the time but not always). And he has started moving around in his activity center (because Katie transitioned it to the walker this week).

Closing randomness: He is a sweet boy that draws lots of attention while we are out -- he smiles at some strangers but just studies others. He is happy to go shopping with Mommy and enjoys riding around in the carts. We go out to lunch with friends or business lunches about 4 times a week. He sits in his highchair and can usually last 1.5 - 2 hours easily...he is such a trooper! His hair is getting longer and has some curl in it (especially when it gets sweaty). He is a happy boy and his Daddy is the best at getting him to laugh. Anders gives the best kisses (open mouth and slobbery).  The other night I was holding him in my arms and he kept grabbing my face and kissing me sweetly -- it was the best thing EVER!  We are SO BLESSED by our baby boy and can not believe he is already 10 months old!

First baby pool dip of the summer

While Katie & Chip were here we busted out the neon orange baby pool for an afternoon swim. Anders really liked it -- to him it was a big bathtub and he got a much longer time to splash around and play with his bath toys. While waiting for the water to warm up a bit, Aunt Katie and he played along the edge...

Then we got in and had fun...

After swimming for a while Anders went down for his afternoon nap, and I stayed in the baby pool relaxing and getting sun -- it was wonderful!

More Aunt Katie & Uncle Chip...

Sunday morning, just hanging out with Uncle Chip -- looks like both boys are still dazed and waking up...

A little photo shoot before heading out the door to eat an early dinner at Pei-Wei. They were so perfectly dressed and color coordinated, we just had to take pictures of the three...

Aunt Katie & Uncle Chip came to visit!

So Katie & Chip arrived on Saturday, right as Anders was waking up from his afternoon nap. When Katie went to get him out of his crib, Anders did not know what to think about the mommy look-alike. Then when he saw Uncle Chip, it was too confusing to handle and he decided to be shy and sensitive for a while. Here he is slowly warming up to Uncle Chip...

Emphasis on "slowly"...

And now later the same day, much happier and having fun with Uncle Chip...