9 Months Old

Yet again, another month has flown by, and Mason is now 9 months old!  Hard to believe he's been around as long as I was pregnant with him, and how far he's come.  He is still an absolute joy - just the happiest baby.  He is still sleeping 11-12 hours at night, and is a great napper.  He loves his crib so much that when it's time for a nap he doesn't even want to be rocked or cuddled - as soon as we take him into his room he's reaching for his crib, where he uses his monkey "lovey" to cuddle, chat, and put himself to sleep.  And he wakes up with a huge smile on his face ready to play and EAT. 
He eats EVERYTHING - he's on all kinds of baby foods, and also loves grapes, cherries, blueberries, bread & butter (Gigi's contribution), cheese, black beans, rice, cereal, peas, chicken, turkey...the list goes on & on.  He can feed himself which makes going out to dinner so great - put him in the high chair and he is in heaven as we feed him little pieces of food from our plates.  Meal time is definitely his favorite.
He is starting to scoot, but is not crawling yet which is totally fine by us - so great that we can still leave him somewhere for a minute and when we come back he's still there.  He loves to stand and can hold himself up for a few minutes at a time, but we're trying to encourage him to crawl some before he walks.
He also talks all day long, and his "words" are getting better.  Bababa has turned into bla bla bla, etc.  We are constantly working towards "mama" and "dada".  He knows how to wave and clap (well it's an air-clap), and think "hi" or "bye" may be one of his first words.  He also loves to giggle...in case you haven't seen any old posts :)
Size-wise he's gotten so big, and is actually in 12-month tops.  This makes us so happy, since he was so scrawny for so long.  We go for his 9-month appointment next week, I'm interested to see how much he weighs, and if he's bumped up in percentiles or not.  Don't get me wrong, he's still pretty small, but you should see that root beer belly!
All in all, life is great and it keeps getting better.  He's so easy that I am actually at a place where I can imagine us having another :)

This Never Gets Old

Makes me laugh every time :)

Gigi is Here!

Gigi came yesterday to spend the week here and watch Mason while we work.  In true grandma fashion, she had Mason giggling hysterically within 20 minutes of her arrival.

They've already been having a blast together today, riding in his new car (please note the shirt):

And are now at the park having a picnic.  Ok the first one is from my picnic with him yesterday but it's still cute and relevant :) 

Looks like it's going to be a great week for Mason & Gigi!

First Signs of Movement

So, for those of you who saw the cherry video (sorry, WAY too long to post here, but if you would like to see it, I can email it to you!), you know that Mason is pretty much obsessed with cherries.  So much in fact that Tristan is using them as crawling bait.  And it's actually working!

Hand to Mouth...and Repeat!

Look who's getting the hang of feeding himself!

Strawberries

Now that's attractive, Mason.  As daddy says at the end, we're so proud.  But seriously...it's pretty funny to watch!

Standing

Mason is starting to pull himself up into a standing position.  The kid refuses to crawl, so we're thinking he may just skip that step altogether.  Of course right after Tristan left, he stood by himself holding onto the mirror for about 30 seconds.

Shopping like a big boy!

On Saturday night I needed to go to Target for some big items that I knew would be hard to get with Mason in the stroller or Bjorn.  So I decided it was a perfect opportunity for us to try him "big boy" style in the shopping cart.  Best decision ever...he LOVED it.  At first he was completely in awe of his new view of the store and all the people, but within 10 minutes was kicking and laughing and talking to everyone who walked by.  He of course got plenty of attention, especially from the two high school girls in the checkout line behind us.  Apparently this shirt is the perfect description of his feelings towards the ladies :)
We went grocery shopping Sunday morning and did the same thing, and it was another success.

This was right as we entered the store...a little confused & awed!

 The professional rider, just chillin with his teething binky.

Go RB!

It was senior night for the RBHS basketball teams last night, and each senior selected their favorite teacher to escort them onto the court.  One of them picked Tristan, so Mason & I headed over to see daddy during the game.  Mason got to escort them out onto the court as well!  I of course put him in his best RBHS gear, which says "Future RBHS Bronco" :)
Mason was in a GREAT mood and on his best behavior...but I think that's because he knew his girlfriends, aka the RBHS cheerleading squad, would be there (see prior post)!

Shoes??

My mom has been bugging me because Mason never has shoes on.  I try to point out that it seems a little unnecessary to stuff his feet into shoes when he can't walk, but apparently that's not a very good reason.  Anyways, Mason's getting so big that I had to go through the box of "big" clothes that we'd stored away before he was born because he's almost outgrown most of his current closet!  Inside the box I found some Crocs (which, by the way, I ONLY find acceptable for people under the age of 5) that were 12 months and almost fit him.  So to see how they looked I stuffed his feet on in...

And he decided these were completely unnecessary and worked much better as a teething toy.  I tend to agree :)