Peter 10 months

Peter is probably getting pretty close to walking soon.  He spends most of his time pushing chairs, laundry baskets, the kids' picnic table and any other furniture he can move all over the room.   He occasionally stands on his own too.  With Jane it was a big deal and you could see the nervousness and sense of accomplishment all over her face.  Peter is completely preoccupied and doesn't think twice about it when he just lets go of his support to better inspect the toy he's holding.  He's fearless and quite frankly it scares me.  The other day we somehow left the gate at the top of the stairs open and I came around the corner to find him half way down the hard wooden stairs.  SCARIEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE.  I hadn't spent any time teaching him stairs just yet.  We just keep them blocked off.  Apparently Chris had shown him how to go down backwards once and that mini lesson may have saved his life.  

Peter eats mostly table foods now and thank goodness because spoon feeding baby food was a high anxiety experience.  He would eat a few bites just fine (or sometimes almost the whole container, you never knew) and then out of frustration or sometimes excitement, he would swat the spoon SO fast and food would go everywhere.  No matter how much you were expecting it, he was always faster than you.  Each spoonful was a gamble.  Sure do love those baby food pouches now.  If nothing else, he will ALWAYS eat one of those.  He's a little pickier than Jane was.  I think he'd live on bread if he could (particularly banana bread, but can you blame him?).

One of my favorite thing about Peter right now is that he DOES NOT want to be left out of playing with daddy.  If Chris starts chasing Jane around, Peter will come crawling and crying until Chris picks him up and chases Jane with him or crawls after Peter.  He loves being chased and I love his frantic, panicked, giggly crawl.  Mostly, whatever fun is being had, he wants to be involved.  

He gets really excited when he hears the theme song for Bubble Guppies and uses his new clapping skill to demonstrate it, but other than that, he doesn't pay attention to Jane's shows.  I even put Baby Einstein on for him once and Jane got really excited, but Peter just wants to crawl around and explore.  Sounds great to me!

Peter sleeps ALL THE TIME.  The last few weeks he has been especially sleepy.  He goes to sleep at 8:00 pm wakes up and nurses around 5:30 or 6:00 and gets up around 8:00.  He's slept through that early morning feeding several times so I'm hopeful we'll soon have uninterupted sleep.  In the morning he's usually up for a couple hours and then takes his first nap.  He still takes three naps and he's only awake for a couple hours between each one.  It's just weird.  I can put him down for a little third nap at 6:00 and he still has no problem hitting that 8:00 bed time.  

Halloween

I love having Chris available in the mornings.  It means we get to go places like the pumpkin patch on a weekday morning.  Perfect.  The kids did not care in the slightest about picking a pumpkin, but Jane liked, well, just playing outside and avoiding my camera.  

Our Ward Trunk or treat was great.  It was so crowded.  When we first arrived, we didn't see ANY other adults in costume, but when we got inside we found a few other kindred spirits.  Not many, though.  The evening was perfect.  No jackets necessary.  This was our first year with a trick-or-treater.  It was fun to take her around.  She caught on to the system pretty quickly and loved getting candy for her bucket.  She would say trick-or-treat and thank you in the quietest voices, but at least she said it.  She's a quiet one.  Chris and I went as old people.  Keeping it nice and simple this year.  Chris found his blue suit at a cool thrift store we discovered down town, and that inspired the get up this year, well that and Chris had some new teeth to use.  And in true Asian fashion, he doesn't show his age at all.

 We got our pumpkin carving in right before Halloween night.  Jane was only interested in seeing the "happy face" (which is what she called it instead of pumpkin from then on).  Chris tried to get her in on gutting the pumpkin, but she generally isn't interested in getting her hands dirty.

Brown County State Park

Brown County is named the best place to view fall leaves in Indiana, which is why it was so busy the weekend we went.  The weather was crisp, but nice and the leaves were beautiful.  We just went for the morning, doing a short hike around the lake, but it was just perfect for what we wanted.  Jane enjoyed collecting acorns and leaves most.  She hiked for about half of it, but after tripping over a few roots, she wanted to be carried a lot.  Even the small boardwalk sections made her nervous.

 I really wanted a shot of the two of these together, but between Chris trying to squat behind them and hold Peter up, and Jane's complete preoccupation with filling her pockets with nuts, it just didn't quite work out.  Still, Peter's always up for a photo shoot.

"A owl!"

Just throwing acorns in the water.

Peter at 8 months

 

Peter is a playful little busy guy.  He is constantly on the move and a little over confident in his abilities.  He often stands next to furniture holding on with just one hand or tries to cross over from the ottoman to the couch when they are too far apart and he's paid the price with some rough falls. His favorite thing these days is climbing to the top of Jane's new slide by going straight up the front.  He's fast at it too, so I have to keep a close eye on him.  He definitely knows how to sit now, he just doesn't do it.  Any time I put him down sitting up, he crawls away immediately.  He does a real crawl now, but still throws in the old army crawl every once in a while.  He follows Jane around all day and stands up near where she's playing.  Sometimes he can get down by himself but often he just cries for me to come rescue him.
He's got two teeth on the bottom now and loves to feed himself pears and Cheerios.  He doesn't care for bananas (which is too bad, because they are so convenient). He has a mild allergy to milk, so we're avoiding dairy for the time being.  Fortunately, it doesn't seem to affect him when I have milk.

Turkey Run State Park

We visited Turkey Run State park last weekend.  It came highly recommended and it did not disappoint.  I just kept saying "this is so beautiful" over and over.  The leaves are just starting to turn here and it even smells like the beginning of fall.  So fun.  We went on a rugged .5 mile hike which was just PERFECT.  We got to feel like we were out in the wilderness for about as long as Jane can handle hiking anyway.  She was a little unsure about the uneven, dirty ground, but she warmed up to it when she discovered "throwing rocks in the water".  It was just fun for us to watch her collecting her leaves and rocks and pointing out squirrels and dogs.

 

I'm really doing this...

Well, I'm not going to lie, I'm a little nervous about this, but here we go.  I have decided to start a photography business.  I will be focusing on families, children, babies, senior portraits, engagements... basically everything but weddings, because lets be honest, I am not ready for that kind of pressure.  I'm really excited about this and can't wait to practice and learn along the way.  In the mean time, my prices are VERY affordable, so if you know anyone in the Indianapolis area looking for a photo shoot, send them over to my new photography blog:

amysilvaphotography.blogspot.com

And stay tuned for my facebook page coming soon!

My 2 year old Jane

Jane is just a dream these days (most of the time).  We haven’t entered the terrible twos yet, or the even worse threes, so I’m trying to savor this time.  She is just the sweetest thing, generally happy and surprisingly helpful.  She amazes me all the time.  A little while ago, I sat down to feed Peter.  Jane, knowing that I usually like to have a pillow to prop him up, brought me a throw pillow and then even pushed the ottoman up to my feet (which I have never even asked her to do).  How thoughtful is that?  When she sees dirty diapers sitting around all wrapped up (which is probably a little too often) she promptly throws them in the trash.  The other day, Peter spit up and though Chris and I were both standing right there neither of us noticed it until we saw that Jane had gone into the other room and gotten a wipe and was now scrubbing the rug where he spit up.  She’s just wonderful.  She says thank you for everything.  My favorite is when she says thank you after I change her diaper.  It's just nice to be appreciated for those things, you know?
This rambunctious baby boy of ours is starting to strike a chord now and then when he comes crashing in and ruins her puzzle or grabs her toys.  Sometimes she’s really sweet about sharing her toys with Peter but I’d say most times she’s still a little possessive about her things.

Still it's fun to see those moments when she's actually playing with him... instead of playing ON him.  I can't believe how many times I have to tell her not to ride on her little brother.
Some of Jane's favorite things these days include:
...wrapping her blanket around her torso like a dress and saying "Princess Anna!"  or just breaking into "Let it go" and twirling till her blanket falls off.
... climbing all over the new slide she got for her birthday.
... running from the imaginary polar bear.
... suddenly turning into a polar bear and chasing us around the house.
... getting rolled up in her blanket like a burrito and then hopping around saying "Ribbit" (I don't get it.)
... coloring on everything (including my newly reupholstered kitchen chairs.  Thanks.)
... bubbles.  bubbles. bubbles.
... "nursery time".  She starts saying it as soon as we get into sacrament meeting
... singing "Wheels on the Bus" super-fast.

She had a fun birthday this last weekend.  We invited our neighbors over to come celebrate with us.  Jane was pretty excited about the party.  She kept climbing up next to the presents to gently touch them and sometimes just look at them.
Jane doesn't really care about cake that much so I decided to do cookies.  I made her a birthday cookie to blow the candles out on and she loved picking the M&Ms off.

Jane got a few animals, a slide, a mini wagon, some books, a cute dress, a mini mouse camera, and some cute wooden fairy dolls.  She loves EVERYTHING.