Bikin' and Trikin'

As you can see the kids and us are having a great time here in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. Laura's folks let us stay here at their house for a week. We've been taking advantage of the heat (real heat, not Seattle heat) to cool off in the pools and fountains. Christian has been learning a lot in his week here. He can stand up on his own, climb stairs, (see above) and can tell us when he wants milk. (He drinks a lot of milk.)

There was a picture of all the babies but the one I took was blurry. Mike and Sarah are here with their baby Claire, who is 15 months, Justin and Sarah are here with their baby Jonah, who is six months, Mandy and Bryan who are here with Myka, who just turned four, and of course Christian, who is barely one year. Christian really loves the other babies being around, and exploring everything.

Mom and Dad are having fun too, spending some time in the boat, skiing, and just relaxing. The past couple days have been rainy but it's still been nice relaxing.

So Christian is one now and let's see where we are:

Crawling and pulling up, but not walking. Babbling a few words, like "mumma", "dada", "duck", and "cat (or that, not sure)". Eating almost everything in sight. We think he is in the nineteen pound range and about 29 inches tall, or thereabouts. (He's hard to measure because he squirms.) I heard babies his age have 8-10 colds a year, but I only remember a couple. And still not sleeping through the night, but getting better. Drinks whole milk not formula, and a little breast-feeding but weaning a little bit too. Still uses a pacifier but doesn't rely on it totally. Loves going jogging with daddy and taking baths and hates taking naps.

There we are!

Mom and Dad exhausted but happily so. Looking forward to the years to come!

Today at Red Robin he ate an entire serving of their macaroni and cheese kids plate. That was on top of some tofu (he doesn't like meat much) and some vegetables, some fruit, and an entire thing of string cheese. Then a glass of milk. The mac and cheese was even messier than the cake! He had the cheese all over his hands and of course put his hands in his hair, (what little hair he has). Then when I tried to wipe it off, he would fight back and of course spread the cheese around even more, to his ears and such.

Thanks Mom, Dad, and Janice for the birthday present. We will let you know what we bought with the $$. (Probably an activity table, since he has outgrown his exersaucer). And thanks Nichols family and everyone else for the presents. We'll keep you posted as he keeps growing!

As you can see we've been enjoying the outdoors a little more lately. Summer in Seattle isn't quite like the rest of the country. Folks here think that 80 is hot. So we did have a "hot" day and took him up to the fountains at Miller Playfield. There were lots of bigger kids playing so we had to keep him out of their way, (thus my hairy legs right behind him) but he seemed to have fun patting the water fountain. After a while his lips started quivering so we dried him off and took him back home. Of course, the cheapskate/lazy person that I am, I'm thinking, "free bath".

Christian is now pulling up to a standing position pretty much all the time. He isn't walking at all but is crawling all over the place.

We also took him to the Pacific Science Center on my birthday, this Saturday. He enjoyed crawling around in their play pit there. I don't think he cared much for the dinosaur exhibits.

He turns one on the 19th. We'll update you shortly after.

As you can see by the middle picture above, Christian now has four teeth. He is figuring out how to use them to bite into some slightly harder foods like carrots, crackers and such.

It was a rough week here in the Kincade household, with all three of us getting sick at some point. First it was Laura, then me, then Christian. Not fun. Christian lost his appetite for a few days but it is back now with a vengeance. He ate an entire banana this morning and just now ate a small bowl of pineapples, some string cheese, beans, veggie booty, and dried sweet corn.

Christian's sleep is suffering a bit with the rough week and all of our schedules getting thrown off. He didn't nap at all this a.m. and now he is only napping because mom is holding him. We will try to get him back to napping on his own soon but I think he needs to be back on schedule first. Oh the trials and tribulations of parenting. But all of you who have been there know it's worth it.