9 month photo shoot

We put these pictures on Facebook last night but I've gotten a few requests from family that doesn't have Facebook to please post them here asap. There were 35 edited pictures that we got and it is so hard to leave any out so sorry for the photo bomb. Wait, no I'm not.

Thanks again to my BFF Lindsey for these amazing pictures that we will forever treasure! How will we ever choose which ones to print and frame?

As of late

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I have been babysitting for some friends quite a bit here and there. My friend Ashley's little girl, Selah, is only about two and half weeks younger than Gray so keeping her kicks my butt and helps me to be even more thankful that I can tutor to make some extra money for us ;) My tutoring has picked up quite a bit and I am so thankful for God's provision with it. The money is very good for the amount of time spent and I really enjoying most of my students. Between tutoring and soccer, we don't get much time as a family of three during the week but it's such a small sacrifice to pay for me to be able to stay home with Gray. On Mondays and Wednesdays I leave the second Paul walks in the door and sometimes we are even exchanging a baby in the parking lot. Gray is usually in bed by the time I get home but some evenings I get home just in time to kiss him goodnight. Paul is doing skills coaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He is usually home for about two hours before he goes but it's normally during Gray's second nap. I have gotten another tutoring student that I don't have room for on Mondays and Wednesdays so I am now doing that on Thursdays during the time Paul is home between work and soccer. So it makes for some crazy days but we are VERY thankful for the income and it makes us cherish our weekend time even more.

Speaking of weekends, Paul and I got to have a date day/night on Saturday. My mom watched Gray and we went to the Easter celebration at our church and then out for sushi. We rarely eat out now that we are on one income but I babysat a few times last week so we used some of that money to justify it. And the place we went has buy two rolls get one free on Saturday nights (Oriental Cafe for all you sushi fans)! I am so thankful we have family around to love on Gray so that Paul and I can go out by ourselves sometimes. I think it is so important and I hope we will always make it a point to have time together, just the two of us.

Paul and I just joined the Y. I am ashamed to say I haven't worked out consistently since before I was pregnant. Last school year was so rough and I worked many 12 hour days and was already exhausted from growing a human inside of me so that was my excuse then. We've been talking about it for a while now and finally decided to use some money from our tax returns to pay half a year in advance. Also, the Y offers financial assistance for teachers (but not limited to teachers) and we got a 40% discount-holler!!! Although there isn't a Y very convenient to us, we needed somewhere with child care, and one that we could feel comfortable with. I also wanted to work out where there was a pool since my bad knee limits so much of what I can do. I am so excited and motivated to get in shape. I am a few months too late to try and get the bathing suit body I've wanted for years now (haha) but better late than never, right?! I work out mostly in the mornings but Paul and I will go together on Fridays and weekends. It's going to be so good for Gray to get even more social interaction and be without Mama for a little while most days.

Gray has added a new word to his vocabulary-"no!". A few days ago we thought he was saying this but it has become perfectly clear now. And he says it a lot. I really don't know what to think about it, not that it matters anyway. He has been hearing the word a lot because we are trying to teach him that there are certain things he can't do or touch. He definitely knows what the word means and a lot of times he is obedient to it. But yesterday he started saying it when he would get frustrated or mad about something. Today he was not really into his baby food (is becoming less and less interested in that and more interested in table foods that he can feed himself) and when I went to try to give him another bite, he swatted at the spoon and said "no!". He is too young for us to be able to explain to him that he doesn't get to talk that way to Mama and Daddy and clearly he has picked up the word from us. But it's still not what I want to hear every 5 seconds from our 9 month old. "Mama" would sound so much sweeter! I find myself praying more and more every day for wisdom on how to teach, correct and discipline, and for grace when we don't get it right. Have I mentioned that this whole parenting thing ain't no joke?

Lindsey took Gray's Easter/9 month pictures two Saturdays ago. Boy did we pick the right Saturday because it was 75 degrees and perfect outside. He was a complete ham as usual. I am hoping there are at least a few pictures in which he does not have an Easter egg in his mouth. I got a sneak peak last week...

I cannot WAIT to see the rest!!

On a completely random note, my car hit 200,000 miles this morning. Us Hicks believe in driving cars until the wheels fall off, especially Hondas, so we are hoping and praying for another 100 thousand miles.

I ordered Gray's first birthday shirt off of Etsy last night. That is about all I have done as far as planning goes. I have a lot of ideas but have yet to go into full planning mode. We are thinking we want to have a small, simple party for just family and a few close friends. I'd thought about reserving a room at church and having a big throw down but it's honestly just not what I want and we really can't and don't want to put a lot of money into a birthday party that Gray will never remember. Plus the more we thought about it the more we really wanted the party to be at our house and we can't accommodate many people at all. But I am excited to start working on the details of it and I just can't believe that soon we will be celebrating one year of life with our sweet miracle. God is so much better to us than we will ever deserve.

After tomorrow, Paul is off work until the following Monday. We aren't traveling this year for Easter and I am quite happy about that. Paul's parents are coming to spend a few days with us after Easter but it will be so nice not having to go anywhere. I can't wait to spend a solid week and a half with my two favorite boys!!! So even though it feels like winter outside, happy almost spring break!

The Crawler Class

Yesterday was Gray's first day in his new room at church. He has been crawling for a month and a half but his "promotion" was on hold until the walkers in the crawler class moved up. I was sad to see him move out of his first preschool room at church. I knew a lot of the people who worked in that room, including my mom, and they all loved Gray so much and I never worried about him while he was in there. Two of the ladies even told the preschool director that they didn't think he was ready to move up just so they could have him in there a little while longer. Sneaky, but sweet! I wish I would have gotten a few more pictures with his old teachers but here is one of them, a friend and fellow Kenya lover, Kerri.
There are more big kid toys in his new class and they even get to have a snack (Cheerios).
But the best part about it is the Bye Bye Buggy! How fun and cute is this?!
Gray's new room happens to be the room that Paul and I volunteer in once a month so we had the joy of being the Bye Bye Buggy drivers yesterday. Of course Gray's favorite part was socializing with everyone we passed on our ride. Doesn't he look so big here? I reckon the next time we blink he'll be the one driving and it won't be a Bye Bye Buggy.

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Gray's new favorite thing to do

You've got to choose your battles wisely, right?! :)

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9 months

Gray had his 9 month well check-up yesterday. Other than discovering he had a slight ear infection, everything looked great. I knew he wasn't feeling well yesterday when he took a three and a half hour nap and he had a slight fever when he woke up. The doctor said it really wasn't even infected yet but was red and full of fluid and was definitely going in that direction so he went ahead put him on antibiotics. Thankfully it was only in one ear and I am super thankful that he hasn't had any problems with his ears until now. We will hope and pray that this is his one and only ear infection.
More on Gray at 9 months...

Weight: 18 pounds, 7 ounces-30th percentile. I wasn't surprised that this was down a little from him hanging around the 50th percentile since birth. He lost about a pound when he was sick last month and I can tell he has slimmed down since he's become so active. His doctor wasn't at all concerned and said his growth curve still looked great.

Height: 29.5 inches-89th percentile! This also wasn't surprising. Baby boy is busting out of his 9 month clothes left and right and most all of his pants look like he is rockin some capris. He has grown two inches in the past three months and over seven inches since birth. I've heard that until children are two years old, their stats don't necessarily determine how big they will be as an adult so who knows if he'll stay this tall. But for now I am glad he didn't take after his mama in this department!

Head measurement: 45.7 centimeters-68th percentile. This is down a little from his 6 month stat of 82nd percentile.

While we're on growth info, Gray is still wearing size three diapers. He has grown out of most of his 9 month pants and pajamas because of the length but can still wear most 9 month shirts.

Milestones-All four top teeth are now in. On his 8 month post, I wrote that his third tooth had just come through. That was his top right lateral incisor tooth but shortly after that the other top three were popping through. Sometimes the way he smiles or laughs really shows them off and he looks SO different, more like a little boy than a little baby :(

Gray is a super fast crawler these days and continues to pull up on everything. He will now walk around something if he can hold on (the couch, his toy box, his crib). I'll be surprised if he isn't walking before his first birthday.

Playtime/Interests- Crawling around and pulling up on everything is his favorite thing to do these days. He loves to pull up on the book shelf and sling every single book onto the floor. I'm glad he has a lot of hand-me-down toys or else I'd be feeling like we've wasted a lot of money. He does love to pull up on his Leap Frog table but other than that, there aren't a lot of toys he is too interested in right now. Gray continues to be a very extroverted baby and gets wound up when anybody besides Mama and Daddy are around. He loves people and the more the merrier. He has NO stranger anxiety whatsoever, for now anyway. He is very curious and interested in any and every sight or thing that is new.

Language Development- No new words but he is definitely gaining some receptive language skills. He certainly knows his name and responds to it and has sometimes started obeying when told "no" or "no touch". We don't allow him to pull up on the back door because he loves to pull on the blinds and will have them torn up in no time. We also don't allow him to pull up on the TV stand for safety reasons. Last week he was headed to the blinds and I called his name a firm voice, he turned around and looked at me with those big, killer blue eyes and kept heading toward them. I said his name again followed by, "no touch" and he turned around and went to play with something else. That happened a few more times last week and now after about two weeks of us telling him no and even popping and flicking his little hand some (which breaks my heart), he has for the most part stopped even trying to go to the blinds and/or TV stand. We did take away our coffee table and a few other things that weren't safe, but for the most part we want to teach him what he can and can't touch and play with rather than baby proofing completely. It will definitely be the harder route to go, but I hope we can be at least somewhat successful with it because for several reasons I feel like it's what's best for him.

Eating habits- Nursing 4-5 times a day and still taking an 8 ounce pumped bottle at night. He is still eating solids three times a day and we are working on table food slowly but surely. Gray has some major issues with textures and is quite the drama king about gagging and spitting things out. We've tried Cheerios, bananas and some other fruits but other than Puffs, most everything is a challenge at this point. But even Puffs were rough the first couple of times he tried them, so we'll just keep working at it.

Sleeping habits- Gray is still going to bed at 7:00, 7:30 at the latest. He went through a period recently of waking up around 6:00/6:30. He slept until 8:00 on Sunday morning and 7:30 the past two mornings so I am hoping that means the time change will get his wake up time back to normal. He is still taking two naps a day, ranging anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours but most of the time it's exactly an hour and a half. Sometimes on Wednesdays and Sundays because of church he only gets one nap in and it honestly doesn't work out too bad. He is very flexible to just go right back to two naps even after those days mess things up a bit.

Temperament/Personality: We continue to feel so blessed by Gray's mood and personality. He is usually happy and is such a funny, silly and smart little guy already. He is so sweet and snuggly and still loves to be held, even as busy and mobile as he is. I'll take that for as long as I can get it! He has started wrapping his arms around our neck to give us a hug and it is one of the best feelings in the world. Every Sunday and Wednesday when I pick him up from the preschool class at church, the teachers go on and on about how good he was, how he never cries even when he's tired and the sweet little ladies talk about how they fight over who gets to hold him. I'm sure every parent gets told that but it's still so nice to hear. As sweet and happy as he is for the most part, he is also starting to show a little temper when things don't go his way. He makes noises with his mouth when he's mad and has started pushing things out of the way with his hands when he doesn't want them anymore (food, books, toys, etc.). He definitely has a strong personality but we hope and pray we can make that a good thing.

Here is our sweet love at 9 months...
Look how big he looks sitting in the chair in his room...

Tonight at the Hicks house

Little buddy has been pulling up on everything and standing in his crib for a couple of weeks now. Most of the time as soon as he stands up he cries because either he can't figure out how to get back down or he sees out and decides he wants out! He was doing this at night when we'd put him down and we would have to go in there several times to lay him back down. He hardly ever does it at nap time (until he wakes up from his nap) and had gotten to where he wasn't doing it at night anymore either. Well today that changed for both. We decided tonight that we'd try letting him cry it out because he seems to be able to know how to get himself back down when he pulls up on things downstairs during the day. We had been watching the monitor like a hawk but took a break for a minute to clean up from dinner and when we went to look at it again he was laying down and fast asleep! We were impressed and thought that didn't seem bad at all. Until 5 minutes later when he was standing up crying again. We stuck to the cry it out method since he'd just shown us he could get back down. But he persisted for almost an hour the next time. He was so tired that he finally laid his head on the crib railing and kept falling asleep for a few minutes until he'd wake up and cry again. It was pitiful but somewhat comical at the same time. Of course taking a picture of a picture on a monitor screen doesn't do anything justice, but it will be enough to make me remember this one day.






There is never a dull moment with our silly boy!

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Destruction

Destruction: (noun)

1) the act of destroying
2) the condition of being destroyed
3) the action or process of destroying
4) Gray Christopher Hicks


And it's only just begun!

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