Eight months old!!

This little guy is eight months old.

He was giving me his Elvis lip. I missed it by a millisecond. But still, cute.

Such a big boy! *Sniff*

Spring, please!

After a rather nasty weather week, we had a turn for the gorgeous today. The sun was out! Temperatures soared to near-60 degrees! We were ready for some outside play!

Martin and I took a walk (tried out the big-boy stroller) and he decided that he really likes walks. Even though he was pretty tired, he stayed awake and watched everything...the houses, the trees, the squirrels. Delightful.

When we got back, we went outside with Daddy and Olivia for some backyard play. I pulled our old baby swing out of the attic and we hung it up. And a great time was had by all.

Both kids, swinging to their hearts content.

This is so cool!

Oh yes. The baby swing was a BIG hit.

Sibling shots

Olivia loves to teach Martin new things, like standing.

Olivia and Martin watching PBS kids shows on the Kindle at bedtime.

Cute kids getting ready for bedtime stories.

They love each other.

How to make dinner and entertain a grumpy, snotty baby

I was trying to get dinner started the other night. Joe wasn't home yet and Martin was grumpy and didn't want to play with Olivia. So I pulled out one of my old tricks that used to work with Olivia...introduce random kitchen utensils as toys. I sat him down in the kitchen and handed him a potato masher.

Hey, this toy has lots of places to grasp! How interesting!

Let's taste this end. Mmmm, plastic.

Now let's inspect the little hole at the end of the handle. What does this do? Do my fingers fit in there?

After awhile, he got tired of the masher and started to fuss. So I grabbed the next available thing...the lid from an ice cream bucket.

Oohh...what is this?

Since I re-discovered this baby-entertaining technique, we have used it a lot.

What is this one?

Let's see if I can shove the entire thing in my mouth.

This is so much fun, Mommy!