A VERY busy February

This month has flown by so quickly. Jim was gone for two weeks this month for work... And then I had a MTU recruiting trip for work the week of February 18th. So I am going to try and catch up.

On February 13th I arrived at daycare to pick up the little man. To my surprise he crawled right on over to me as soon as he saw me through the window... Let me tell you. That has been by far the GREATEST mom moment. The rest of the week Josh crawled and crawled. He went thoroughly through each room and pointed out "non baby friendly" areas. How he found some of the things is beyond me.

That weekend my friend Kelly and her little guy Mavorick came over for lunch and play time. Then that night was girls night out! I dropped Hilo and Josh off at the Simon's house. Mandy and I met up with Kristen and Adam (I know a guy, but we made him act like a girl). We had an awesome time playing darts, pool, and dancing. It was pretty funny to see people trying to figure out what one guy was doing with 3 married women. Ah well.

The next day was full of adventures. We have literally been pounded with snow... and after being up at MTU last week, I can officially confirm that we have more snow in our front yard than the sorority house does up in Houghton. Well Sunday the 17th was no exception. We first got some fantastic rain with a temp of 28 degrees. After the first attempt to get home ended with Mandy and I safely in the ditch... we opted to wait a few more hours. Next we called the tow truck... got the envoy out of the ditch... and made the trek to my house. We grabbed stuff to spend the night as the 7 mile drive took over an hour. We finally made it to Mandy's around 1pm... Poor Bob. He was in charge of a 3 year old, an 11 month old, a 9 month old, and two dogs. The snow continued all day... and Josh/Hilo/and I spent the night.

Monday I went up to Tech... and Josh went to the Simons for three nights. Hilo went to some other friends of ours. We of course hit up a few bars that night. Tuesday was the career fair. I was so sick of talking by about 2pm and started walking around checking out the other booths. Jenelle, Britta, and Mollie were up there for CAT. We made sure to get plans figured out for the evening. Some of us went cross country skiing, then hit up dinner, and then the bars. That was a rough one. We were out till at least 1:30am. Then up on Wednesday for a full day of onsite interviews. I feel bad for my first candidate... because I was definitely not bringing my A game. After the 9 interviews... we headed to the "Ambo" for fishbowls and pizza with the co-ops. It was a good turnout and we all enjoyed the fishbowls. ("ambo" is the new name for the ambassador... don't really like it... but i was doing anything I could to fit in with the college kids). We went to KBC to listen to Gary (courtesy of CAT), then the Dog, then the DT. That night we lost one of our recruiters twice. We were able to find him eventually... but don't think he'll be drinking any time soon. He is a recent MTU grad who insisted on playing drinking games. No one was interested so he attempted to play with some locals at the bar. Never a good idea!

Josh did fantastic with the Simons and I wasn't sure they were going to bring Hilo back. Ended the very crazy week with my parents coming into town and me heading to Jacksonville to meet up with Jim, Chris and Elaine, and Mark and Tara. A very short weekend but a really nice escape from the endless snow!

Vote for Josh

So I know... mom entering their baby into a photo contest. But this photo has been passed around my office, my parents, my in-laws offices... and not too mention Mandy's family and friends. And everyone keeps saying that we should enter it into a contest... so that is what I did.

If you are up for voting... here is the link!

https://www.greatamericanphotocontest.com/voter1/index_c.aspx?&referid=RaFKobe3&p=352434&x=.jpeg

9 Months Old...

This week Josh is officially 9 months old! He had his checkup also this week and is weighing in at 18 lbs 12 oz (21%), height is 27.5" (25%), and head circumference 46 cm (71%).

He is army crawling when he REALLY wants something like his pacifier or the dog toys. He pulls himself up on the coffee table and walks around it and to and from the couches which require him to let go for a step. He tries letting go of your hands every once in a while and can stand for about 15-30 seconds without holding on to someone or thing. He says "mama", "baba", and "bob" clear as ever. Whenever we try to say new things like "dada" or "hilo" he looks up at us and yells "bob". So we refer to Jim as "bob" now. Maybe he misunderstood me calling Jim "Jimbo" for "Jimbob". If so - he is pretty smart. And that may explain his significantly large head! He loves the fact that he can stand in his crib now and sleeps very well at night.

As for food we are pretty much onto table foods now. He loves grilled cheese, any type of sandwich, tacos, spaghetti, and almost every type of dairy food out there. Yogurt is a favorite with his oat cereal, he loves eating cottage cheese, and the Kraft singles aren't too shabby either. It seems to take at least an hour for him to finish eating because he hasn't quite mastered the chewing part... but it gives us plenty of time to finish cooking our dinner or cleaning up. We give him a sippy cup with juice, water, and milk and he isn't really loving it. He will drink from it and you can tell he is getting some of it because it seems to pour out of his mouth... but he has more fun banging it on the tray and throwing it to the ground than drinking from it. We will continue working on it. He almost does better when we just hold our own cups up for him to sip out of. It tends to be messier - but he loves to drink from mom and dads cup!

So that is Josh at 9 months... Man time flies! We finally bought him a snowsuit because the weather has been so ridiculously cold... as you can see from the picture he doesn't move much once it is on!

Double Ear Infection...

Well last Tuesday Josh officially had his first ear infection... and to top it off it was a double ear infection. He didn't pull at his ears or have a fever... he just wasn't happy when he woke up. I brought him in and fully expected them to say - nothing was wrong or that he was gassy. But it was his ears. So we started the Amoxicillan... he loved it... I am not sure why he likes taking medicine so much... but baby gas x, tylenol, motrin, and antibiotics... he is almost excited when we give it to him. Hmmm...

After we got him home the ear pulling and fever began. He slept in his carseat almost the entire week... and seemed to get better. Then this week - it went the other direction. He started pulling at his ears again and having big time screaming fits at night. So back to the doctors we went. So we then started the second round of antibiotic. This one goes for 10 days. Looking forward to this ear infection stuff to be over with... I am tired!

This weekend we went to MN to celebrate my mom's birthday and attend my cousin Pat's wife Sarah's baby shower. It was the first time many of my dad's side would see Josh. So I was particularly excited for the shower. He was held the entire time and half the relatives say he looks like my dad and the other half kept saying "wow is he Jim". So again - I think he is a good mix of the two of us.

Saturday night we ordered in Chinese food which seems to be a tradition now for my mom's birthday. My grandparents came over and we had almost my entire family there. My baby brother Jack had Silverbell to go to - the High School Winter formal. This was also a fun part of the weekend. Since we are all so much older than him, I feel like he is missing out on some valuable sibling harrassment. Well we brought out all the stops when his girlfriend showed up. He tried to sneak downstairs for photos... but I made sure he went right into the family room so everyone could watch him take pictures. He was a good sport about it and so was his girlfriend. Times have changed though since we were in High school... did any of you have those itchy corsages... my brother gave Ashley a huge bouquet of flowers... Much better idea! And he didn't have to wear any flowers that were going to inevitably fall off or poke through your skin...

Another great weekend with family and friends!!