14 Months Old and Cruisin'

Trixie, Sander, Halle, Lucy and Arcadia in Westport

Sander was able to celebrate turning 14 months old in Westport, MA amongst great friends: Nat, Rachel, Halle and Trixie. We enjoyed a couple of days at the ocean and the highlight for Sander was the boat ride Nat took us on. He squealed the entire time and is now nicknamed: seagull boy.

He moves faster and faster with each day, his walking has almost turned into running. Sander said "yes" recently for the first time when Matt asked him if he'd like more mango. No more news words but lots of effort on creating new sounds, especially when he is feeling passionate about wanting something or telling us something. Another tooth took all month to pop through all the way. He now has five! Spinning in a circle is a new talent Lucy helped him to learn. Climbing up onto everything he can has been a past time as well. I can't ever turn my back!

Toddlering at 13 Months

Sander has been doing so many new things in the last two weeks so I hope I am remembering everything here. One of my favorite things he does is blow out of his cute lips as if he is cooling some food off when we do it for him. In fact, tonight, when I said he would have to wait because his food was too hot he blew on his own without me signaling. It is amazing how much babies take in at this age and understand - I constantly remind myself he understands more that I think. He signed for fan for the first time yesterday. We have a fan going in the bedroom for white noise and we have to talk about it every night when I put him to bed. He looks at it, makes his gargle sound, points at it and smiles.

Sander has been standing for several seconds at a time and he has taken one step here and there. We think walking is right around the corner. Lucy started walking at about 13.5 months and he seems to be following in her shoes. He enjoys pushing Lucy around in the doll stroller, it is hilarious!

Sander LOVES his dada. He waves his arms up and down when he sees dada, cries when he leaves for work or even when he leaves the room, and wants to be held by him every time he gets home from work, immediately, or intense shrieking occurs. Sander still says "deh" for dog and is now saying "teh" for cat. He will baby sign for any animal with the sing for dog by panting. So adorable. He makes a cute sound that is hard to spell out when he tries to say "quack quack quack", it is somewhat of a gurgle. Sometimes when I am attempting to put Sander down to sleep he abruptly sits up post-nursing, giggles and does raspberries somewhere on me. He loves being super silly. It runs in the family. Anyway, this is typically a cue that sleep is not going to happen any time soon. He will point to the door, bounce and make a cute sound that says he wants to go play. Usually he wins.

I wrote the above post last night before Sander turned 13 month old. Today he started walking right as we were getting ready to head out to Hermit Island, ME! It was quite an exciting and happy distraction.

Our Baby Boy Turns One!

Already! Our sweet Sander is one. He is such a sensitive little guy and so active. He can't decide if he wants to be held all the time or crawl and scale walls. He has been walking holding into things and getting around quite well. Sander has been doing yoga down dogs and looking between his legs while laughing hysterically. This is definitely my favorite trick of his.  It is even better when his sister joins in and we all hurt from laughing afterward. While there are no new exact words such as his "Da-Da" and "Ma-Ma" he has been saying "Deh" and pointing to the dogs when they are around. It is pretty cute. 

He weighs in at 15 pounds 6 ounces and is 29" tall. Long and lean!

Lucy had just gotten over the chicken pox just in time for Sander's 1st birthday bash. Nono and Pop-pop came up to celebrate. We had a good time.

Mama and the birthday boy.

Dada and the birthday boy with sun in his eyes. 

These two!

Nono and Pop-Pop

Lucy spent some time pulling Sander around in a sled in the yard. He giggled and love it. They even went downhill.

Always tapping on things these days.

A pull-bunny from mom and dad.

Proud Bob-Bob and Lyn-Lyn

Playing put-the-rock-in-the-hole together. This actually lasted about ten minutes!

The birthday bunch

A peach-blueberry crisp was enjoyed by all.

Our Sweet 9 Month Old

This sweet Sander is one busy guy. He works so hard crawling around and voicing his opinion about it. It's hard to believe we've already hit the 9-month mark, time has flown by.

Sander's two newest tricks are clapping (he started about two weeks ago) and saying "dada" which comes out like deh-deh. It is pretty cute. Still a squealer and getting louder each day my mind whirls wondering what Sander will be like at 2 and 3. What fun! He also loves to crawl to Canute or Oliver and rest his head (almost in a head-butting but sweet way) on their fur to snuggle. It is adorable. Oliver doesn't stick around long but Canute just hangs out. Sander really loves animals and other babies. He will squeal with laughter when he see pictures of them in books or in real life.

The Seven Month Old Charmer

All bundled up for play time in the snow.

This little guy weighs in at a whopping 13 pounds 4 ounces! He's such a little peanut.

Full of smiles, grunts, drools and cuteness, Sander melts our hearts. 

Speaking of hearts, he tugs on mine every time he says "mama" which is his latest new skill.

At seven months Sander is combat crawling and rolling everywhere...and he gets into everything. Everything then goes into his mouth.

Mama and Sander take a break while watching Lucy play in the snow.

Lucy and Sander's first time sledding together.

weeeeeeee!

At the bottom of the hill. Canute was very excited.

Sander likes to inspect food, suck on it, smear it around, and sometimes eat it. In a desperate attempt to enjoy and relax while eating my own steak dinner with both arms free, I handed Sander a big strip of porterhouse steak. He was al over it! Needless to say this kept our little guy busy and happy during dinner and beyond.

Checking out the steak.

Check out the two finger technique!

Here are a couple of videos taken the morning of Sander's seventh month. It is hard to get solo videos so he can show his stuff but I have to say, it is so precious to watch videos of both Lucy and Sander together.