Growing Boy . . . and First Zoo Trip

Wow, after a few days away and a few more days sick, It is proving to be awful playing catch-up!!  Remind me never to do that again!!  lol  So this last week has been spent trying to catch-up on everything: laundry, dishes, house cleaning, groceries, and quite a few other things!  I've been crocheting in every spare moment I have lately (Thank you Cameron for putting up with it!!) because I promised myself I would make some things for a very good friend of mine's new baby.  My goal is to have them done before the little girl arrives . . . and all I can say is THANK GOODNESS she isn't 3 weeks early like her previous two were!  I'm just so excited to be able to crochet some girlie things like headbands and use some pink yarn I think I'm going a bit overboard!  oh well!!  I'll have to put up some pictures when I'm all finished and have given them to the new Mommy. 

This past weekend we went to the zoo in Denver.  It's not our favorite zoo (Indy is!!!) but we haven't been to one all summer, or last summer, or even the summer before that I think . . . so it was time to go.  it was Jayce's first time (obviously), and he really seemed to enjoy it!  At least it went over better than the pigs at the fair! Of course we took lots of Monkey pictures, with the Monkey theme we have with him. 

But I think the best part was giving Riley a camera of his own and letting him take pictures of the animals.  We had a disposable camera leftover from when Jayce was born (you know . . . when Daddy forgot the camera and our doula had to run home to get it arriving only seconds before Jayce was born!) so we decided to let Riley take it to the zoo and take some pictures.  We made the rule that he could only take 1 picture of each animal, but with a roll of only 24 pics, it still didn't last more that 20 minutes or so!  Needless to say he was disappointed and continued to try to take pictures until we had to physically take it from him and hide it in the diaper bag!  I think we have a budding photographer on our hands!  So now we just have to get them developed (do stores even do that anymore? haha) so we can see how they turn out - this should be funny!

I also wanted to update you all on Jayce lately.  This boy is growing so fast that I can hardly keep up with him!  I'm not sure what I have told you all already, so I may repeat myself in an attempt to not miss anything.  He is crawling now, and getting pretty fast too!  He is also pulling him self up on things, the couch, tables, chairs, your legs, even Riley's sit n spin!  Not only that but he's also starting to cruise around things, and just recently he's getting braver at letting go and trying to balance.  This one is DEFINITELY going to be walking way before his 1st birthday!  He hasn't figured out the stairs yet (which I'm happy about - since Riley was crawling up the stairs 2 days after crawling on the floor).  But he is starting to gabber away at some words.  I'm pretty sure his first unofficial word was Hi, since he says that all the time.  but now Da-Da is in the mix as well as some other consonants.  Did I say it was hard to keep up!!  He's about ready to cut a tooth, I can feel it getting closer, and he's loving to chew on ANYTHING!!  I even caught him with a paci the other day - chewing on it though...not sucking it (boo)!  He's now 8 months old, and I can't believe how big he's getting!  he doesn't seem to weigh much more (those numbers on the scale sure aren't moving!) but he's definitely getting longer.  I've got a really cute idea for some 9 month pictures for him . . . so I'm really excited about that!  Otherwise he is just growing up too fast!  He already loves playing with his big brother, he is almost always watching and smiling at Riley.  They scream at each other constantly (thanks for teaching that to him Riley!!) and even wrestle already!  Yay fun - boys!  But Jayce is definitely my sensitive one!  He loves to cuddle when he's tired or cranky (which is often), and gets upset easily when he can't do something or something doesn't go his way.  Riley was always very independent, even at this age, whereas Jayce is going to be a follower, and one who needs others around for support.  It's so great to see how different my two babies are, and I feel so blessed to be able to spend so much time with them so that I can get to know them each individually. 

Well, hopefully you are all caught up now on us.  Nothing major coming up . . . we're trying to plan a wheelin' trip for Labor Day Weekend (another First for Jayce) but that's the next big thing I think.  Have a good rest of the week everyone - and good luck to those of you with school starting!!  Wow, that will be us next year . . . Ugh!!  ;)