Sean and Gretchen throughout the years.. err.. year...

My good friend Corey, has a beautiful little girl Gretchen, who is just about a month older than Sean. I love getting together with Corey and her girls (she has an older daughter just a little older than Ian!) and taking pictures of the kids together. We all know how cooperative toddlers are at taking pictures, so good thing our little ones don't mind posing!

It's so cool to see the kids together as they grow! Here are Sean and Gretchen starting when Sean was just about a month old!

I look forward to seeing these two grow and interact and start playing together! Hopefully they won't beat on each other as much as their older siblings do :)

8 months old!

On January 30th, Sean turned 8 months old! At 8 months old, Sean:

*is sleeping from 7:00pm-6 or 6:30am
*is taking 3 solid meals/day
*is using his pincher grasp to pick up banana pieces, puffs, cheerios, peas, carrots and just about anything you put in front of him
*is working on a sippy cup but mainly just chewing it right now
*has 2 bottom teeth and 4 upper teeth
*taking two naps/day at about 1 1/4- 1 1/2 hours each
*crawling all over the place but especially darts for the entertainment center, dining room chairs and Penny in her bed
*pushing his push walker and alligator clacker
*wrecking havock at my work, leaving him with Betch now!
*wanting to play with all of Ian's toys
*plays peak-a-boo
*working on signing "more" and "milk"
*battles diaper changes like a rolling alligator
*no longer loves the song "Popcorn"
*screams like a banchee all day long
*says mama and dada (and sometimes actually seems to mean them)

He's roughly 20 pounds now, wearing a size 12months in jeans and 18 months in pretty much everything else. His eyes are turning brown and he's looking more and more like Ian every day.

Ice Skating

A few weeks back, my parents were in town visiting and we thought it would be fun to take Ian to the Janesville ice arena. I haven't been on the ice since I had Ian and I was excited to take him! The rink was pretty busy, lots of crazy tweens running around! I wore my own skates and we rented skates for Ian. It was a battle to get those on his feet! I thought winter boots were hard to get on! Ian's legs go all noodley and he doesn't understand that he has to PUSH them on! After battling with a few pairs of skates, he was ready to go! It was only appropriate that the soundtrack from his favorite (and only known) musical was playing over the loud speakers, "Mama Mia!".

He wasn't afraid at all! He stepped right out on the ice and just as I told him, he marched, marched, marched! I've taught a lot of kids in Learn to Skate, and the minimum age we take is 3 years. Compared to many kids, Ian did great!! It didn't hurt that his mom was there holding his hand and not some stranger, but I'm really very proud of him! We did a lot of laps, then I'd take him and skate really fast with him, he loved it!

As much as I enjoyed my years skating, I've always said I'd never make my kids do it if they didn't want to. I think I'd like them all at least know how to skate around (I can easily teach them) and if they were ever interested in lessons, that'd be fine. But for as much as the hockey players used to torment us figure skaters, I don't know if I could ever let my boys play hockey! I guess we'll cross that bridge if we ever have to. For now, I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the ice with Ian :)