My babies!

Here are a couple of pics I took of William and Layla after Layla had her hair cut!

I know this is out of focus, but it's so cute!

I just love my babies!

Pigeon Forge

Last weekend, we were able to go to Tennessee with David's family.  Although there was a lot of driving and a lot of traffic, we had a great time!  The cabin was beautiful!  It had a pool table, theater room, and hot tub! 

We all enjoyed hanging out on the porch.  The views were amazing!

Haha...this one makes me laugh. :)

Saturday we went to Dollywood!  It was so much fun!  It was great to be able to ride the roller coasters with David! Thank you Mrs. Jackie for keeping an eye on William!

All that fun was tiring!

We also did a little shopping in Gatlinburg.  Everything was decorated for Fall, and it got me so ready!  I've had enough of the heat!  We stopped at the Chocolate Monkey and got some fudge and William got a balloon!

We had a great time spending time with David's family.  Thank you for such a great weekend!

9 Months - Standing, teething, and sleeping!

That's right! William is 9 months old now.  We went for his checkup on Tuesday, and the stats are in...

Weight - 18 lbs. 5 oz.  (20%)

Height - 28 in. (40%)

Head - 17 1/4 in. (10%)

He is officially back on the charts!  The doctor asked if we had been feeding him steak and potatoes!  William has gained 5 pounds in 3 months!  Go William!  Also, no shots this time!  Yay!

This week has been a busy week for me and William.  I've been very busy with work because of tax season, and William has been busy standing, and cutting teeth!  He is getting more a more brave, and can stand for longer and longer without holding on to something.  Normally he loses his balance because he's trying to clap (keep reading) or trying to grab a toy.  I can't believe he's getting to be such a big boy!  

I was starting to wonder if William would ever get teeth, and this week he did!  His two bottom teeth are now coming in!  Of course he won't let me get a picture, but they are definitely there!  Some side effects of these new little developments - diarrhea (for two days he had 6-8 poopies a day - sorry David!), and a little fever last night.  He hasn't really acted like he feels bad, just a little needy.  He's also slept past 9am two days in a row now.  Hopefully this will continue after the teething ends :)

About his sleeping habits, William had developed some bad ones.  For weeks, William had been waking up about 3 times a night to eat.  A couple of weeks ago, I decided to put my foot down.  He was definitely old enough to be sleeping through the night.  I mean, he did it for a few months beginning at 2 months old, right?  While David was working nights, I decided to let William "cry it out".  The first night was a long night.  He woke up at 3am as usual.  I patted his back, said goodnight and left the room.  After an eternity (45 minutes), he finally cried himself to sleep just to wake up again an hour later.  I tried rocking him to sleep, but he wasn't having any of it.  Finally, I gave in.  I put him in his crib, and went downstairs to make a bottle.  Then something amazing happened.  Before I could even make the bottle, he stopped crying, and fell asleep.  The next night he slept straight through the night!  Then the next night, David was back home, and William knew it!  That whole week, the nights that David was home he woke up during the night, and slept through the nights he was working.  I guess he knew his crying bothered Daddy more than me.  But finally he realized even Daddy wasn't going to give in, and he is  now sleeping through the night!  Yay!  It was definitely worth the rough week :)

William has started clapping all the time now!  Especially when he is particularly proud of himself or when he hears music.  It is so cute!  He continues to be a loud mouth.  He also loves playing and smiling and just being a happy baby!  Here is a video of him playing and being silly...check out the look he gives me after popping himself in the head - haha!

It's so fun to watch his personality develop!  He's becoming quite the flirt!  He's also starting to act a little shy around new people, but it doesn't last for long. He's such a sweet boy, and I look forward to watching him grow and learn these next few months!

William's first sign!

David and I took a sign language for babies class before William was born.  So, we try to sign to him as much as we can remember.  We usually try signing things like bottle, eat, more, mommy, and daddy.  Well, I didn't really think he was picking up on them, until a couple weeks ago when he did the sign for "light"!  He always seemed very interested when I turned the lights on or off, so I would sign light to him (holding hand toward the light and opening and closing it).  Then the other day while he was eating, he signed light when I turned the light on above his head.  We were very excited!

Labor Day Cookout

David's parents had a family cookout for labor day weekend.  David's Uncle Butch was in town from Florida.  It was great to see everyone, and William had a great time with his 3rd cousins, Kayden and Riley!  I can't believe how big the girls have gotten.  Last time I saw them they were just babies!

(Kayden and William)

(Kayden, Riley and William)

(Aunt Bit and David)

(Jackie, Crystal and Amanda)

(David, Kayden and Aunt Jan)

It's hard being a baby...

Eat up!

William is well on his way to being a big eater!  The only thing we've given him that he really doesn't like is green peas.  He is funny in the way that no matter what you give him, he will make a bad face at the first bite. Maybe he doesn't trust us that we're not trying to give him peas again. 

He's also starting to eat more and more off our plates.  He hasn't had any problems with the finger foods that we've given him - cheerios, small pieces of bread and pasta, mac-n-cheese, string beans, mashed potatoes.  The only scare we had was with gold fish, and I think that was because he had too many.  You have to be careful of how many you put in front of him because if you put 20 cheerios on the table, he will try to put all of them in his mouth!

Eating cheerios and "Puffs"...haha