Jane at 9 months

Jane is 9 months old today. Time sure flies! She has changed so much this last month. We are still so in love with her and just love that she is here and a part of our family.
Here is what Jane is up to:
*Crawling (not so good on all 4's yet but in the next week I'm sure she will be.
*Scooting around everywhere-she has figured out that she can leave the family room now which makes my days a little busier.
*Loves to try to play with my computer cord or anything plugged in she can get.
*Babbling
*Gets so excited when she see's someone she recognizes
*Laughs like crazy at Dawson
*Still refuses to eat much of any food and usually still just 4oz of formula every couple of hours. I did give her an 8oz bottle in hopes that she will eat more but it hasn't worked so far.
*Sits up so well on her own.
*Loves playing with all toys-her recent favorites are anything that belongs to Dawson or isn't pink and purple.
*Will watch a cartoon on TV
*Loves to be in the water-bath, pool, lake, etc.
*Still sleeps all night long-9:30-7 usually.
*Wants to have a blanket over her face when she sleeps.
*Has started taking at least one nap for an hour or longer a day as well as her short cat naps.
*Wants to be rocked to sleep-usually be me.
*No Doctor's Appt. this month so not sure how big she is but she is definitely getting bigger. She is almost out of her 6-9 month clothing and size 2 diapers.

I'm sure there is more that has changed or that she is doing. She is changing every single day and she has a mellow yet stubborn personality.

Josie Ann Eldridge is here

My newest niece, Josie Ann, was born August 17th at 11:31pm. She was 7lbs 6oz and 19.5in long. I can't wait to go meet her! She looks absolutely perfect and gorgeous. Way to go Lori and Jayson (and big sister, Iris!)

A 3rd Grader?

I can't believe I have a 3rd grader. Dawson started school on Monday. He LOVES his teacher and really does love school. I think we lucked out again and got another awesome teacher. He just hates waking up so early for school. If school was from 9:30-3 it would be perfect for him. This year he decided that it was embarrassing for him to be walked up on the first day of school. He insisted on just being dropped off. I was a little sad about it-but the fact that his dad was taking him made it a little easier. He did let me pick him up from school so that he wouldn't have to ride the bus. I only have one picture of him on the first day of school and it's still currently on my phone so I won't be posting it :(
We got his STAR test results back from last year. I was pleasantly surprised. He only missed 2 questions on the Math portion-out of the 5 categories he had 100% in 3 of them. On the English portion he did pretty well also. He had one 100% on one of the 5 categories. He was also placed at a reading level 4.

End of Summer Vacation-Santa Cruz/Aptos

Our last summer trip was spent down in the Santa Cruz area. We went with Brad's parents and sister's family. On the drive down we stopped and visited the Jelly Belly Factory for lunch. The line for the tour was over an hour long so we opted out of that. The kids were totally okay with it. We stayed at a house a few blocks from the beach in Aptos. All the kids had a blast playing at the beach. The first day we were there we drove into Monterey to visit the Aquarium. We had lunch there and stopped for some yummy cookies at the Nestle Toll House Shop. The kids went to the beach that night. The coolest thing about this beach were that deals and dolphins were swimming maybe 20-30feet from the shore line. The following day we woke up and went out for breakfast, went strawberry picking (Jane slept through that part), went to the boardwalk-the kids had a BLAST (minus the first ride Dawson had to go on and freaked out about.) Then that evening we went and hung out at Capitola beach and had pizza. The day after that we went on a bike ride through the redwood forest. Beach cruisers are not made for semi graveling roads in the redwoods! Jane enjoyed the bike ride on her new seat that is on my bike. The kids spent the afternoon at the beach once again. It was pretty chilly but Jane had a pop up shade tent and I laid in there with her and stayed out of the cold wind so it wasn't too bad. Our last day there we went to Farmer's Market at Cabrillo College, went shopping, stopped for some pretty yummy cupcakes, and ended the day at the beach again. The kids loved coming back from the beach and warming up in the hot tub at the rental house. We had a really nice time and it was a great get a away before coming back and getting ready for school to start.