Moving the Crib Down

This is very bitter-sweet for me because is means that my little baby is growing up.  We finally had to move Zach's crib mattress down because he finally figured out how to pull himself up in the crib.  He's actually on his knees in the pictures below.

This was him standing up.  He was so proud of himself!

I pulled out the tools and put  the crib down a notch.  I honestly don't think he would ever try to climb out because he's not that type of baby.  He's more into crying until someone picks him up.

8 Month Update

I can't believe it's already been 8 months!  I love my little guy to death and can't imagine my life without him.  Here are some things he's doing.

Right now he is wearing 12-18 month clothes and 12-24 month socks.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that he's a long, skinny boy with big feet.  He fits into all his clothes length wise, but they are really baggy on him.

Zachary has been crawling for about two weeks.  He started with the army crawl and has upgraded to the hands & knees crawl.  It should come to no surprise that his motivation to crawl came in the form of a dog bone.  The dogs weren't chewing on it and I think it might have been calling him to it.  There has been no stopping him since.  This also means that I am not safe anywhere in our apartment anymore.  He will follow me everywhere, which wouldn't be so bad if he didn't scream and cry as soon as he got to me.

He loves playing with spoons, bowls, and other utensils, but doesn't usually like eating what's in them.  Yep, that's right, he's in a picky eating stage.  He would eat cheese and bananas all day if I would let him.  He hates fruits unless they are mashed, but will eat his veggies cut into chunks.  He used to eat egg just fine, but not so much now.  We take away his food when he doesn't want to eat because he WILL feed it to the dogs.

Speaking of dogs, this boy loves them!  If there is one thing that wants everyday, it's Oscar and Sadie.  Oscar is doing so much better with Zach and has accepted that he's here to stay.  Those two are like brothers.  Zachary will follow Oscar around and lay his head on him when he gets tired.  Oscar doesn't mind at all and actually loves the attention.  There is nothing that warms my heart more than seeing my boy with his dogs.

And lastly, his favorite toy has to be his Fisher Price Seahorse.  We got it for him when he was about a month old and put it next to him whenever he went to sleep.  As he has grown, so has his love for the seahorse.  We always take it in the car with us and he smiles every time he sees it.  He wraps his arms around it and it's the cutest thing ever!  Zachary woke up with a fever this past Monday and the only things he wanted all day were his seahorse and pacifier.  I took these pictures that day.

Stay tuned for next months updates!

I Hate Credit Card Offers!

You know what I'm talking about.  The companies sneak offers into your mail and try to get you to sign up with them.  It's my least favorite thing to get in the mail and we still get about one a week, sometimes two.  I have been going through our old mail pile and by old mail, I mean 2 years worth (I know I should have done it sooner).  I have our shredder out and have been shredding everything that we don't need to keep, which is a lot!  Some of the card offers come with the little fake credit cards just to show you what it would look like and, at first, I just shredded them along with the other mail. I got to see so many of them that I decided to keep those little cards to see how many we had actually gotten.  All in all, we collected 21 cards and that's not counting the ones that got the shredder.  So, we probably got about 35 little cards total in just 2 years.

The cards on the bottom are just a bonus!  They came with mail from Comcast and google.  Personally, I think it's all a waste of paper and trees.  I wish they would stop coming but that's never going to happen.

The Hardest Thing About Finding A New Place

We have been looking at other rentals while Louis is going to school.  We're trying to find a place a little closer to the college that he's going now and then move again in 3 years when he starts going to the University of Washington.  I am looking everyday and it's really hard sometimes because a lot of the ones that would work for us don't allow pets.  That's a HUGE problem for us.  It's also a little frustrating when I find a place that says it allows pets but when I look at the pet details, it says cats but no dogs.  I just found one today that would work for us and the price works for us, but there is already an application pending.  So, the search continues!  Right now, we're going month to month with our apartment and we have to give at least 20 days notice before we leave, so we'll be here at least until the end of September.

Our Hot Weekend

This weekend has been 80+ degrees and so we took advantage of it.  Saturday we went to Mukilteo beach and met up with some friends.  Those friends just happened to be my old boss Julia and her son, the little boy I used to nanny, Xander.  They hadn't seen Zachary since he was 2 months old and we had been wanting to meet up for a while.  We had planned on meeting around 11 am, but Zach had a rough night so we didn't get to the beach until almost noon.

Julia had a blanket already set up on the beach and they had gone ahead and ate their lunch.  There was a bucket next to them with three little crabs in it.  They had explored a little and found the crabs under a rock at low tide.

We watched the ferries come and go a few times and Xander showed Zach where the ferry was.  At one point Xander put his hat on top of the hat that Zachary had on his head.  Zachary did NOT like that at all and we had to take it off before he had a meltdown.

Xander put his Chuck E.Cheese bracelet on Zachary's arm and thought it was so funny.  He asked me if I could get a picture of it and, of course, I did.

We went to the playground so Xander could get some energy out.  He had been wanting to go play for a while.  Julia pushed Zachary in the swing for a little bit and he wasn't sure about it at first, but was fine once he got used too it.  He kept wanting to eat the metal sides and got mad when I wouldn't let him.  Xander played on the climbing toys  and had fun showing me what he could do.

I put Zachary inside a wooden play toy that is meant for kids to sit in.  He thought he was so cool looking out the holes in the sides.  Julia was on one side and Louis was on the other.

We headed home around 2:30 in the afternoon and let Zach take a nap because he was really tired.  We headed out to a few stores when he woke up because I knew of a few good deals that were going on.  One of the places we went was Babies R Us because they had a great sale on Babyganics baby wipes when you bought a box of diapers of the same brand.  It's one of our favorite brands of diapers and we kind of wanted to try out the wipes.

While we were there, Louis and I had a little bit of fun trying some hats on Zachary, but he wasn't too thrilled about it.  You can't really tell from the picture though because he was trying to get the camera.

We also looked at a few clothes that were for the 1st birthday because, let's face it, he will be one in 3.5 months.  Is that crazy or what?!  The formal one was cute but we kind of liked the fun one too.  I guess we'll have to see how we feel as his birthday gets closer.

While I'm on the subject of his birthday, I would just like to add that we also looked at the toys to get an idea of what we could get him when it comes around.  He has no idea what's coming to him, but he loved seeing all the toys!

And that was just Saturday.  Sunday we went to the grandparent's house for dinner and Zach got to see all his cousins.  I didn't get too many pictures because he was facing away from me most of the time, but these are two of the ones I did get.  He is playing with his cousin Charlotte in the first picture and eating a Fisher Price cow in the second.

Our Evening Walks

We've had a little bit of a hot streak the last few weeks, with just a few days where is was raining, so it's often too hot to go for our family walks during the day.  We wait until about 7 pm because it's cool enough that Oscar is not going to over heat while playing ball.  First we get the stroller out of the trunk of my car and then put Zach in it.  He hates being reclined in the stroller unless he's really tired.

There is an Elementary School about 10 minutes from our apartment and it has a huge field in the back where we use the Chuckit to throw tennis balls for Oscar.  This is Oscar's favorite time of the day.

I look at Oscar when he's playing and he doesn't act like he's 9 years old, but I can see it when I look at his face.  It's so white now!

I've noticed that he's starting to get that dry cracked nose that a lot of old dogs get.

More than once, Oscar lost the ball and either Louis or I had to help him find it.  I don't think his eyes are as good as they used to be.

The tennis ball in the Chuckit gets the attention of both Oscar and Zachary.  I guess it's just really fascinating!  Sadie's the kind of dog that could really care less about it.

Can you believe the pant he's wearing in the photo are size 9 months and too short?!

I also want to add that this kid LOVES to watch his fur brother Oscar playing with his ball.  If he could do one thing all day, it would be to watch the dogs.