Shoes

I've been wanting to get Russell some shoes for a while. First of all, he's really pulling up now, so I wanted to make sure he had shoes before he starts walking. Second, he loves the outdoors, and I'm getting tired of having to wash his feet after every adventure.

On Friday, we got his feet fitted at Stride Right. He's a 4 wide - we knew he had fat feet! But then I looked at the prices, and I was not about to get Russell a pair of $40 shoes. However, I still wanted shoes with soft soles (easier for learning to walk) and that fit well (his fat, short feet are hard to fit).

Thank goodness for Target - these were only $3.50!

If the shoe fits,



eat it! (Yes, he was trying to eat them.)

if you're keeping up...

...there are a few new photos here :)

Wordless Wednesday

11 months old!

Geez, just 1 more month until the big one!

I got many cute pictures, but I thought this month I'd share some of the outtakes:

Far too busy for photos:

Trying to climb off the chair:

(Yes, these pictures are more "mommy snapshots" than "high-end photography" - but watch for Russell's one-year photos, coming soon! :))

On with the post...

This has been a delightful month!

The biggest news, of course, is that Russell is crawling! He started off slow (as seen in this post) but just got better and faster.

What else is he doing?

So glad you asked! ;)

~Trying to pull up - he can get to his knees and can sortofalmost stand, but not steadily.

~Is quite the copycat: imitates random things that we say (examples include "cauliflower" and "here they are" - very random!)

~Is starting to throw temper tantrums - catalysts include picking him up if he's really into playing (but sometimes we have to go somewhere!) and getting him out of the swing at the playground (yes, the same swing he hated at first).

~Still doing the splits, which he's been doing for months - everyone says he is the most flexible baby they've ever seen.

~I should have said this on his 10-month post, but he's a pro at drinking from the sippy cup. However, you can't hand it to him, you just have to set it in front of him - if it's in your hand, he opens his mouth and expects you to feed it to him.

I'm saving all of his favorite things for his 1 year post, so that's about all I have for 11 months!

"Foggy Skies"

"Foggy Skies" is the new color of our bedroom furniture! We are in the midst of a master bedroom re-do. Thus far:

New bedding - check

Furniture painted - check

Still to come:

Finishing coat and handles on furniture

More artwork/decorations for walls

Jason's mom is an expert on all things crafty - seriously, you should see her sewing, cooking, etc. So we enlisted her help for repainting furniture this weekend. It was an all-weekend project, and she really did most of the work herself! So thankful for her.

I'll post a "before and after" when everything is finished, but here's a sneak peek (from inside our garage):

Jason (and Kathy in the background) resting after painting on Saturday:

Some people have asked what brought on this desire to overhaul everything - well, I am not too optimistic about our condo selling, and so I want to be as happy with it as possible! Every room is getting a makeover (except Russell's room, which I love already). So be on the lookout for renovation posts in the future!

Poor Baby

Russell is having a rough week:

~Another double ear infection. We found out about this on Friday - I suspected he had one because he was having trouble sleeping, and he had that bad cold last week. They had to put him on a stronger med this time since he had had one so recently.

~Teething. While we were at the doctor, she commented on his swollen gums. It looks like the top 4 are all about to come through.

~Haircut:

To top it all off, Jason gave Russell a very interesting haircut on Sunday. He looks famous!

Not in a good way, though -

...more like a Lloyd-Christmas-from-Dumb-and-Dumber way...

The weekend is looking up for Russell, though, as PawPaw and Kacki will be here!

Good Day for the Park

If you ask Russell, any day is a good day for the park :)

Today we had some fun with Becca and Samantha. In addition to being a good friend, Becca is a skilled photographer, so it was nice to "talk shop" with her...and to photograph her sweet little model.

Russell cared nothing for Sam, but he did like her flower:

Becca said something exciting! (apparently :))



Towards the end, he was in no mood for photos with Mommy, but this one turned out okay:

Check out my new blog for a couple photos of sleeping Sam. Becca and I are thinking about going into business together (she already takes professional photos) - you can find some of her photos here!

Read Carefully

I was so pumped about getting out of the house today. Russell has been sick since Friday (he's better now), and we have been holed up in the house for that long. We were both starting to get stir-crazy.

So I checked my email and saw that there was a strawberry picking and picnic lunch scheduled for our Sunday school class. (FOGgers, you can probably guess where this is going.) It was about a 35-minute drive from our house, but it worked with Russell's nap schedule, and like I said, I was stir-crazy.

Well, we got ALL the way to the house where the picnic was. Russell hates riding in the car, so I was relieved to get there (and sad to see those little tear-stained cheeks.) I went around to the backyard - no one there. So I rang the doorbell. I was so confused when a grandfather-type answered the door; I thought I had the wrong house.

Nope. Right house - wrong day. (Grandfather-type = my friend's father, watching her toddler while she worked.)

So we packed up and headed back...screaming and crying All. The. Way.

I feel like a bad mommy today :(

When we got home, we had our own little backyard picnic with Russell's favorite foods - fruit and yogurt - and his favorite activities - car-watching and pulling grass out of the ground.

I hope that made up for it a little.

sweet baby feet:

crawling (!) to the grass:

Lesson learned: read your email carefully!

Does this count as crawling?

Finally!

Russell is now actually moving forward - consistently!

He's not moving fast or going all over the place yet, but he will take a few moves (crawls? steps?) to get somewhere close by.

(And of course, it's impossible to get this on video, because he stops to laugh at the camera every time.)

I'm counting it :)

Family Fun

What better way to celebrate Mother's Day than with both of Russell's grandmothers? (And grandfathers, too.) It was lovely to have my parents, Jason's parents, and Jon and Kelly over on Saturday.

Even though poor baby is sick - has a very bad cold and is just grouchy - we were able to get a few smiles out of him.

A few shots of Russell with PawPaw, Kacki and Daddy:







My parents in our backyard:



I'm so glad to be this boy's mommy!



Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there - it may be a cliche, but motherhood is "the hardest job you'll ever love."

Photo Shoot Day :)

I took Russell outside and sat him in a field - he was happy as a clam! And so was I, because I got some fun pictures :)

I did have to promise Jason that I'll do an NC State photo shoot at some point...

This really shows how intense he can be - and also his love of grass :)



Sweet boy

Words

Russell has always been very vocal (to put it politely). Lately, though, he has started to channel some of his screaming/babbling into trying to make words! It has been really fun to hear different things he tries to say.

Examples include:

~"Hey, bud." (This was the cutest thing ever - Jason said "Hey, bud" to Russell, and Russell said it back.)
~"Done." (I guess I say this a lot, like "all done" with food, or "we're all done vacuuming.")
~"Dad." (Instead of Dada, Russell calls Jason "dad," which usually comes out more like "dat.")

Also, Russell has figured out how to sit up from a lying down position, and how to lay down from a sitting position. It is very strange to go in to get him from sleeping to find him sitting up in his crib!

Beautiful Day

Today was beautiful, and a great day to enjoy some family time at the park. We're so glad that it's been nice outside lately, as Russell loves the outdoors in any form or fashion.

He didn't even mind me taking 100 (literally) pictures of him :)

Is this not the sweetest face you've ever seen?





Posing on a park bench:



Oh, and he loves swinging now. He hated it the first couple times, but has really taken to it now, as you can see:





We are thankful to have this nice park pretty close to us!