Catching up..

Whew, it's been a while since Brian's posted on here, looks like I have to take the reins on this one to get everyone updated!!

So, Zach is ONE now, very exciting, we had a great little party with friends and Zach thoroughly enjoyed his cake :).

From Zach 2009 September

We've also been to the zoo recently, Zach is definitely much more aware of the animals, he LOVED looking at the rhinos!

From Zach 2009 October

We took a weekend trip to Sedona with our friends from playgroup. It was absolutely beautiful, we saw fall colors in the trees, and just enjoyed being outside for a hike (we all know how much Zach LOVES being outside)

From Sedona 2009 October

Most recently we went to a pumpkin patch with our playgroup, the farm left a little to be desired, but it was fun seeing Zach with all the pumpkins and with his friends!

From Zach 2009 October

So those have been the major events lately. In general Zach news, we are ALMOST done teething!!! Well, at least until he gets his 2 year molars in. He is working on getting in the last first year molar, in this last month he's had FIVE teeth come in, for the most part he's handled it well. This last tooth has been... rough though, I guess he's making up for the relative ease of the 4 prior teeth. We're *hoping* that once this tooth comes in we'll get a nice break and be able to enjoy "happy baby" for a few months before the teething gremlin returns.

What else? Zach's current favorite tv show is the Backyardigans, they have a lot of music, and my baby boy likes to shake his groove thang :). He and Reecey (aka Clarice) are still BFFs, yesterday we actually noticed the "kids" playing together, Zach kept handing her toys to chew on, it would have been really cute, if they weren't his toys! His current passion is planes, every since Grandpa L. taught him the plane noise the child is obsessed, he'll be screaming at the top of his lungs and if he hears a plane outside, silence! He just smiles through his tears and points to the sky, it's really cute. And he makes the plane noise himself now too. His other passion, trees, this is also thanks to Nana and Grandpa L., he LOVES trees, he even says "tree", sometimes it comes out "tee" but still, close enough :). He's not quite walking yet, but he's still cruising up a storm, and he has recently decided to permit Mommy and Daddy to hold his hands while he walks, we call it "practice". He's totally off the purees, has been since right around his bday, he refuses to let me feed him. He's also 99% off of his bottle, using only sippy cups for his milk now, the small exception is when teething, sucking on the bottle seems to soothe him, and when he's been screaming for 3 hours because his mouth hurts, I do tend to relent and let him suck on the damn bottle. That's pretty much it, just being cute and funny, and FUN every day!! Hopefully the next blog post won't be so long in coming, but who knows, we've been busy lately!!

We must be insane...

In case life wasn't busy and hectic enough, we thought we would add to it. We had talked about getting a puppy once Austin got a little older, but put it off because we new we'd be busy enough with Zach. But we'd been on the lookout again recently with Zach's birthday and Christmas coming up.

We had decided on getting a Whippet, since we'd read about their demeanor and how great they are with kinds. Plus, we'd need a nice calm dog to be able to be around Austin (who we've nicknamed Hannibal).

Christine found an ad in the paper for Whippet puppies that were already house broken and crate trained, so we started looking into them. The breeder told us the girl pup was the most calm, so we figured we had a winner.

When we went to check her out, and amid all the chaos of the other 8+ dogs in the house, she stayed laying down and chewing on her rawhide. Perfect! So we came home with her!

She and Zach are already best friends. :)

Welcome to the family Clarice!

From Zach 2009 August

First Haircut

Zach had his first haircut a couple of weeks ago. He handled it pretty well, just thought it was weird with someone messing around with his head. :)

From Zach 2009 July pt 2

From Zach 2009 July pt 2

He did start getting fussy a little towards the end, but only because he was strapped down for so long.

Mom thought this would be a good learning experience to see if he would sit still long enough for her to cut his hair or if we should leave it to the professionals. We think we'll leave it to the pros!

Vacation Time! (part 2)

On Sunday we went to the San Diego Zoo. It had been a couple of months since we had been to the Phoenix Zoo, so we were curious to see how much more aware of the animals Zach would be. It turned out he was really interested in all of the animals!

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

He was pretty excited by the first group of monkies we saw (wonder where he got that from Mommy?). He was watching them jump and play, and he was fascinated when he dropped his sippy cup and one of the monkies came over thinking he dropped food. He was really excited to see the monkey so close-up!

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

We went through a good part of the zoo checking out some more monkies and gorillas, the hippos, and the pandas before Zach was ready for a nap. So we found a place to chill for a while and had a snack. Usually we go through the zoo without really taking a break, so it was nice to just relax for a while. After Zach woke up and had some lunch, we headed off to check out the polar bears, lions, elephants, etc. He was pretty excited watching the giraffes too. He watched them for a long time. We were at the zoo for several hours, but he was still in a great mood when we were ready to leave.

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

And he may have gotten a couple of new stuffed animals while we were there.... :)

The next day, our last full day on the road, was Mommy and Daddy's day. We headed up to Temecula to visit some wineries. Unfortunately Christine caught a little of what Zach had before we left and wasn't feeling too hot. So we just hit one winery before heading to the restaurant at Ponte Winery, where we are members of the wine club. We had a pretty good meal, including Zach, who got his first kid's meal ordered for him! Yum, buttered noodles!

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

Ponte has a nice area around their restaurant with a fountain and some grass, so we thought we'd hang out and let Zach play in the grass some. Turns out he's a little desert baby. He was not a fan of the grass!

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

Once Christine picked him up though, he was fine.

Unfortunately we had to head back to the real world, so Tuesday morning we headed home. When we left the San Diego area it was 64 degress. By the time we got home it was 114 degrees! We picked up 50 degrees in 6 hours... :P And we wonder why we saw so many Arizona license plates over there!

All in all we had a great time on our first family vacation!

Vacation Time! (part 1)

We, along with half the Valley it seemed, headed to San Diego (actually Coronado) over the 4th of July weekend. We just wanted to get away from the heat for a few days and relax for a bit. We found a great deal at the Hotel del Coronado (which isn't nearly as fancy as the regular price would indicate) so we were able to stay on the beach. Coronado is an island just across from downtown San Diego. Definitely a touristy place, but it was nice being able to walk down the main street and have all kinds of restaurants and shopping available.

The hotel was having their own party on the beach the first night we got there, so after we settled in for a bit and Zach explored the room some we headed down for some free s'mores, music, and Zach's first visit to the beach.

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

Our first full day we headed up to a Stone Brewing Company. We (ok, I) hoped to take a tour but they were swamped because of the holiday weekend, so I just picked up a shirt and a couple of beers only available at the brewery. When we got back to the hotel we headed down to the beach for the afternoon.

Zach had a great time! He liked playing in the sand of course, and we even managed to keep most of the beach out of his mouth. We took him towards the water, putting him so most of the waves would just barely come up to him. At first he wasn't sure, especially since the water was chilly, but soon he was splashing and having a ton of fun!

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

I took him out into the water so I was knee-deep or a little more and we watched the waves come in. Every once in a while a big one would splash us both. Pretty soon he was laughing and pointing as they came in!

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

Our second full day was the 4th. We headed down to the main street in Coronado to check out the 4th of July parade. Since San Diego (and Coronado in particular) is a Navy town, I was looking forward to the Navy band, etc. They had a couple helicopters do a fly over and a few bands play. And the typical parade stuff - waving politicians, classic cars, etc. We had a pretty good time though. Especially when Zach found some puppies to play with! :)

From Zach 2009 July (includes San Diego)

There were fireworks pretty close to our hotel so we were able to watch them from the parking lot. Zach liked watching them, but wasn't so sure about the noise. It didn't bother him too much, but he did watch most of them snuggling on Mommy's shoulder. :)

More next time in part 2...

Wow, am I behind...

So many things to talk about over the last 6 weeks. Quick rundown: Zach was sick with his cold, then teething, then sick again (viral infection causing blisters on the back of his throat), then we went on vacation to San Diego, then Zach's Aunt Jackie came to visit. I'll try to catch up on some of the fun stuff with their own posts without falling too far behind again!

And he's crawling (not just his army crawl) and pulling himself up to stand now. Look out world!

From Zach 2009 August

9 months and counting!

From Zach 2009 June

Hard to believe Zach is already 9 months old, where has the time gone?! In just a few short months we'll be celebrating his first birthday! Here are his stats at his 9 month checkup: length: 30.5inches (97%), weight: 22lbs 8.5oz (75%) our little giant! He's firmly in 18 month size clothing, with a sprinkling of 24 month. It's incredible how big he is! We were at swimming lessons today and the lady next to me asked me how old he was since he was bigger than her little boy, I told her and she said, "wow! Mine is 15 months!" AWESOME. I fear for the teenage years with this big boy! Our poor fridge and grocery budget!!

From Zach 2009 June

So what else is Zach up to these days? He has 5 and a half teeth, that sixth one has broken through but no progress besides that, it's just hanging out :). He's gotten a lot more mobile, he now shuffles forward army crawl style mixed in with his rolling he gets into all kinds of stuff! He also wants to stand a lot, he can't quite do it himself yet, but he tries to pull himself up all the time! He's a little chatterbox too, he says "mama", "daddy", and "pup-pup" (for puppy, aka Austin). He's also started waving. He's eating like you'd expect a 22 and a half pound baby to eat! A variety of fruits and veggies, some oatmeal, and some meats. He LOVES his sippy cup which we fill with water right now, and the occasional puff, or cheerio. Next up... dairy, we're going to be trying some yogurt and cheese soon, and the doctor gave us the ok to sprinkle in the occasional table food too, should be fun to see his reactions to all these new things!