Chad is 8 months old...

For the first time I couldn't get Chad to give me his big CHEESY smile that I always get... this guy was all over the place! These are the best two pictures I could get out of him.

So our BUG is 8 months old already! I cant believe it! Time is truly flying by!

At 8 months Chad is:

• Doing his Army Crawl all over the place, he has amazing upper body strength
• Can hang as if he were on a chin bar for quite a while (this is truly an amazing site, I will have to get it on video)
• Sitting up all by himself without toppling over
• Eating finger foods like cheerios, puffs and yogurt melts
• Eating 3-4 jars of baby food AND four 7oz bottles per day *this kid can seriously put it away*
• Sleeping through the night, for the most part ;)
• Looking up to his big brother
• Loving bath time
• Wearing 12-18mo clothing

Chad is getting bigger every day and learning new things all the time. I hope to report a true crawler by 9 months. He seems to be doing things a lot earlier than Gibson did, and I think his size has a lot to do with it.

Mommy and Daddy love you Chad, we cant believe how big you are getting!!

Mommy & Gibson go to Sesame Street Live!

Gibson and I had a "Mommy & Son Date" Sunday afternoon. We went to see Sesame Street Live, which was a big first for us since Gibson hasn't even gone to a movie at the theater yet.

We had a ton of fun!

Here we are during the show... obviously Gibson didn't want to look at the camera, he was too into his sucker and the show. When Big Bird first came onto the stage.
Big Bird and Friends...

Munchin' on some cheerios during the show. He almost ate the whole cheerio container, and it was full when we first got there!

Ernie on the S.S. Rubber Ducky... I used to love Ernie so this was my favorite!

Elmo... He was definitely the most popular!!

During the Intermission I let Gibson jump around on the chair... he had a blast!

The African masks in the black light was probably Gibson's favorite thing. He just stared at the stage in awe. It was pretty cool looking, no wonder he was in pure amazement!

Bert imagined he was deep sea diving with a friendly Octopus, this was also in black light and was pretty cool.

Me with Carter and Gibson (Carter and his mom joined us for the day, the boys are only 2 weeks apart in age)

Sucker time... I think he was trying to say "Elmo" here

Elmo's World!!

The Entire Cast at the end of the Show!

We had a blast! We are going to have to go on more Mommy & Gibson dates. It was nice to focus on just one of my little boys and make his day. I cant wait to take him on another new adventure. Gerod and I are both SUPER excited about June 18th when Toy Story 3 comes out... we plan on both taking him and having a sitter watch Chad. Hopefully he will do well!

Around the house...

We just recently repainted the entire living room, dining room, kitchen and entry and after I finished I decided to redecorate a few things.

Here are some of the things I/we have been working on:

In the living room I have redone the mantel to include some black and white pics of us and the boys. I have two frames I still need to get pictures for so disregard those. :) Another set of pictures all in a huge frame we found in Lubbock at Kirklands. I love it! We have tons of pictures of the boys to show off now.

The pictures that were over our mantel are now in the dining room. I think they give it a more dramatic feel and make the space a bit more defined.

Another project was printing off huge letters off the computer all in different fonts and put them all in 5x7 frames. I love how this very inexpensive project turned out!

We also replaced all the blinds in the kitchen and living room with the nice ones you see in the background of the picture above. Thank goodness no more aluminum blinds that have been bent by Gibson!! So happy about that.

Chad's room hasn't changed but I have added a few things since I posted pictures the last time.
The rug is new... and how amazing does it match? I couldn't believe it myself when I found it, in of all places Walmart.com (only $40!!).

The picture of the monkey is not new, I painted it a while back. I don't know if I ever posted a picture of it though.

I couldn't leave Gibson out... I did these new wall hangings that spell out his name just this week. It was a fun project that brings some color to the walls.

Gibson's new bedding, the other side has cars and trucks all over it. I cant believe he is getting so big! Seems like just yesterday we brought him home from the hospital.

SpLiSh SpLaSh I WaS TaKiN' A BaTh!

I love bath time with the boys! They love splashing and playing in the water.

Tonight was the first time we bathed Chad without him being in his baby bath. He has been sitting up so well on his own we thought it was worth a try. He did really well but Daddy had to catch him more than once when he lost his balance. Daddy stuck right by the side of the tub the whole time to make sure Chad wouldn't fall over.

Bath Time Boys!!!

I am so sick of paint!!

The past few days we have been painting... and painting... and painting! I had this crazy idea when I was pregnant with Chad to repaint our entire entry/living room/kitchen/dining room (which is all one big area with no separation so everything is the same color). Gerod talked me out of it... thank GOODNESS! We have been painting literally since Wednesday and I am sore everywhere. We have finally finished most of the painting and only have a few touch ups now, and once it was all completed we decided we ought to replace the nasty aluminum contractor grade blinds. It is amazing that our living area looks basically brand new now. I am so glad we did it, but Wednesday afternoon I was apprehensive as to what crazy thing I got myself into.

Needless to say we only have a few more things to get done and it will all finally be finished. I will post some before and after pictures when it is all done.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Monday!

The Appt....

Gibson had an evaluation with a doctor in Lubbock this past Friday. The good news is that we got some answers, and some suggestions on how to work with him. The doctor diagnosed him with PDD (or Pervasive Developmental Disorder), it is on the Autism Spectrum but in the VERY high functioning side. Both the doctor who evaluated him, and a speech/developmental therapist (who also evaluated him) think that with continued speech therapy as well as adding some behavioral and occupational therapies will help Gibson immensely. It is going to be a long and hard process, but we are in it for the long haul. The goal is to have Gibson at age level developmentally by kindergarten so he is working at the same level as all the other kids.
We still plan on seeing a doctor in OKC to get her opinion as well, but this appt hasn't even been scheduled yet due to the abundance of people wanting to go see her.
I will update more later on what we are doing and anything new that we find out.

On another note we had a ton of fun in Texas this weekend... but I forgot to get my camera out of the car the entire trip. Thursday night was the first night we stayed in a hotel with the kiddos... let me just say it was an experience! Gibson didn't fall asleep until 1:30am and we had to wake up to get Chad off to Aunt Casey's house by 7:30am so we were up by 6:00am. Needless to say it was a short night and a long day. We went to the doctor in Lubbock, then had lunch with Aunt Casey, Uncle Rick, and cousin Evan. Then it was off to Seminole where we saw the speech and development therapist. After that appt we went to Granci and Papa's (Gerod's parents) for the night. Saturday morning we woke up and drove to Lubbock, where we had ROSA's (a favorite of Gerod and mine) and we all attended cousin Taylor's 6th birthday. After the party we drove another 2 hours to Midland were we had Aunt Jenni's birthday dinner. This morning we woke up and ate breakfast with Gigi, Papa and cousin Jaxon and then had lunch at Texas Burger with everyone plus Aunt Jenni and Uncle Steven... then we drove home! After almost 7 LONG hours in the car we are finally home. Gibson is already passed out in bed, and Chad is chatting up a storm and rolling all over the living room. Hopefully we will head to bed soon to rest up after the very long weekend!!

Chad is 7 months old!!

My littlest man is 7 months old today! I cant believe how quickly time is flying.

At 7 months Chad is:

• sitting up on his own
• rolling over
• scooting
• getting into the crawling position occasionally
• eating lots and lots of baby food (can you tell?)
• sleeping well

Chad still doesn't have any teeth but last night he woke up screaming two or three times and we don't know if he might finally be teething or not. He is working on crawling, but even though he isn't crawling doesn't mean he isn't mobile. He is all over the place when you lay him on the floor to play. Chad LOVES his big brother Gibson and watches him all the time.

We don't go back to the doctor till 9 months. We went about 2 weeks ago for his 6 month checkup and he was weighing 19lbs 13oz and was 27 in long. He is quite a bit larger than Gibson was at this age.

Speaking of Gibson we are doing better each and every day with our speech, and we plan on heading to Texas tomorrow for an evaluation with a doctor first thing Friday morning. We pray that we can get some more answers for his speech delay and behavior problems. Hopefully the doctor will be able to provide some of those answers.

Happy Wednesday!