JB 11 Months

How sweet is that last picture? He was crazy all over the place while I was trying to get a good photo of him and then suddenly he just laid his head down like he was so tired and ready to fall asleep for a nap that second!

11 months was a big one for Joe! He began to clap his hands, sometimes wave "hi", and his first two bottom teeth FINALLY came through (I felt like he had been teething forever and there were many times I thought for sure they'd make their grand appearance but not until now!) He recently started to stand in his crib and bang on the wall when he's woken up from a nap and exactly on his 11 month mark he climbed our stairs for the first time!
We started referring to Jordan as "the destroyer". He leaves trails of everywhere he has been and he can demolish anything Eleanor has set up to play with in 2 seconds flat. He thinks the kitchen is his playroom and loves getting into cupboards and pulling out whatever he can get his hands on.
Jordan still loves eating solid foods and gets angry if you eat in front of him without sharing. He still will refuse any bottle or sippy and takes his acid reflux medicine twice a day.

I still need to post pictures from our wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and I kind of slacked on taking pictures in between then and Christmas (could've been the fact I baked over 700 cookies in that time - I started a cookie business. I should probably document that on here as well for memory sakes). However, here are some pictures from my phone of Christmas...

Sweet Eleanor Rae and Jordan Brett before church Christmas Sunday. Having kids makes Christmas SO much fun. Sam and I wanted to do everything we could to celebrate the season. It is especially fun as Eleanor gets to understand more of what is going on. Sam and I talk all the time about how blessed we are and how amazing our two kids are. Christmas this year really had me reflecting on my blessings and these two kids a lot. I sure love them with all of my heart.

 The "real life" picture...

 Family Selfie

Christmas Sunday was the annual Winn Family Christmas party. Every year Santa makes an appearance at the party and calls the children up by name. Jordan did just fine sitting on Santa's lap, but was not willing to give up his carrot and hold onto the candy cane Santa was trying to give him. Eleanor stayed true to her top Christmas wish all season long and asked Santa for some legos.

Christmas morning! Eleanor was thrilled looking through her stocking.. She took forever going through each thing and showing it to us. After all the gifts were unwrapped the first thing she wanted opened was her chips and candy! ha

I think Jordan enjoyed his first Christmas! This tractor/train set was his main gift and he had a lot of fun climbing around it and moving all the trucks and boulders around.

 My boy loves anything with wheels!

After opening all of our gifts and letting the kids play around for a little bit we went over to G's house and made ebelskivers and bacon for breakfast. We spent the afternoon at home and later in the evening went over to Sam's cousin Lou's house for more food and family time. It was a wonderful Christmas. Most of all, it was great to spend it with my love by my side! (Eleanor took this photo of us!)

JB 10 Months

At 10 months Jordan has hit "explorer mode". He is always crawling around from one space to the next, looking for what he can use to pull himself up to a standing position, and finding new things to get into. He naps twice a day and is hit and miss on sleeping through the night. He was off of his reflux medication for a few weeks but I started giving it to him again after he randomly had a few rough days in a row. Giving him the medicine again seemed to be the trick to bring him back to his happy self!

Jordan loves eating solids and can gobble up a waffle incredibly fast. He claps his hands to sign "more" for food and if you don't get the message he'll start banging on his try and grunting. Jordan easily falls asleep on Sam and likes when his sister acts crazy to make him laugh. He still has no teeth! And he is still the sweetest and happiest little guy. My angel baby!

Jordan had his first Halloween! I found some cute mummy pj's at Target. I loved that they were cute and functional so I thought they'd do the trick for Jordan. He made a pretty cute mummy! We had a lot of fun at our ward's Trunk-or-Treat and chili cook-off and then Jordan dressed up again with his ballerina sister for actual Halloween night and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.

My laundry folding helpers...

Not quite able to climb the stairs yet, but he wants to!

 Making messes all day, every day...

Shoving his mouth full of waffles...

Jordan is a big fan of bath time...

This Costco trip was a funny one. Sam was with us. Eleanor fell asleep in the car, Sam carried her into the store and we both thought she would wake-up, but he had to lay her down in the cart and she slept through the entire trip! She didn't wake up until we were transferring her back into the car. She refuses to take naps now, but she obviously still needs one most days!

My mom came into town. We took her down to Provo from SLC and spent the evening down there. After eating dinner we ran over to Riverwoods to because they were having a party for the tree lighting and Santa arriving for the season! It was our first cold night out, but it was fun! Uncle Taylor joined us as well.

 

Next we celebrated Thanksgiving, which will have to be saved as a separate post for more pictures and documenting details.

9 Month Check-Up

Height: 28.5" (52%)

Weight: 20 lbs 12.5 oz (68%)

Head Circumference: 18.25" (84%)

I had Jordan's 9 month post up before I was able to get him into his 9 month check-up with the doctor, but I wanted to record his stats. Jordan was so happy and flirty with the nurse at his appointment. I was laughing at how smiley he was towards her as the nurse was preparing to give him some shots. She said, "He won't be so happy in a few seconds" as she gave him the shot, but he just kept on smiling at her and never let out a single cry! We couldn't believe it. That's just my sweet Joe.

JB 9 Months

9 Months. Jordan is now all over the place, all of the time (as you can see from the pictures above, so much for getting him sitting in the same pose like all previous months). He can't quite crawl on his hands and knees yet, but he can army crawl, scoot backwards, and is talented at turning a new direction while pushing himself up to a sitting position from laying down. Jordan continues to only take milk directly from the source and loves all solid foods. There isn't a food he'll turn down. Jordan had his first cold a few weeks ago, ever since then he wakes up one in the night, but this last week he's routinely been waking up twice in the night (not cool!). He doesn't have any teeth yet. He still LOVES baths. He can never get enough of playing with door stops and he continues to be a happy content little man almost all the time. He usually takes two naps each day and goes to bed between 7:30-8:00.

Fall is officially in the air and we love it!

I wanted to take a family outing to a pumpkin patch and a friend recommended a nearby one (Pack's Pumpkin Patch). We loved it! They had a huge patch to pick your pumpkins from, a free small corn maze, tractors the kids could sit on, and a scarecrow set-up for pictures. Here's the cutest pumpkins in the whole patch...

We got season passes to Lagoon as soon as we moved to Utah (the park is literally 5 minutes from us). We definitely got our money's worth from it. It closes at the end of October so we did one last family outing one evening, I had to document it. Eleanor has become OBSESSED with Lagoon and still gets excited to see it every time we drive by.

I never buy things like this hat, but I thought Jordan looked so cute/funny I was really tempted to get it! I didn't.

We had a lunch picnic at the park nearest to our house one afternoon ad put Jordan on the swing for the first time. As you can clearly tell, he loved it.

My little brother, Taylor, had a lacrosse tournament in SLC the other weekend so we were able to go and watch two games. The weather was PERFECT that day so it was really enjoyable. The kids have fun too despite the looks in this photo

Sam's mom, sister (Maddie), and our niece (Stella), were all in town for the past week. One morning we went to a local apple orchard to pick our own apples and then make caramel apples. We had a great time at the orchard. The kids loved getting pulled in the wagon, especially Jordan. He was smiling so big the whole time and would start laughing when Sam would pull them fast. He is becoming such a big boy! (Side note: once we were all at Sam's grandma's house and ready with our ingredients to make the caramel apples we couldn't find the apples from the orchard and realized we must have left them on the scale right by where you pay. So, I ended up running to the grocery store across the street and we just used apples from the store. SAD!)

Everyone's faces in this photo make me laugh...

JB 8 Months

My favorite chunk is 8 months old! Jordan still gives the best smiles. He rolls all over and loves sitting up and playing toys. He can scoot himself backwards and can push up onto all fours and rock his body. He loves any and all food, although he spits up sweet potatoes so he no longer gets those. I've also noticed that he gets read around his mouth when he eats baby cheese-puffs, so we're staying away from cheese anything for awhile. His favorite thing to eat is a graham cracker. Jordan always "sings" himself to sleep and continues to do that before naps and bedtime. He kind of holds out a long note and the closer he gets to falling asleep the longer and deeper the note gets, it makes me laugh every time. It is something he has done for awhile but I have never documented it!
Jordan goes down to bed between 7:30-8:00 at night and usually wakes up between 5-6 for a feeding then will sleep again till 7:30ish. He takes 2 naps (the times of them always change) and an occasional cat nap before dinner. I've officially given up on trying to make him take a bottle/sippy, so we'll tackle that again when he's closer to a year.

So far this fall has been very mild in weather so it has still been plenty warm which has provided us with beautiful days that we've been able to be outside and have a lot of family fun. Here are some of the highlight's from Jordan's eighth month.

I know that the mess-making has just begun as Jordan has started to become more mobile and explore his surroundings...

He loves food! Even if it gets all over his face!

Prepping for winter...

 My peeps...

Sporting some great bed-head...

At the end of September I got to fly to LA for weekend reunion with my college girlfriends (it was a blast!) Since Jordan refuses anything sort of bottle he was a lucky little fella and got to tag along (one other friend had a baby with as well). We had a great time! This was Jordan's first flight. (I think by 8 months Eleanor had about 6 flights under her belt haha Life is different when you're not an only child!) But Jordan did a great job on the flight. We got our own row for the flight to LA so that was wonderful. I'm grateful he is such an easy going baby.

One day I was cleaning in the kitchen and started hearing giggles from BOTH of the kids. I looked around the corner to see this. Eleanor loves playing with Jordan, but sometimes forget how little he is/how gentle she needs to be. He is slowly progressing and able to interact more with her. He was loving this little train she had setup!

Scrub-A-Dub-Dub

Up until this past month I had never thrown the two kids into the bathtub together. After doing it once, Eleanor asks to take a bath with Jordan all of the time (she usually likes to shower instead). I had to get the obligatory siblings-in-the-bath-tub-together photo. Doesn't it seem like one of these pops up in every wedding video? And since my blog is my scrapbook, for memory keeping...

8/13/15