Eight is Great

Devin is eight months old today. 

Sheesh, all these months come too quick. And in case you were getting sick of hearing that Devin has survived another month, after he's a year old I will not continue to mark the monthly milestones, it will be my attempt to be a little less annoying.

ANYWAY. The monkey is eight months and full of energy. Rich and I think he's grown up a bit more in the past weeks. Every night I tell Rich how interesting it is to just watch Devin throughout the day. And I'm being honest. Just watching him figure out how to move his hands a certain way, or make a certain noise, or to realize how much his voice will echo if he's under the desk, is fascinating. It's like I can see the little wheels turning in his mind. And since he is irresistibly cute while discovering the world around him, I'm pretty much useless during the day. 

The wee one was so happy to learn that he had surpassed his seven-month self to become the eighth-month version of himself, that he decided to sprout another tooth. I can hardly wait to see how he decides to celebrate his ninth month birthday.

Memories to keep from this age:

*HE SAYS 'MAMA'! Now, he doesn't know he's saying it in reference to me, but I do not care. I pretend that he knows. And that's all that's important. After Devin goes off on a "Mama" babble, Rich tries to get him to say "Dada," which just makes Devin say "Mama" all the more. Rich does not enjoy this. Someday Sweetheart, someday!

Let's ignore the fact that I am not wearing makeup and that I have my work clothes on. It was a Saturday. We were taking a break from doing chores.

 

*He's down to two naps a day. He made the transition on his own (at about 7.5 months). One day he just started taking a shorter third nap, and then the next day he just cried and cried when I put him down for the third nap, so it was time. Some nights it's still hard for him to handle life with only two naps, but we're getting good at distracting him until bedtime.

*He's really fast at crawling now (still a body crawl). He likes to roam around the whole great room area. He does not like it when he backs himself into the narrow space between the piano and the wall. He does like laying under the desk area in the kitchen and yelling to hear himself echo. 

*The kid is beyond ticklish. He really has no hope of getting through life without giggling at least half the time. And since we, as parents, can't get enough of his baby laugh, we tickle him mercilessly. He also loves to be kissed. And I'm happy to oblige. All. Day. Long. I'd rather err on the side of overabundance.

He says, "This lady snorgles me way too much."

*He won't take a bottle anymore. This does not make me happy. Apparently we weren't giving him a bottle as often as we thought. He'll take the sippy cup, and actually knew exactly what to do with it when I gave it to him (the tipping is obviously still a skill to be learned), but I haven't found the right sippy cup, so though he'll drink from it, he can't drink from it well enough to have it be used for a full feeding. This makes Young Women nights really fun for Rich. Operation Sippy Cup is number one priority though, as Rich and I would like to be able to have a night out for our anniversary.

*He loves touch and feel books, and books that have pop-outs. Story time in the morning is one of my most favorite times because we can just cuddle together and enjoy books! We need to get more books though, as I have all of the board books memorized, and let's be honest, story time is just as much for me as it is for Devin. I need some variety.

*We weighed and measured him tonight just to see how much he's grown the past two months because I feel like he gets chubbier every day. And it's true, he's chubbing right up! 

So, the wee one is eight months, and he's pretty happy about that.

Friday Night Date: The Birds

After going to Bodega Bay we put The Birds on our Netflix queue so we could understand all those landmarks we had visited on our trip. Once it came up in our queue we were a little preoccupied (as we still are) with Prison Break, so it sat on the counter for a few weeks. I'm sure the Netflix people were wondering why in the world someone would keep The Birds for nearly 3 weeks. (Because I am me, I think of things like this. I mean, there are probably no "Netflix people," but I still must wonder what they are thinking about us keeping "their" movie.)

We finally decided to have our Friday night date night centered around The Birds this weekend. I had a whole plan: We would eat some bird (chicken), make sugar cookies into the shape of birds, and then eat them while watching The Birds. Let's see how this all turned out.

Eat bird: We actually had this dinner the weekend before last when we were first planning on watching the movie. But we got started late and again, our desire to watch Prison Break won us over. So on the official Birds night, we ate some Totino's pizza.

Make bird-shaped sugar cookies: I was able to get the world's best sugar cookie recipe from Melinda. I really don't like sugar cookies all that much, but I love Melinda's sugar cookies. Rich and I whipped up the dough, only to discover this recipe probably wasn't the greatest for rolling out, so we tried to make the bird-shaped cookies, but instead got 12 round cookies.

Doesn't he look thrilled to attempt to make bird-shaped cookies?
By this time we were sick from eating so much dough, that we saved the rest of the dough for Saturday, when once again, we made round cookies. So, no bird-shaped cookies were eaten, but the round cookies were still delicious.

Watch The Birds: Rich was pleasantly surprised that the movie was in color. He was unpleasantly surprised to learn there was no background music. We aren't certain if people were ever afraid of this movie, or if it was just a creepy thing to think that birds would peck out your eyes. At any rate, the movie wasn't great. We feel our Bodega trip was completed by watching the movie, but we will probably never, ever watch this again.

Even though the movie was lame, we still like each other after watching it, so the date night was a success.

10 Toeses

Rich started counting Devin's toes one night. Which the wee one found to be hilarious. 

Every countdown he's amazed to learn he still has 10 toes.

We're Talking About Devin Here

Don't think that just because I haven't posted anything about Devin for a week that he has suddenly become un-cute. On the contrary, he's gotten cuter than conceivably possible.

I mean, one day, he wore shoes. And overalls. And my heart melted. 

He's pushed beyond his wiggly puppyness to become a cute little bug on the rug, scooching around and around.

 The video is long. And it was taken earlier last week, he's much faster now.

Another day, while I was doing applesauce, he cooked along with me. 

I've honestly been waiting for the day when he could hang out in the kitchen playing with everyday things. For some reason I just had this picture in my head of this happening, and Devin delivered the Kodak moment perfectly. 

 He also highlighted the fact that I hadn't swept the floor in a few days. That situation was remedied so future kitchen gatherings won't result in him covered in dust or food bits. Clean people.

And what's that? A smile? 

 The seriousness has waned a bit. He's figured out that when the camera comes out he should cheese automatically. 

 The only problem is that if you miss the first cheese he flashes, you're out of luck, because thereafter the seriousfaceness is back. 

Sometimes the cheesiness gets pretty intense.

Notice the hyperflexed neck muscles. 

After the cheeser, he then stares at you with a look of almost-annoyance. 

Where he says, "Stop with the camera. I gave you one smile. That is all."

While we were in Utah he started pursing his lips and snorting. 

And even when he's showing us this face,

we think he's handsome.

He's also learned how to make sweet music. Let me tell you, the house echoes wonderfully with the banging of the piano.

He's keeping things interesting around here by constantly finding ways for us to love him more. 

Who knew that going to get him in the morning could make you so happy? 

Hanging out with him really is the best thing to ever happen to my days.

Rodent Predator

I don't really want to post a picture of a gross dead bat on the blog, but Rich was pretty devastated when I told him I didn't want to blog about his AMAZING feat of killing the bat that's been roosting on our front porch. 

SO. Because I love my husband (see previous post), today we are discussing the killing of the bat. And don't worry, totally legal to kill a bat in California if it's causing damage to your house. Which it totally was. I mean, it was TOUCHING our house. And leaving SURPRISES on the front stoop. We could have died from RABIES. It really needed to go. 

We tried leaving the light on all night long for 2 weeks like the pest control man suggested. We thought this had done the trick, but the bat was just pretending. He came back when we reverted to just leaving the light on for just a few hours. And then last night happened. When I opened the door to see if he'd been back (easy to tell because of the surprises), Rich scared the living daylights out of me when he said IT WAS RIGHT THERE. And so it was. It was right there hanging on the house, not caring one bit that the light was on. 

Rich went into full-on kill mode. I think he may have been optimistic about his abilities to kill the bat with his pellet gun as we've been watching a lot of Prison Break. At any rate, the pellet gun was located. It was pumped. The door was slowly opened (by me, after some prodding to be part of the adventure), and the trigger was pulled. But the safety was on. SO. The door was slowly shut. We reset and re-prepared mentally. I then opened the door again, Rich took aim, and my dear sweet husband KILLED THE BAT. With one shot. He can build closets AND kill rodents. 

He takes his job of protecting this family very seriously. 

I'm not going to lie, the thought of rabies terrifies me. I mean, we all know how Old Yeller ends. I'll keep you posted if the pellet gun needs to be used in any other way. For now though, the bat is dead, Rich will be cleaning the front step tonight, and we will hope that no other bats decide to roost on our porch.

Closet Talk

You never realize how much you need a closet until it's not there. And then its absence is acutely felt.

For where am I to hang my clothes? Where am I expected to put my socks (no dressers either, remember)? And where am I to precariously stack my many sweaters? 

Rich had asked me back in April what my dream closet would look like. I paused for a moment and decided I had no dream closet. I'd never given the closet much thought. You just expect it to be there. And if you move into a house, you just take the closet you are given. However, for some odd reason the people who lived here before took all the closet bits with them.

I know not why. But this fact made our dream closet discussion possible. 

After telling Rich I had no dream closet, and that perhaps my only request would be shelves to accompany the hanging rod, he proceeded to tell me that he had a dream closet for me. Meaning he'd designed an entire walk-in closet based on my needs (i.e., shoes). He later drew me a picture. He thinks of these things because he loves me. Which makes me love him even more. So when he makes a comment like "My dream for you is. . . ," swooning ensues.

We didn't build the walk-in closet when we first moved in because it would cost too much. Plus there was no time. Rich got a regular shelf and rod up in the other three bedrooms, so we've been keeping our hanging clothes in the other rooms. How convenient has this been? Very. 

While I was gone to Utah, Rich decided to surprise me by building our walk-in closet. He designed the layout and then cut everything out and put it all together all by himself. He's great. And though, it may not be exactly the dream closet he once envisioned for me, it's pretty dang close. 

 And there are shelves and hanging rods, so life is good. 

 I sure do love that closet-building man of mine.

Utah Adventure

 Devin and I left Rich all by his lonesome and traveled to Utah for nearly two weeks. This was Devin's introduction to camping. Let's just roll all negative comments into this: Devin would never have survived as a pioneer. He gasps indignantly at slight breezes. The sun in his eyes is more than he can handle. Being covered up by a blanket during pouring rain is upsetting. And sleeping in a tent is not on his happiness list, as there is fresh air in there and animals are making noise. BUT. We still had fun. Devin already loves Tropic and Pine Lake. And though he may have acted ambivalent about his initiation to 4-wheeling, I can tell he's dying to go for a ride again next summer.

 He says, "I'm opening my eyes this wide bc I'm in awe of the 4-wheeling fun."

 Addie is very good at watching after the babies. Devin never had to be alone!

 As you can see, this kid is EXCITED about nature.

 He's almost smiling here, which pretty much demonstrates his personality at Pine Lake.

The night of the pouring rain was cold, cold. So I bundled the wee one up to the point of bursting out of his sleep sack. He also has socks over his hands, he looks so fancy. And comfortable.

But he must have stayed warm! As he was happy the next morning and hadn't moved at all, which is really unusual. So either he couldn't move because of all the layers, or he was just so nice and cozy that he had no desire to move. 

Every kid has to have their first bath at Pine Lake. Devin was most interested in sucking on the washcloth.

"What's that?" he says. "We're going back to Tropic? Thrilled beyond belief!"

 Though the leaving didn't happen soon enough apparently, because shortly after this picture he started crying. Good thing cousin Cooper was there to walk him around the campsite and help him fall asleep!

He does like you Grandma, promise. This was right after he heard Rich's voice from a video on the camera. Devin is clearly not impressed that Rich wasn't actually there.

This trip meant my family's annual get together, the Jolley family reunion, and a Tropic 24th of July celebration all in one week. 

Devin was pretty impressed by the parade.

Favorite part of the picture: Canon looking directly into his bag. He's probably searching for that dark Milky Way I stole traded him for.

 Devin is my kind of kid. He didn't get freaked out by the fireworks up at Ruby's. The ones that boom right overhead and echo down the canyon. He just stared with wondering awe. He rocks.

Upon returning to Grandma and Grandpa's house, Devin was back to his normal, seriousfaceness self.

 He likes the roof overhead.

 

Grandpa was his best playmate!

We also got to see Grandma and Grandpa Britton for a bit. Too bad Devin was ready for bed and a little fussy their whole visit.

We were able to see some friends and run some errands that are either too hard in California or too expensive. But eventually we had to head home to California.

Devin and I were both most excited to get back to Rich. Devin would open his eyes really wide and just start babbling whenever he heard Rich's voice over the speaker phone or saw his picture. This kid loves his daddy. And really, I don't blame him. The dad is an integral part of this family. And being away from him for nearly two weeks just made us that much happier that we get to be with him forever. So, Utah. We love you, but we love Rich more.

 Reunited!

All in all it was a great trip. Devin had his introduction to all the wonders of southern Utah, and we got to see some family and friends we've been missing!