Friday, September 28, 2012

Oregon Travel Day: And We're Off!

 
We are still in Portland and will be flying home tomorrow but I wanted to go ahead and do one quick post about our travel day.  We have taken SO MANY pictures and have seen so many places, I know there are going to be A LOT of Oregon posts about our travels.  I better go ahead and get started!
 
And a special Happy, happy birthday to my mom and Kellan's Mimi!  We love and miss her soooo much and will see her when we get back!

Great Papa came by our house to see Kellan before we left for Washington, D.C. for our flight.




In the parking lot at the airport with all of our luggage.  We have so much stuff!!  We are trying to teach Kellan to hold up one finger for "I'm one year old."  Sometimes he gets it and sometimes he looks at us like we're crazy but we still have a couple of weeks :)

Daddy had sushi before we boarded...

Mommy had Potbelly's

Entertaining Kellan at the airport...

Is there a baby out there that doesn't laugh hysterically when you smell his feet?

If there is an empty seat available, you don't have to pay for a seat for babies under 2.  We lucked out and had available seats on our flight to Denver and on to Portland.  He was sooo good and slept most of the flight.

We had a short layover in Denver but we continued on in the same airplane.  We took turns walking Kellan up and down the aisles to entertain him and stretch those chubby legs!  Notice that he is wearing his "FEED ME!" shirt that Papa Mike brought him back from the Bahamas.

 
And last is a kind of terrible video that Michael filmed while I was taking Kellan on a walk.  It is blurry off and on and I don't know why he takes pictures while he's filming because it clicks during the video.  Oh well...you can see the flight attendant stop us to pinch Kellan's fat legs :)
 
 
Look out soon for more posts full of our trip down the Oregon coast, Crater Lake National Park, Mt. Hood, the Columbia River Gorge, Mt. St. Helens, lots of Washington and Oregon lighthouses, hikes to waterfalls, and of course Portland!  I may be blogging about this trip until Christmas! :)


Thursday, September 27, 2012

Kellan is 11 Months: In Oregon!



Kellan turned 11 months on Thursday, September 20.  We are on vacation right now but we brought his sticker with us and we took our 11 month pictures on-the-road!  Since we are not at home I could not measure him but I do know that he weighed 24 pounds when we left.  I can update the height and head circumference when we get back and next month we will go to the doctor for more accurate stats.

Height: 30 inches long
Weight: 24pounds
Head Circumference: 18 1/2 inches

A few more statistics for this month:

Sleeping: Kellan's bed time is still 8:30-9 pm. Most nights its closer to 9. He is officially sleeping through the night. He wakes up anywhere between 6 and 7 am, nurses again and sometimes will go back to sleep but lately he is up and ready to play by 7:30. 

Kellan is still on the feed-wake-sleep schedule and he usually naps around 10:30 am and sleeps for an hour and a half. His afternoon nap starts anywhere between 2-3 pm (whenever he starts to get fussy) and he sleeps for another hour and a half.

*Note*  This was his schedule before we embarked on an 11 day adventure on the west coast.  Who knows what in the world his schedule will look like when we are back home!  His body clock is going to be all out of whack!

Eating: I'm still making all of Kellan's food and he continues to be a fantastic eater. He has 3 meals a day with breakfast being between 8:30-9 am. He usually eats half of an avocado and half of a banana cut up into pieces so that he can feed himself. He can also feed himself homemade pear/apple gummies, cooked carrot, papaya, cantaloupe, mango, kiwi, sweet potato crackers, cut up pieces of meat, and cheese pieces. Around 12:00-12:30 he has lunch which is when I introduce a new food for 4 days in a row (this is in case he has an allergic reaction or upset stomach I can trace it back to the new food). In addition to the new food he either has a fruit, vegetable, or yogurt that he has eaten before. Around 5:30-6:00 he has dinner which always includes a meat, a fruit and a vegetable.
 
In addition to the foods he's already had, now he's tried eggplant, spinach, kale, beets, sweet potato crackers, and a coconut custard.  Daddy even fed him some elk since we have been in Oregon.
 
*I should also note that on our trip Kellan is eating us out of house and home.  We ordered his first meal from a restaurant that was all his own.  He ate almost the entire piece of salmon and several pieces of his zucchini and squash.  He seems to be a bottomless pit and always wants more!
 
Dad are you SURE you got all of the avocado out of here?
 
 
 
Drinking: Kellan is exclusively breastfed and nurses about 4 times a day (when he wakes up in the morning, after his morning nap, after his afternoon nap, and then before bed).  He has learned how to drink out of a straw but has not completely mastered this without sometimes making a mess.  Sometimes he takes too much in his mouth and then spits it out.  Other times he likes to blow bubbles in his drink and it spurts everywhere.  He only drinks water and breast milk although we did buy him some carrot juice from a natural foods/organic market in Newport, Oregon and he loves it.  It, of course, makes a nice lovely orange mess.

Clothes: Kellan is mostly wearing 12 months. He has several 18 months pajamas and outfits that he wears too.  We have lots of hand-me-downs from my nephew Owen but pretty soon we will be going fall/winter clothes shopping for some new size 18 months/2T outfits to get us through the next couple of seasons.  He is still wearing size 4 diapers and although we did buy him one pair of shoes, size 6, they are big and we bought them for him to grow into.  We haven't had him formally measured so I still think he is around a size 5.

Milestones:

1. Kellan is totally crawling on all fours 100% of the time.  He does not like to sit down for long and is pulling up on everything.  When you try to sit him down he locks his legs and wants to stand.  He can walk from one piece of furniture to the next and you never know where you are going to find him.  If he can reach it, it will eventually get pulled down to the floor.

2. He "talks" to us all the time and tries to copy parts of the words that we say.  Lately we have been saying "Ready! Set! Go!" and it sounds like he is saying "Dee! Sey! Doe!"  He is actually saying ma-ma a lot more often.  It is most often when he is mad or in distress....I'm not sure what to think of that.  Of course da da is still heard a lot.  He still babbles a lot but the sounds he's making are often him trying to copy what we've just said.

3. We are now up to 5 teeth. He has two on the bottom and three on the top.

4.  He visited his 4th and 5th state last week, Oregon and Washington. We live in Virginia, have visited my family in North Carolina, and vacationed in Florida.
 
5.  Kellan has had his feet on the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Gulf of Mexico shores, all before one year of life!
 
6.  His personality is growing by leaps and bounds.  He is developing such a sense of humor and it is so easy to get him to laugh hysterically.  He knows what he does and doesn't like and is turning into a very strong willed little man.
 
7.  By "strong-willed" I mean that we have a screamer on our hands.  I have no idea where it has come from or how to stop it but sometimes he just screams.  He will clench his little fists and just scream at the top of his lungs.  It is starting to become a battle in restaurants because if you don't feed him fast enough he unleashes his fury.  We are hoping its a stage.
 
Screamer...
8.  Kellan loves dogs and kids.  Whenever he sees a dog (of any type or size) or child (from infant to 16 years old) he starts pointing, bouncing in his seat, and laughing and grinning from ear to ear.  Nothing makes him more excited.  He is not scared of dogs one bit...this can be a good thing and a bad thing.
 
 
 9.  Changing Kellan's diaper has become next to impossible.  As soon as you lay him down and look in his diaper he tries to sit up and starts squirming away.  I feel like I am in a wrestling match...it is a serious struggle trying to get a clean diaper back on him.
 
10.  He has recently started dropping (throwing) things over the side of his high chair or stroller, looking over the side at the object, and saying "Oh!"  He is trying to say "Uh-oh."  I have had many conversations with him trying to explain that throwing something on the floor intentionally is not an "Uh-oh," an "Uh-oh" is an accident.  These little talks have done no good...we hear quite a few "Oh!'s" throughout the day.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Busy Body!

Kellan has moved from pulling up in his Pack N' Play and on the ottoman in the living room to pulling up on EVERYTHING!  He tries to stand up beside his high chair, cabinets, drawers, the refrigerator, and anything else he can find.  There is only one problem...he can get up easily but getting down is proving to be difficult.  He goes through three stages...
 
Pulling up and showing pure excitement about being able to stand up!

Then he starts to get a little worried because he doesn't know how to get down...

Then there is all out panic because he realizes that he is stuck!

In the crib he has made a new discovery...the light switch!  So far he can turn the lights off but he hasn't figured out how to turn them on...yet!

Full determination and concentration!  I have a feeling one day soon Michael and I are going to wake up to a flashing light show!


Here is a video showing some of his new developments.  Not only can he pull up but now he is walking and holding on to furniture.  He will even go from one piece of furniture to the next.  He will bend down and pick up objects off the floor with one hand while holding on.  I have seen him, several times, stretch one hand out to see just how far he can go to grab on to the next object to hold him up. 

In this video you will also see two new funny things he has started doing.  Whenever you ask him a question he has started shrugging his shoulders and saying "huh?"  It is so funny and I have no idea where the shoulder shrugs are coming from...he doesn't just do one, he does several shrugs in a row!  You will also see some of his demolition debris as well.  He loves to pull out all of our magazines and tear the pages...he doesn't leave very many intact.  And the last thing you may notice is that he is a fashion victim...his dad dressed him on this day :/

 


Kellan is growing up way too fast and it won't be long before he is officially walking.  He gets a little more brave every day and I can't wait to see what new milestone he accomplishes next.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Family Beach Photos

This is a flashback to our Florida vacation back in July, where my sister set up her camera and tripod and we attempted to get family pictures.  They turned out REALLY well.  I am just now getting the pictures electronically so that I can share them!

First up....the whole family shots...




Just the girls...

Just the boys...

Mimi and Papa with the grand kids...

Just our family....


Just my sister's family....

All the grand kids...
Owen is not always a willing photography subject...

but this day he really had a lot of love to share...

and share...

still sharing...

and share some more :)

And my little one all by himself...

This was the first week he learned to clap so he was really getting into it and showing off :)