ten months of colin

Happy 10 months to this cheerful little guy!

What's new with Colin this month? Firstly, he has two new teeth. His second bottom tooth and first upper tooth poked their way through, and the other upper tooth should emerge any day. He's using those little chompers to chew on absolutely everything. We're offering him more table food, so he's eating soft fruits, veggies, meat, and bread in addition to baby food and his favorite puffs and melts. (But not the yogurt melts... he does not like the yogurt melts.) He ate about a third of a waffle tonight! (Yes, we had waffles for dinner. Don't judge.)

Colin developed several new skills this month. He can now climb the stairs. (I am not a big fan this skill). He stands while holding on to furniture or his walker and loves cruising along the bottom rungs of the ladders at the playground. He is a hands-and-knees crawler now, but has developed a few specialty crawls for specific situations. I enjoy the one where his hands are full of toys, so he lays on his belly and pushes along quickly just with his toes. I can hear him coming from a mile away as his squeaky feet push off from our wood floors. squeaksqueaksqueaksqueaksqueak!

Colin also learned a few new games this month. He initiated peek-a-boo for the first time while we were out for a walk at the end of March. He lifted a burp cloth to cover his face and then giggled when we said, "Where's Colin?? Peek-a-boo!" Now it's a frequent dinner time activity with his bib. He also enjoys a few good rounds of "How big is Colin?? So big!" I loved seeing Colin dance for the first time this weekend. He bounced himself up and down every time the Fisher-Price farm played a song!

Why does Colin have such a big smile in this picture? Because big sister is making him laugh! She always gets the biggest smiles.

The frequency of Colin's spitting up has greatly reduced, so I'm hoping his weight gain continues at a good pace now! (According to his nine month checkup, he's a fairly average sized baby.) He seems interested in eating all sorts of table foods, even if he spits out many of the squishy ones. I'm looking forward to offering him more varieties. He even seemed to get the hang of the straw cup last time we offered it!

GranE and Batman visited this past weekend. We haven't seen Batman since Halloween! Mae and Colin were both excited to get some extra attention. Colin enjoyed a ride on the rocking moose, and Mae taught Batman some new dance moves.

Wish Colin luck at his first haircut next weekend!!

april flowers

Spring is in full swing here, and colorful flowers are popping up all over! It's drizzling rain outside right now, but we've thankfully had several beautiful days recently. We are trying to take full advantage of the nice weather before it gets too hot. And before we get swarmed by cicadas (ugh). The cherry tree grove near our house was in full bloom by the end of March. We walked there after work and it was swarming with (socially distanced) people taking family pictures. Colin was in a MOOD, but I took possibly my favorite picture of Mae EVER!

Last weekend we celebrated Easter. Mom, Dad, Kelsey, and Kevin came for a visit on Saturday. We dyed eggs, colored a giant coloring page from Auntie Em, and visited the cherry trees again.

We had a quiet Easter Sunday at home. I realized Saturday evening after putting Mae to bed that I hadn't mentioned the Easter Bunny AT ALL leading up to Easter this year. I wondered if Mae even remembered about her Easter basket. When she woke up in the morning, not only did she remember the Easter Bunny, she remembered that he had hidden her basket in the closet under the stairs last year!

In the afternoon, we had an egg hunt. Mae found all the eggs, and then we took turns hiding them all again with varying levels of difficulty. I think the egg hunt was Mae's most anticipated Easter activity. They didn't even have candy in them; she just wanted to hide the empty eggs over and over!

I snapped a bunch of photos of Colin while Mae was hunting eggs. I think this is the only one I got where he didn't have a plastic egg completely crammed into his mouth!

We also managed to fit in a zoo trip this week to see all the tulips! I've tried planting tulips in our yard a couple times, but they always get eaten by deer and squirrels. I'm glad we were able to enjoy all the blooms at the zoo!

wizard of oz crib mobile

Christopher and Emily welcomed a sweet baby girl, Lillian Paige, to their family exactly one month ago! We haven't met her yet, but we are hoping to visit soon. She just looks so sweet and snuggly in all of her photos with her tiny mouth and her big eyes (and her even bigger bows).

Of course a new baby means a new crib mobile! I had so much fun making the Harry Potter and Avengers mobiles for my nephews, and I was really excited when Christopher and Emily chose The Wizard of Oz for their nursery theme this time.

I decided to make four characters: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion. I considered adding the Wicked Witch or the Wizard in the center position but ultimately opted for a little rainbow. On the last two mobiles, I added a little felt star above each character. This time I got more creative and made Scarecrow's diploma, Tin Man's heart/clock, and Lion's badge of courage. And of course Dorothy wouldn't be complete without her little dog Toto!

I really struggled with selecting a cohesive color palette for these characters. After many hours trying to find the perfect combination of felt colors, I've decided that I'm going to blame the original costumer from the movie for my struggles. DON'T HATE ME. Dorothy's costume is perfect: the blue gingham, red shoes, white accents are absolutely iconic. However, the scarecrow is kind of a muddy mix of brown, green, and beige. Same for the lion. His movie costume was made from a real lion pelt... how cool (and/or cruel) is that?? But again, it's beige! So, I took a few creative liberties with the scarecrow's hat and patches to bring in a little more color. I love how it turned out.

I ordered the plastic mobile and music box from Amazon. Colin let me borrow his crib for a photo shoot of the assembled mobile.

I tried to think of a way to make Dorothy's dress from felt, but couldn't come up with any way to replicate the gingham besides embroidering an allover check pattern. Instead, I ordered a swatch of 1/8" blue gingham and sewed a teeny tiny dress with gathered skirt. I hand-stitched the dress to her white felt bodysuit.

Emily even sent me an action shot of Lillian enjoying her mobile. Isn't her nursery SO CUTE? The letters over her bed are sparkly like the ruby slippers, and they even have a "yellow brick road" wall. Plus, those gingham sheets are just perfect!

I wanted to make sure that this gift and our huge pile of hand-me-down baby clothes were delivered to Emily before the baby arrived, so Mom, Dad and I met at a little park half way between us to make the hand-off on a sunny day at the end of February. They brought Oliver and Archie juuuuuuust in case Emily went into labor that day! Dad and Archie were able to open their birthday gifts, and Mae enjoyed the brief visit with her cousins. We can't wait to meet the newest cousin now!!