Wrestling, Date Night, Visit with the Riebers...GREAT WEEKEND!

What an amazingly busy weekend we had! Friday night we brought Archer to his very first wrestling match. We went to the Air Force Academy and watched as the Fighting Falcons beat North Dakota State University. It was a lot of fun, and from the moment Archer saw the mat and the guys wrestling, he smiled (huge) and laughed a lot. I am pretty sure he enjoyed himself. We got a picture of him watching but it is on Nick's phone, so I will have to upload it to the computer later. On Saturday, Nick and Archer went to the park while I went to a "Chocolate Party." One of the wives here is an independent Dove chocolatier. Something right up my alley! I went and ate entirely too much chocolate and chocolate items but it was a lot of fun anyway!! When I got back home, we loaded up into the car to drop Archer off at Mrs. Helen's house so that we could have DATE NIGHT!! Nick and I went to dinner and thoroughly enjoyed each others company. It was a wonderful time.

On Sunday, we got up early and headed down the road to Denver. It is a short trip, only about an hour and fifteen minutes. We went to Denver to meet up with one part of our Corpus Rock family, The Riebers. It was WONDERFUL to see them. We went to lunch first in downtown Denver at Yard House. It was very yummy. After that, we took all of the kiddos to the Denver Children's Museum. They had an area specifically for our kid's age range, so it was a lot of fun. Archer had a great time crawling all over the place and playing with all of the toys. We got a few priceless pictures.

After we got back from Denver, we headed over to Thomas and Sara-Jo Klusker's house for dinner. Thomas is a navigator in Nick's squadron and his wife, Sara-Jo and I have talked a lot since I began going to spouse events. They have a little girl, Savannah who is three and is just a trip. She is adorable and funny. They also live right down the street from us, which is awesome. What makes things even better is that they are from South Carolina...so some southerners to hang out with!! YAHOOO!! The only downside is that they root for South Carolina...but we can look the other way on that! We had a very yummy dinner and some fun conversation to end our weekend with. We look forward to hanging out with them again soon! So, after that weekend...we really need another weekend to rest up. Too much fun!!

Stair Master

Well, we have had another first. On Monday January 24th, Archer managed to master climbing the stairs. It is weird because even with all of the crawling he has not seemed to notice the stairs. Until Monday that is. I don't know what it is about steps but babies sure do love them. Once he realized that the steps were there...there was no stopping him. As I mentioned before, he has been climbing on things for a while now so he already knew the proper "movements" to getting up the steps. He climbed the first couple very slowly. Then as he got into a rhythm he took off up the steps. Now we will have to buy another baby gate to keep him from CONSTANTLY going up the stairs. Here is a video of his efforts:

Now, that is not the only thing he is doing. He has been using the couch to take his first baby steps. Well, yesterday I finally caught that on video as he used the coffee table to take a few steps. Each day he seems to be getting better at this. The reason I say that is because after I took the video, he went from the coffee table to the lazy boy then to the couch. This was A LOT of steps for the little dude. Oh boy. I can just feel the gray hair coming!! Here is his baby steps video:

Who knows what he will be up to tomorrow!!

10 Months Old

Ten Months Old! I can hardly believe that in two months, our amazing little baby boy will be a whole year old!! But, I am getting ahead of myself. I should probably stay in the present, because time is going by way to fast as it is. So, what is our little man up to?? Well...in a word, A LOT! Here is a brief rundown:

Sleeping: He sleeps for 8 hours at night, then wakes up. It does not matter what time we put him to bed, he will wake up exactly eight hours later. We have tried all sorts of things, but he wakes up because he is HUNGRY. If we put him down at 8 (this is what we usually TRY to do) he gets up at 4 a.m. and has to eat. No ifs, ands

or buts about it. He will then go back to sleep and wake up at 7 a.m. He still takes two naps during the day that last about 1.5 hours.

Eating: EVERYTHING! He tries a wide variety of foods, and any thing on momma or daddy's plate seems to intrigue him. We have just started him on proteins like chicken and turkey. He is still in love with cheerios and will eat them any time of day.

Movement: Well, Archer has been crawling any and everywhere he can. He is also climbing up things and likes to stand when possible. He does some

"couch cruising" but isn't 100% confident in his steps...I do feel like walking is just right around the corner though.

Talking: Archer usually has A LOT to say. He babbles on nonstop when he is awake. He talks to any one who will listen to him. The only "words" we have really been able to make out are dada and mom. He chants these all the time. It also often sounds like he is saying Beauleaux, but who knows if he is really doing that.

Favorite games: Hide and seek, playing with his puppies and his 3-1 sports center that is wonderful Auntie Sarah got him for Christmas. He will play with those for HOURS. Here is a picture of him with the 3-1.

Momma's Favorites: My favorite things that he does is "so big" and he has started waving "bye-bye" which is the CUTEST thing ever. I look forward to all of the things he is going to learn and start doing, it is so neat to watch him blossoming!!

So, that is about it for his ten months. We are just having a blast with him. Any rough days or nights we have with him are QUICKLY erased by how much fun it is to play with him. Who knows what will happen next!!

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Crawling equals TROUBLE. That is right, with a capital T! Our little dude has started to understand that his world is HUGE now. Of course, this means he must investigate anything and everything that is in his path. This would be fine if he didn't seem to want to investigate everything that is messy, dangerous, gross...simply put his favorite things to get into are more than likely not his toys!! It does make for a very interesting day. I find myself laughing a ton and saying, "now how did that (insert random item) get here??" While it is a challenge and A TON of extra work for us, I have to say it is so much fun. We can play hide and seek now, he can come to me when I need him to (although he has VERY selective hearing) which is helpful. It makes for a lot less crying when I walk out of Archer's line of sight. His appetite has changed a lot too, and it seems like he is more willing to try any solid food. He does still prefer to do it on his own, so if the food involves a spoon it takes a little coaxing for him to let momma or daddy do it. This makes me wonder if he is going to be very much an independent guy. Archer would much rather do everything on his own rather than have any help. If he can't do it on his own, he gets frustrated...and when you try to help him, well forget it!! So amazing to see more and more of his personality traits!! Anyway, here is a picture of Archer getting into a little bit of trouble:

And where was I when all of this went down? Well silly me had just gone to the bathroom. No sooner had I walked into the bathroom did I hear the trash can fall. Who knows what I will find the next time I walk into another room..........

Crazy Sleep Habits

As many mommies know, teething is perhaps the cruelest joke for both parents and babies. It seems as though as soon as we would get Archer into a really good sleeping routine, teeth would start to come in. This happened with his first two bottom teeth and now we are suffering with it as the top top two teeth come in. Poor little booger. From this teething, Archer has developed some very crazy sleeping habits. Because he is SOOO stubborn and very against going to bed, he has taken to falling asleep while sitting up. I had tried to capture this with my camera several different times, but this resulted in just waking him up. Finally, the other day I got the picture:

Yup, that is right. He fell asleep sitting there. Luckily, his buddy Scout was there to be his pillow. By the way, Scout is perhaps the BEST TOY we have. He is by Leap Frog and you can program him. He is programmed to say Archer's name, his favorite color and animal. You can also pick different songs, which is how Archer falls asleep on many nights. I highly recommend getting one for that special little person in your life. His other odd sleep habits are he no longer likes to be rocked, he HAS to have a blanket, and he refuses to go to sleep one SECOND before his is ready. So much for a bed time, right??

Archer's First Snow

About a week ago, we had our first snow here at our house in Colorado. We have seen some snow while we have lived here, but nothing at the house and certainly nothing that has stuck. I know it is something that I am sure I will get tired of in the 3 or 4 years that we will live here but for right now, I LOVE IT. It is just so pretty!! I don't think Archer cared much for it...or maybe he really didn't know what was going on...but I made him sit in it anyway and snapped a few pictures. He reminded me of the younger brother on A Christmas Story. He certainly couldn't put his arms down!!

Crawling...FORWARD!!

As I mentioned in my last post, Archer has been crawling backwards for a little while now. Well, guess what?? Today he some how figured out that it made a whole lot more sense to crawl FORWARD!! It was a huge thrill to watch him get to this milestone. The best part about it was that Nick was able to be here to see him get moving! It is crazy to think that our little nine month old man is a mover and a shaker now. I know that this excitement will soon change to me wishing for less mobile days...but for now...WOW! I got this video of him doing some crawling from my phone, but I am going to work on getting a better one tomorrow. Every time he does crawl, we cheer for him and I am pretty sure that he knows what a big deal this is! Anyway...I know this just puts us one step closer to W-A-L-K-I-N-G!!! :-) I don't know that we could be a more proud momma and daddy!!