Ethan - Month 9 Week 3

Here are my attempts to capture the official 9 month picture...as you can see, it was a complete disaster!

Crumpling his sign
He was insisting on standing...that is all he wants to do these days

I tried to tape the sign to his quilt in hopes that I could get at least one picture where he wasn't flinging the sign around...no dice - he just pulled up to grab the sign anyway

You don't really need to see that he's 9 months old, right?!

Ethan has gotten really proficient at pulling up this week. He insists on climbing all over us and wants to be standing whenever possible. He loves it! He is also making some serious strides towards crawling. He is pretty quick at making forward progress, but he doesn't quite have the exact positioning down yet. It's pretty funny to watch as he gets going, because his little legs are flailing behind him as he hurries forward. I wonder if he'll ever figure out true crawling, or if this is going to be as good as it gets until he starts walking.

Hanging out with Spot - she was surprisingly tolerant because she usually runs away and Ethan crawled right up to her and then wanted to stand and look out the window with her too

This past weekend Patrick and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary and I also got to celebrate my very first Mother's Day. It was a great weekend! Patrick and I went out to a fantastic dinner on Friday night while our neighbors watched Ethan for us (he was asleep the entire time we were gone) and it was so nice to get out baby-free. I love Ethan so very much but without having family in town it is rare that we are able to get away just the two of us. It was awesome getting to dress nicely again (outside of my mommy uniform of shorts and tee shirts) and get back out into the world again. Mother's Day was awesome - Patrick watched Ethan for an hour in the afternoon when he got home from work so I could take a nap. It was fabulous! Then we took Ethan to the park and came home to have ice cream cake - yum!

Ethan's first time sitting in a high chair away from home - he loved his new perspective!

We had so much fun having lunch out as a family of three (usually it's me and Ethan meeting a friend out, so it was fun for Ethan to have his Daddy with us too)

My first Mother's Day Enjoying some time with my boy :)

Since Patrick was off today we took Ethan to downtown Matthews and enjoyed the wonderful weather. We went to a park and had lunch outside. Ethan LOVES watching cars go by. It was so cute - his little head would be craned out to the left and he would follow the car all the way until his little head was hanging out of his stroller to the right. When a loud truck lumbered by, he was in heaven! His favorite toys are his cars and trains because he loves playing with all the wheels. He is such a boy!

Here are some video clips that I know I've been a total slacker about posting...I have a bunch more I need to organize and some tiny baby ones that I'll get together for a separate post sometime soon. In the interim, enjoy!

Attempting to crawl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDXc14_Tfb8
Meeting a new friend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwfMkyfFmr4
Hanging out in the crib: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op8bcpRgPxQ
Eating bananas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpKyUrfjvok
Playing with Faith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBphyThl1no