...Time Flies

Where did Cohen's tenth and eleventh month go?!?

This child is growing so fast. Talking up a storm and loves trying out new words. He has perfected the newest "bottle, bubble, banana (nana)" and tries just about everything we say. The biggest so far are Grandpa and Stinkpot (my nickname for him) and he came very close on both!

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last two months to tell our little story as his eleventh month is already half way over. His first birthday will be here before we know it!

That hair started getting so much longer! He crawled all over us. No walking yet!

 Love my little Doodle bug!

 He learned that the toilet paper is great fun and pulls the door to the half bath open all the time to be able to roll it out into the floor!

 We went to the aquarium and he absolutely LOVED it! It was so much fun!

 So much fun looking at everything!

 Turtle!

 The baby otters were so cute!

 He really enjoyed going "inside" the tank bubbles.

 "I'm no Cottonheaded Ninny Muggins!" His onesie from Christmas to celebrate ...and Mommy and Daddy's favorite Christmas movie, too!

 Words cannot express my love for this little guy.

 We love reading together, though these days he's so mobile and into everything it's hard to get one-on-one time together to sit and read. BUT when he does, he's more into the pictures and laughing at the rhythm of the words more than ever.

 When I was making dinner one night, I looked into the living room to find him "reading" his favorite  book. This has since had every flap completely ripped out of it after he memorized where every flap was!

 Love watching him just hang out and play on his own. He's such a good little bug.

 Momma finally gave in. First hair cut!

 He wasn't too sure about the situation.

 But look how adorable it turned out!

 Daddy and Cohen's favorite game.

 One BIG step these past couple months is feeding himself. He loves it. Not the best at it, but finger foods are perfected. He is now trying to scoop and eat with a spoon. We clap and YAY!  every time he tries and gets the spoon in his mouth.

 He also got so great at crawling that he could push toys along with him. My favorite is watching him push along cars and saying, "VROOOM!" while he goes around the house at top speed.

 TOOTSIES! Every time he sees my feet or my toes wiggle and now his toes and everyone elses' at that, he cracks up and says, "Toots!" He is the silliest little thing!

 Here I am eating egg and rice omlet!

 Polishing off the berries momma gave me...LOVES berries, especially blackberry and raspberries together in yogurt!

 We have since added lots more ball pit balls to his pack-n-play. He kicks and throws and has quite the time in here. We spend lots of time pushing our faces on the mesh and laughing and laughing.

 Every night, one of our little family rituals is to have Daddy (or as Cohen calls him "Daddo") "chase" us up the stairs. We had to get a pic to remember it by!

 Another new discovery by Cohen...stairs can be climbed! We encourage it for gross motor skills and at first he was excited, but then looked up and realized how high the climb actually was. He flipped around and fell into my arms, grabbing onto me so tight! Since then, he has gotten more confident and will go about two-thirds of the way before second guessing himself and gets so excited and even claps for himself every time he reaches the top!

 Making his first valentine for his nanny, Miss Ruthanne.

 For his ten month birthday, we went ahead and did Valentine's day a little early since Daddy was headed to Florida for a big meeting. He loves his gift of baby Legos and has learned how to hook them together! I think he enjoys dumping them out all over the floor the most!

 Looking at his valentines from Momma and Daddo

 I love that little face when he is concentrating!

 I LOVE my first Valentine's Day!

 Playing

 This is one of his favorite toys, "Potsy". He puts his fake food in, stirs it up, and laughs and laughs. He really enjoys tipping it up and pretending to eat all the food in there!

 this face! LOVE.

 Ever since Cohen was about three months old we have taken him outdoors. We started with little walks here and there, but what he really enjoyed the most was our family hikes. As soon as it hit above 50, this family has been outdoors!

 He has discovered birds. It was the cutest thing to see. He just didn't understand the whole concept of flying and thought it was the most interesting thing. So, now he waves to all the birds and says, "BEH! BEH!" when he sees a bird.

 Happy as a lark. If he's crying or teething and fussy, outside does the trick. Always has, and I"m thinking it always will. :)

 I heard that I needed to try to start letting him explore the idea of writing, and boy did he!The first time I let him use a pen, he drew a line right down the paper and, though he likes to put the chalk in his mouth, he does really enjoy playing with the chalkboard. He definitely cries any time we take the chalk away! Actually, he's just learning he does NOT like when he doesn't get his way...and so parenting has really just begun for us.

 He's doing so great at pulling up to stand, and one of his favorite places is the front or back door. When he can't be outside, he loves looking at the outside. He really enjoys watching the wind blow leaves around and has watched and watched rainfall with excitement! He has gotten so sturdy here lately that he can even stand on his own for short periods of time without holding on to anything!

 Grammy's necklaces and jewelry has always been a grandbaby favorite and Cohen is no exception. He loves yanking and nearly braking every piece of jewelry Grammy owns and she is such a great sport about it. Cohen LOVES his Grammy Cracker!

 For Cohen's 11 month picture, in honor of his big brother, we got a green butterfly for him to take his picture with. In my head I had this beautiful picture similar to his first set of pictures we took at one week with the butterfly gently laying on his chest. I love that the minute I laid it in his hand he ripped one of the wings off and this picture is capturing him saying another of his very favorite words, "UH OH!" Leave it to Cohen to make me smile and laugh and leave all the "perfection" behind. I love this about him the most. This child teaches me something every single day. What a blessing!

 Doesn't take much to make him happy. Here, he has found a piece of mulch and is showing it to me. Yep. Mulch. :D

 He LOVES being held and even dancing around the house with Momma while I make dinner or just to be silly while we listen to music (which is so often he's started to recognize certain songs!).

 I snagged this picture because I never want to forget this silly little quirk about him! He likes to explore every nook and cranny in our house including under his high chair. One morning after I had made pancakes, I went in the kitchen to clean up when I heard him say, "MMMM!" I came back out to find him picking up pieces of pancake he threw on the floor and eating them! Stinker!

 He's gotten so good at pulling up that he uses our legs more than anything to get himself in the standing position.

 The other morning when we got him out of bed we told him, "Grandpa is coming over today!" He started clapping and saying, "GePa!" As soon as Chuck came in, Cohen flung himself at Grandpa and laid his head down on his shoulder. I think Grandpa had his heart melted that day! :)

 Hanging out at Grammy's with our nephew, Ayden!

 ...and Izzy Boop!

 It was so beautiful we all headed out back! Steve and Ayden had a blast playing ball.

 Cohen loved sitting in the grass watching the big boys playing. Someday soon he'll be out there getting dirty right along with them!

 Daddy and Cohen always enjoy kicking or throwing the ball back and forth, so of course Cohen really had fun doing it outside!

 Ayden couldn't wait to share his tee ball stuff with Uncle Steve! Oh my do I ever love this kid. Look at him! A little mini version of the major league boys! :)

 Steve said, "I don't think you can wear your sunglasses and your helmet." Ayden proved him wrong by shoving that helmet right over the glasses and we all got a good laugh out of it! :) We were missing Uncle Tim, while he was in NY working! :(

 Our big man :)

 Emily says she can't figure out why Isabella doesn't want to be in the grass. I had to let her know that this is the picture of karma. :)

 Uncle Steve pitching to Ayden!

 The next pitch is a strike and he hit it! We all cheered and even Cohen clapped!

Loving this life. Crazy, fast-paced, and tiring, but I would not change one single minute. So thankful and cannot wait until Spring Break to get a little bit of a rest with my boys!!