Peter // 8 Months

This has been such a big month for Peter! This month he started officially crawling, AND he has two tiny teeth coming in on the bottom. He is now eating a bunch of solid food: bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, mango, and peaches. He will not touch avocado, and I don't blame him. :P He's outgrown all his 6-month stuff, and some of the 9-month stuff. So he's wearing 9-12 months size and I'm scrambling to find stuff to keep him cool and happy. 

As you can see from the picture above, he just graduated from his (way too small) bath chair to his inflatable ducky tub! This thing is awesome and Peter loves it! Bath time is now splash time as well. :) This month he started his first mimicking thing: he'll start slapping the table if we do. :P (Yeah, I know. So productive and educational.) The magic of Sinead O'Connor's "Only You" no longer works when he's inconsolable. :( Now he likes Birdy's "All You Never Say." Whatever. If it makes him stop crying.

We just booked our anniversary trip to Sanibel Island, FL - where we honeymooned - and we're bringing Peter with us! It'll be his second time in Florida, and we are super excited to be able to show him the very unit we rented three years ago. So much fun ahead!

more Peter pics

Two of our friends captured these pictures on their nice cameras. I'm always thankful for higher resolution pics of my little guy! ;P

Laura's Shower

A few weeks ago, my best friend Meghan and I had the honor of hosting our best friend Laura's wedding shower. It was my first time putting something that big together, so I definitely learned a lot about list-making and organization, but it was SO fun to work with Meghan and pull it off. Pardon the phone quality (or lack of). I was just glad I remembered to get a couple pics before it was all over.

Thank God for Pinterest. 'S all I'm gonna say. 

I also learned a lot about burlap. A lot. For instance, did you know that burlap stinks??? Or that it makes you itchy? Or that it shreds and keeps on shredding if you let it? And that it's barely ironable? 

She got a LOT more than that, I promise. 

Best friends for 20+ years! 

Brookfield Zoo

For Peter's Christmas present, my mom gave us an Unlimited Family Membership to the Brookfield Zoo. Yesterday was the first day we got out there, and we were so glad the weather was perfect! It was Peter's first zoo trip, and even though he fell asleep half-way through, I think it was still a pretty momentous occasion. :)

Sibling Photoshoot

For Father's Day, my dad requested we kids give him a big canvas of a pic of all of us. This prompted us to schedule a photoshoot with one of our friends so we could choose from some actually nice photos. Here are several of my faves! A big thank-you to Faith Linell Photography!

My thoughts at this moment: "Oh my word oh my word oh my word my hand is in an ant pile!!!"

Char couldn't stay serious to save her life.

What's a professional photoshoot without a dead gosling?

Peter and dinner

Instagram unfortunately has kind of taken the place of my blog. It's just so easy to post straight from my phone without having to come up with, you know, a whole blog post. But I want to try to share everything here as well so at least those of you that faithfully read this can stay up-to-date. ;)

Here is a picture of Peter that I took last night. I was feeding him pears and had looked down to get another spoonful, and out of the corner of my eye I see his face break into the biggest grin I've seen in a while. He makes me laugh with his random and unabashed joy. :)

And another, because that face.

And this is the dinner I made last night, pre-cooking. ;) I have been making a lot of new recipes lately so I feel a cooking post coming soon, but I loved that all the color in my crockpot got captured on my phone.