Paxton at 9 months

Its hard to believe this little man....

is 9 months already! He is growing like a weed. He just gets cuter and cuter all the time. He is really moving all over the place. He crawls and can do so at a very high speed when he really wants to get to something that he knows he's not suppose to (i.e. the cat food, and outlets).

He is "talking" all the time saying "Ba,ba,ba" and "Ooooo" when he's really impressed with something. He still loves his sister more than anything and she seems to be the one who can make him laugh the most. Adriana can take this role with great stride or can be a "pill", and will get onto him saying, "Stop laughing, its not funny", which in turn makes him laugh even more.

Paxton had his 9 month check up and is a shade under 22lbs. He is in the 50-75% tile for his height and weight but in the 95-97% tile for head circumference. He takes after his daddy with the big head. :)

I love this little guy so much. He is such a sweet and laid back baby. Can't believe in just a few short months he is going to be a year! I'm soaking up babyhood while it last...

Gum, Gum, Gum

Adriana has been begging us for over a year now to eat gum. For some reason, I'm just against small children having gum. I don't ever remember having gum until I was in grade school. Two and three year olds have no need for gum, nor do they understand the concept. So, I have always been against it. A lot of people I know let their kids have gum and anytime we are around them and they get gum, Adriana just looks at me and asks if she can have a piece. Ryan thinks she should have had gum a long time ago. Anyway, I don't know what prompted me to let her get some today, but I did. I figured, she was old enough to understand not to swallow it, and I'm not worried about her taking it out and sticking it under furniture, so I caved today. I told her that while we were at Wal-Mart, she could pick some out. She was SO excited.

She picked Juicy Fruit, not the best, but its a start. She was so excited to try it. As you can see in the above picture. She put it in her mouth and chewed it for MAYBE 2 minutes and was ready to spit it out. She told me she really liked it, but wanted to wait until Daddy got home and she would chew some more.

I at least got to get a picture of it in her mouth, before it ended up in the trash can. She just thinks she such big stuff now. My baby is growing up.

Little Man Toy

This is Paxton's first little man toy. All the poor child has to play with is princess stuff or baby rattles. He finally has a little boy's toy. Someone at the pool brought little trucks like this to the pool to play with, and Paxton LOVED them, so I had to get him one. We will slowly be building up boy toys so that my little man doesn't grow up playing dress up in princess dresses, doing hair and nails or playing "Mama" to baby dolls.

A Nice Visit

This has been a great week (and its only Wednesday!). I always tell people to call me when they are down in Branson visiting, to call me so we can come down there and see them or come to our house for a home cooked meal and a place to hang out. Well, most people never take me up on the offer, but I'm so glad that my cousin Molly did. We are so distantly related, but since the first time we met, we have just "clicked". We are very similar and get along wonderfully. I haven't seen her since our wedding (5 years ago), so when she told me that her and her kids were going to be spending a week in Branson and would like to get together, I was super stoked. Her in-laws (which is my dad's cousin) was going to be with them for part of the trip, so we had arranged for all of us to hang out on Saturday. It was quite a clan. My parents, all of us, Molly and her 3 kids, her in-laws and (part of the time) her parents. We had a great time. They were staying in a cabin in Branson, so we decided to go to a beach for a while and then back to their cabin for dinner and games. This was the first time that me and Ryan and my parents had been to this beach. It was so nice and clean. Its called Moon Shine Beach and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are some pictures from the beach.

Who knew we had such a nice place to go, here in Missouri? Due to the heat, we were only out there for a couple of hours.

Adriana had a blast. Molly's kids are so sweet and well behaved and they were fun to be around. Adriana worshiped the ground her daughter, Emma, walked on. Emma is 8 years old and loved having a little follower. They played like sisters and instantly got along wonderfully. We finished Saturday night out by grilling and playing games. We had a great time full of laughter.

Molly and I made arrangements for her to come up to our house on Monday and spend the day. She wanted to do some shopping and hanging out. I was thrilled to have her come and spend the day with us. Our day was jammed packed. We shopped, ate some good eats and took the kids swimming that evening. After swimming, they were able to come over to our house and play and visit some more. We had a great day!

Adriana and Emma

Tuesday, we went down in the evening to Silver Dollar City to ride rides with them and hang out. We ended up staying until the park closed at 10pm. The gage in my van read 103 degrees that day, it was hot! But once the sun set and we rode some water rides, it wasn't too bad. We had a great time and of course, Adriana had a blast! I love how our kids and her kids got along so well.

Jonas and Molly getting to ride the elephants

Jonas, Adriana and Emma riding the butterflies.

Brady, sad that he got stuck on such a slow ride.

The girls being silly.

Making funny faces.

This is what we did to the kids by the end of the night at Silver Dollar City! J/K! They had a blast playing together.

Sadly, this is the best shot I have of all of us. It was HOT, 10pm and we were wet from the rides. We were so worn out but had a great time! Ryan told Molly that her vacation was wearing him out!

Thank you Molly and the kids for coming and seeing us and letting us spend time with you! We will have to do it again!