Quillan Isaiah: Nine & Ten Months Old

Quillan (Quilly BooBoo) is now ten months old. He weighs around 17-18 lbs (17 at doctor's office, 18 at home) and is 28 inches long. He wears mostly size 9 or 12 month clothes. He is still mostly bald with a few reddish strands coming in. His eyes are still blue. 

He eats lots of different foods, pretty much anything except peanut butter, honey, and desserts. He likes almost everything he tries. He still nurses for the majority of his meals. And he nurses to fall asleep at night. He likes soothies pacifiers. He sleeps through the night almost every night (unless he's teething or doesn't feel well) and still sleeps on his belly in his crib. 

He crawls all over the place and is getting pretty fast at it. He pulls up on everything. You can tell he wants to be able to stand/walk but isn't there yet (whew!) He has learned to climb stairs though. He puts EVERYTHING in his mouth! We have to watch him constantly. He does lots of babbling but no real words yet. He says "bababa" "dadada" "mmm" "aaaa" "ttttthhhhhh" and lots of other noises. He loves to play by banging things. He smiles and laughs all the time. He's a very very easy going baby! 

 Over the last two months he has cut his first two teeth! The two bottoms in front (central incisors) He's been sick almost the entire two months with a snotty nose and on and off cough. I brought him to the doctor for a suspected UTI at the end of last month but that was negative, thankfully. 

He's tried lots of new foods, including macaroni, strawberries, pancakes, cucumbers, pickles, meatloaf, blueberry banana baby food, spinach, scrambled eggs, sausage, green beans, tator tot casserole, grapes. He also snuck a bite of his brother's peanut butter and jelly sandwich (no allergy!) and an M&M. Sneaky boy! He was quite pleased with himself after tasting the M&M. 

Last month he went swimming at the Y for the first time as well as went into their daycare for the first time. He did great being left there. He also got to visit the Great Wolf Lodge earlier this week (more on this later) For now, I will leave you with some pictures of the past two months. 

 

Quillan Isaiah: 8 Months Old

I never posted Quillan's 7 month update, so before I get to his 8 month update, here's a quick peek at 7 months.

Quillan turned 7 months old on December 2nd. He weighed in at 14.6 lbs and was 26.5 inches long. During the previous month he learned to sit up on his own, started army crawling, said "baba" and "dada" and he started eating real food. The first thing he tried was a banana and he was not impressed. In fact, he was not impressed with any food at all for awhile. In addition to the banana he tried mixed berry applesauce, peas, a noodle, tomato sauce, apple, frozen peach, sweet potatoes, turkey, roll. He probably had a few other things as well but these are the ones we remembered to keep track of. The first thing he liked was the apple. He also really enjoyed the sweet potatoes on thanksgiving. 

Quillan turned 8 months old on January 2nd. He now weighs 15.8 lbs and is 26.5 inches long. He fits perfectly into 9 month clothing but can fit into some 12 month and some 6 month clothes as well, depending on what they are (onesies tend to go bigger, jammies tend to go smaller) He is still mostly bald but is getting a little bit of fine hair coming in. It is hard to tell what color it will be. Some days it looks brown but most of the time I think it looks more red. 

He sleeps through the night most nights. Sometimes he wakes once a night and easily goes back to sleep. HE sleeps on his belly in his crib. He falls asleep by nursing or sucking a pacifier and rocking. He likes to snuggle. He generally is ready for bed between 7 and 8pm and wakes around 7-8am. He's usually pretty content in his crib when he wakes up unless he has lost his pacifier. 

He still nurses for the majority of his food but he has been playing around with other food as well - just for fun. He enjoys the baby puffs and yogurt puffs in all flavors. He's also liked pumpkin puree (canned pumpkin), chili beans, and taco meat. He loves spoons and enjoys playing with them even if there is nothing on them. He's still working on his first tooth. His gums have been swollen for awhile but it hasn't come through quite yet. 

Quillan likes to play with all kinds of things. He enjoys almost anything you set in front of him. I wouldn't even say he has a favorite toy at this point in time. He does seem to enjoy balls though. He really likes his brothers and smiles and laughs at them all the time. He especially seems to laugh for Jordan. 

He had a pretty exciting past month as he found his peepee! He hasn't been as enamored with it the way the other two were though so that's good. He also learned how to splash in the bath tub (and took his first big boy bath without a bath seat!) He absolutely loves the water and loves to splash. I think he'd be content to stay in the bathtub forever, though he never fusses when I take him out either. 

This month we celebrated Quillan's first Christmas. He wore the same outfit that Jordan wore for his first Christmas and he looked just as adorable in it. He received lots of nice gifts from everyone and visited Santa for the first time. It went well, he didn't seem to care one way or the other about it. 

One of my favorite things that happened this month was he started making fish faces! He is now officially in the club! 

He also started crawling at the end of the month - real crawling! He's getting pretty good at it now too and he can follow me around whenever I leave him somewhere. When he's hungry he'll cry and crawl over to me. So cute. 

I'll end this with some pictures of the last TWO months! 

Our 6th Anniversary

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. We like to follow the traditional anniversary gift ideas for each year and this year happened to be candy/sugar. Anyone who knows Matt knows how perfect that was! So I set out to the store to find six of his favorite candies. I wanted to make a candy bouquet for him. Unfortunately, some of his favorite candies were not the easiest to work with but in the end, I think the bouquet turned out nicely. I just wasn't able to include the Red Vines in it.

To make the bouquet I used a flower foam, craft sticks, and a hot glue gun. I glued two of each candy onto one stick so there would be no "back" side to them. Then I stuck the sticks into the flower foam. I lined the bottom of the vase with skittles in a rainbow pattern -- or at least attempted to! It didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. Then I put the Starburst on top of that. I had to stick the flower foam all the way into the bottom of the vase for stabilization so I put a small piece of tissue paper underneath it so it wouldn't look so ugly. I think it turned out pretty cute, especially given what I was working with. What do you think? 

Our Experience at BAGGER DAVE'S

We recently had the opportunity to eat at a brand new restaurant in our area, called Bagger Dave's. It's a burger place that is Michigan-based and, in fact, is only and will only ever be found in Michigan.

We ended up there by default. We were out too late at Hobby Lobby and the restaurant is located across the parking lot from there. When we arrived our waitress greeted us with a friendly smile and asked if it was our first time there. When we said yes, she told us all about the restaurant --  how nearly everything is from Michigan -- Michigan cows, Michigan produce, Michigan beers, etc. We liked that. It's always nice to support local when possible. They make some of their own hand-crafted beers {which certainly didn't interest me much} and some of their own sodas as well -- such as the one Matt chose, black cherry cream soda. It was delicious, by the way. 

The menu had some interesting burger choices, such as the Sicilian Pizza Burger, the Santa Fe Chipotle Burger, and the Train Wreck Burger. For more picky eaters, they also offer a Build Your Own Burger which gives you the chance to choose exactly what you do -- and don't -- want on your burger, right down to the kind of bun and meat, even. This is what I chose so I could get my olive burger {I'm having a SERIOUS love affair with green olives lately!} They also have a gluten free menu. Their kids menu is great as well. Aside from the standard kids choices like macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese, they also offer more unique options for kids like a grilled peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich {which we ordered for Jordan. He didn't care for it but Jacob and I ate the leftovers the next day and both thought it was deeeeeelicious!!} and a turkey burger {which Jacob ordered, loved, and devoured} The kids most favorite part of the restaurant, though, was the train that circled at the ceiling. Every time {and I mean every. time.} the train circled by us, one or both of the kids would excitedly point it out. 

The food was reasonably priced, though I wish that the adult burgers came with a side. It is all ala carte. The kids meals do come with a side and a drink. The sides for the kids to choose from are french fries, sweet potato chips, apple, or banana. Both my kids chose french fries but at least there are healthier options available! And one of my favorite parts, instead of mints, they handed out tootsie rolls at the end of the meal! I do love tootsie rolls! And when Jordan is a little older and I'm more comfortable giving them to him, the kids will like that part too. 

Overall, we had a good experience at Bagger Dave's and we'll definitely be going back sometime. We don't eat out often but when we do, I know it will be top of the list for an option for us. Especially on Sundays when kids eat for 1/2 price!