10 Months Old and Moving Forward!

Kyler is 10 months old today!! It's hard to believe that in just two quick months he will be one year old! We have had a pretty good month here at the Blanchard's. One of Kyler's firsts for the month was his first night away from mom and dad. Erik and I went to Minneapolis at the end of January to a Song of Solomon conference that Mark Driscoll put on. It was a great weekend and if you are ever looking for someone to listen to I highly recommend Mark Driscoll, he is the lead pastor of Mars Hill Church out in Seattle, WA. Kyler spent the night at my (Ashley's) parents house. I think it went pretty well (from what they said) but I'm not sure how much sleep he got...he was a pretty tired little boy on Sunday. :) Since we had to be gone, Kyler had to learn how to take a bottle. I was a little nervous about this because he had NEVER had one, and I had heard that some babies refuse to take one, but Kyler did great! Erik gave him one on Thursday night and he took it like a champ. It had breast milk of course, but I was very glad it went so well.

I wouldn't say that Kyler is exactly crawling yet, but he is definitely moving forward and can get where he wants to go. He does this by getting up on all fours and then sort of diving forward and then repeating this process-which he has gotten quite good at. He is SO CLOSE to crawling, he will get up on all fours and rock back and fourth like he's ready to take off, but then just lays back down on his belly. Kyler has also figured out how to go from sitting on the floor to down on his belly so he can get where he wants to.

He continues to do very well eating. He definitely has his favorite foods (yogurt and pears) but we are going to work on expanding his horizons. :) He has started to take less of an interest in nursing after he eats "real" food, so I'm hoping that this is an indication that weaning will go pretty well.

I think that's all for now...enjoy the pictures of our little guy, I think he's starting to look more and more like a little boy and not so much a baby any more!!

I'm 10 months old today!!

I LOVE yogurt!

Celebrating Mommy's birthday!

Heading to the bath tub!

Big boy!

Working on crawling... his own style :)

This is a little better... :)

If you look close you can see his two pearly whites!

I'm going to get you! (Doesn't everyone take a bat with them to dinner?)

Ahhhhhhhh!

Christmas #2 and #3/Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we celebrated Christmas two times. In the morning we got up and headed over to Ashley's parents house to have Christmas with Ashley's parents and brother. We had a great time with many laughs and again were very blessed with the presents that we all received. Some of Kyler's favorites were his mirror, basketball hoop, and camouflage fleece jacket. After presents, Ashley's mom made brunch for all of us, Kyler took a nap and then we just hung out for a while. Around 3:00, we then headed up to Waverly to Ashley's cousin's house to have Christmas #3 with Ashley's Mom's side of the family. This celebration was a little more crazy as there were five kids under the age of 8 there! Next year Kyler will be in on the craziness as well! All together there were 22 of us there to celebrate-from Ashley's grandma who just turned 94 down to Kyler, 8 months-and four generations of the Arthur family. Overall, we had a busy but great Christmas Day and returned home around 8:30 pm. Can't wait for next year when Kyler is a little bigger and will be able to understand Christmas even more! :)

Hmmm....I wonder how I can get that open...

Waiting patiently :)

Looking in his stocking

Kyler's new camo fleece!

Opening the basketball hoop

My new Mad Bomber hat!! :)

Uncle Ben and I match!!!

Playing with Kyler's new basketball hoop

Playing with tissue paper at Christmas #3

Oooooh, it's a car and a walker from Great Aunt Mimi!

9 Months Old!

Kyler is 9 months old today! He has been doing pretty well this past month. We are still working on and trying solid foods. Kyler still doesn't really like any veggies...we will keep working on that! He loves pears-those are his favorite-and applesauce most of the time. He just started eating yogurt and cheese and loves both of those, so that is giving us some variety. One of Kyler's "firsts" this month is that he has two teeth! They are sticking up just a little ways, not all the way up yet. One broke through his gums right around Christmas and the other came around New Years. Kyler still loves to babble and talk and is definitely showing more emotion when he talks now. He still isn't crawling yet...we are working on that. He likes to get up on all fours for a few seconds and then goes back down to his belly. He has figured out how to get around pretty well on his belly and often times will spin all the way around to get something. The other thing he has really started to do this month is clap. He claps lots of times during the day for various reasons. Well I think that's all for now, maybe next month he'll be crawling?

Snoozing with Dad

Attempting to climb out of the bath...

All ready for Christmas!

Celebrating Great-Grandma's 94th birthday with Ashley's cousin's little boy Jack!

Playing in his swing

Getting attacked by his BIG puppy from Aunt Leah and David

Playing XBox with Dad (notice his controller is not attached to anything...) :)

Working on crawling

Clapping and getting ready for the bath

More clapping! :)

Christmas #1 and Christmas Eve

Our first Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve. We celebrated with Erik's family at his Mom and Dad's house. Erik had to work in the morning and then we headed over around noon for lunch and presents. This was Kyler's first celebration and he did quite well! He did get tired towards the end though as we were past his nap time. All three of us were very blessed by the gifts we received. Kyler opened two really big packages-one was a huge stuffed dog and the other was a big boy car seat!! After we opened presents at Erik's mom and dad's, we came home so Kyler could nap and Erik and I could get ready for church. As soon as we were done, we went back to Erik's parent's house for a quick dinner and then headed to church at 7:00. It has been neat the past few years that both Erik's parents and my parents come to church with us on Christmas Eve, I hope this tradition can continue! After church we then headed to my (Ashley's) parent's house for homemade pie-yum!! My mom has been making pie to have after church for a long as I can remember, it's definitely one of my favorite parts of Christmas Eve! Next year I'm sure Kyler will appreciate this tradition a little more. :) We then headed home so Kyler could take a bath and get to bed so he could be ready for Christmas #2 and #3 the next day. Below are some pictures from Christmas Eve!

Erik opening his big present!

Kyler opening his first present.

Enjoying the ribbon... :)

Me opening one of Kyler's big presents...

This is what was inside!! :)

Getting sleepy...

Hanging out with Aunt Leah while she shows Kyler her computer :)

Hmmm...Daddy's tie looks interesting...

Our family on Christmas Eve at Ashley's parents house.

Merry Christmas!!

Our Latest "Little" House Project

This post is long overdue, but I was waiting until Erik finished our front steps. Well the snow few before he could finish the railing, so I am going to go ahead and do it now. I'll have to post a picture of the finished railing this spring! This fall we embarked on the "little" project of putting new siding on our house. We knew that it would need to be done at some point as the paint was peeling off of the siding and it didn't look very nice; however, the city of Cedar Falls helped "encourage" us to do it sooner than we had planned. :) You see, since we live in the College Hill Neighborhood District, there are codes that have been put in place to prevent slum lords from letting their rental properties deteriorate. Well, because we live in this area, even though we are not a rental property, the rules still apply to us. We had to either paint or re-side our house or we would be fined by the city. Well after some conversations with some people, in particular my Uncle Nick (who is a retired industrial tech teacher) we decided that because the siding is probably the original from when the house was built and would need to be re-painted every couple of years, to completely re-do the siding. Since cost was an issue for us, we decided to go ahead and do it ourselves, with the help of our families and my wonderful Uncle Nick. We had insulation blown into the walls the Friday before we tore off all of the siding, and let me tell you, I can definitely tell we did that with this -10 degree weather!! Our house is so much warmer this winter! It took us a little over two weeks to tear the siding off, put fanfold up, tape it, and put the siding on. It is not as hard as you would think it would be and Erik really enjoyed doing the siding work himself. We were so blessed to have my Uncle Nick help us out!! He was here every day-unless it was raining-for those two weeks!! We were also very thankful for my Uncle Roger who drove his old pickup truck down here the day we tore off all of the siding. He then let us load it all up in his truck and he took it back to the farm to his burn pile for us, wow, it was great to get rid of it all so easily!!! Here are some pictures from the project! Thanks SO MUCH again to our families and my awesome Uncle Nick and Uncle Roger!

The house before...

Erik ripping off siding from the south side of our house.

My dad and Erik ripping off more siding.

Erik's mom and dad (Craig and Deb) helping tear off siding.

My brother, Ben, and my mom, Nadene, working on the north side.

Uncle Nick and Uncle Roger working on the top dormer.

Putting siding on the north side! This is the first side we did!

Uncle Nick and Erik finishing up the back dormer, wow that was high up! :)

The back all done!!

Working on the front.

Erik, my dad, and Uncle Nick working on the front.

Erik working on our front landing/stairs! He did this all by himself! Way to go!!

All done!!! (Almost....we have to finish the railing down the stairs!)