EAP: 8, 9, & 10 Months!

Dear Eden,
You are ten months old. Yes, ten. And that means I have THREE MONTHS of your life to update the world about. Please don't take my lack of blog posts on you personally. Our little family often leads a busy life, which means blogging is one of the many things that gets pushed to the back burner. If it comes as any consolation, your brother hasn't gotten a post in about six months ;)

Alright little lady, let the updates begin!

You have teeth now! In August, your two bottom teeth started to break through. A few weeks later, your top two teeth began to reveal themselves. Those are still working their way down right now, which looks rather painful. I can tell they bother you because, you've been more discontent than usual, but you've been a trooper nonetheless.

You would think with these newfound tools in your mouth that you would be a better eater than you were 3 months ago, but that's not entirely true. Yes, you are better, but not where I hoped you'd be at ten months! You are fickle, my dear. I never know if you are going to eat well or like what's put in your mouth. Textures are still alarming to you and we've tried puffs and mum mums, but you aren't quite getting the hang of them yet. You still prefer sweet tasting things, although I made you a mixture that I was sure would be a shoe-in to your taste buds (carrots & pears), but you were NOT a fan.

Eating must wear you out...

At the end of August, you started pulling up. It makes you look so grown up! Haddon got all excited to see you standing. I also think it made him feel you were bigger and tougher so he's become much more rough with you. I'm sorry about that. I try to protect you. He loves you, I promise. He can just be a little much at times :) Can't we all…

That look of fear/dread...

First time I came in to see you standing up. Yes, you still sleep in a pack'n'play...

You'd been scooting around rather efficiently for a couple of months, but around mid September, you officially switched to crawling on your hands and knees. You are getting around, my girl, and it definitely keeps me on my toes. You find and get into everything and I'm trying my best to keep you alive! For some reason, you're really good a finding small dangerous things to put in your mouth…

Blocks aren't necessarily small and dangerous, but I just wanted evidence of you always putting things in your mouth!

Fun fact: You wave now :) It's really cute…

At the beginning of September, we embarked on a new adventure called Mother's Day Out. Our new church offers that to our family for free, so you and Haddon go two days a week. You do SO well. The ladies always rave about you when I pick you up and are always so excited when I drop you off. Maybe they do that with all the babies, but it seems to be a trend that you are a gem whenever anyone else is taking care of you. I guess you just save your fussing for me :) You can be such a mama's girl… you're perfectly content to play by yourself, but I have to sneak around the house to get things done because if you see me, you realize you haven't been with me and you get upset. I know I need to treasure this. Are you going to be one of those too-cool-for-school teenagers that doesn't want to be seen with her mom one day? Lord give me grace…

First trip with Nana to Point Mallard!

sunhat smiles :)

Just a couple of days ago you started "cruising." You pulled up and then made your way down the couch in a walking fashion. Before that, you were able to pull up behind a little walker we have and push around. It will be interesting to see what life is like with two walking little ones.

At your 9 month check up (which was 3 weeks late…), you were 28 inches long and weighed 17.5 pounds. In spite of your strong opinions on food, you are a healthy girl. You've got some of the sweetest chubby cheeks that we could kiss on all day!

Lastly, I think we might be able to claim your first word, "Da." You can repeat it so well when we say it and I'm pretty sure you associate it with your Dad. Congratulations, my girl, you're learning new ways to make that man melt ;) You have a sweet little voice, Eden. I hear how your brother talks now and get excited to think about what you will be talking about and how you will sound when you're his age.

This picture makes me swoon...

I love you so much, little E.

[even though you're still not sleeping through the night]

We're so thankful for how you've changed our family.

EAP: 6 & 7 Months!

So once upon a time, I had a blog...

There are so many things that need to be shared, but if I try to tackle them all, I'll go into another 2 month hiatus... So I'll start with Eden. Eden girl, forgive me for falling behind on your blog posts. I've just been too busy keeping up with you and your brother to write about it all ;)

So this girl...

She's a mover! In her sixth month she began sitting up really well and mastered what I like to call the "swivel." She could pivot around on her belly to get facing a desired direction and go from there. She is able to get up on her hands and knees, but she just hangs there and rocks back and forth. Or pushes herself up and gets her plank on ;)

Sitting up when boppy was required.

These are some of my favorite pictures of Eden. This was her first time sitting up in the walker.

Now that we've entered [and almost completed!] her seventh month, she is army crawling and scooting like a champ! This girl is busy. It's been a helpful, but crazy thing around the Pugh home! She's playing and interacting so well, but that also requires a much more watchful eye. Especially now that everything goes in her mouth [a still toothless mouth for the time].

Celebrating Dad's graduation!

Speaking of putting things in her mouth, we started solid foods a few days after her 6 month birthday [I know you can start around 4 or 5 months, but our May was CRAZY]. It took Eden a bit to catch on to the whole solids craze... This sweet girl would just hold it in her mouth and smile at me. Open mouth. No swallowing. But a sweet smile :) I think she's beginning to catch on that her smile can be quite the asset...

I even got all wild and crazy and just let her play with her food and spoon, hoping she'd naturally put it in her mouth. It was mildly successful...

That sneaky smile...

The fast broke when we finally tried banana. I was trying to attempt as many veggies as possible, but apparently this girl has a sweet tooth. So now we add banana to everything ;) So maybe not to everything, but close!

Sweet potatoes are sometimes a hit.

Miss Eden can also be quite the talker when she puts her mind to it. She's not always babbling, but when she gets going she has quite the personality! Laughs are still hard to come by, but when we can finagle them out of her they are oh, so sweet!

At the moment, those are all the major milestones I can think of... I seem to have misplaced her 6 month stats. It's as if we moved or something. Oh yeah, WE DID. I'm sure I'll blog about that in a year or two ;) That's probably when I'll also be able to stay that Eden is sleeping through the night... Haddon's still a sleeping warrior though, so I can't do too much complaining! And yes, Haddon is alive and well. He's next on the list for an update :)

EAP: 5 Months!

This girl is just ready to be big.

I think it would thrill her soul to be able to run around the house with Haddon. But alas, that mobility isn't there yet. She sure does try. She'll jump out of your arms if you're not careful. She wants to sit up so badly, but the coordination isn't fully there yet. She can for a bit if everything is at the right angle, but I'm not sure if we'll officially claim that milestone this month. So basically, she's on the verge of everything…

This is the extent of her playtime with Haddon at the moment!

Her smile is still contagious and she flashes it without warning. My, she's sweet. But she sure can wail. I think it's official that she does not love the car… Poor girl just wants someone to look at and be with instead of being cooped up in a seat for hours. [and we've done a LOT of driving lately]

She likes to chew on her fists, but she's been doing that for a couple of months. She can grasp things now, which is fun to see her becoming more interactive. This accomplishment also provides something else to put in her mouth :) She has also found her feet and delightfully plays with them often.

Those feet...

Joining the rest of the KamPugh family in their love for books!

It's also fun to see her interact vocally. Little girl can talk if you get her going! As Mama T said recently, it looks like we're going to have a family of "people people."

Hanging with a fellow intern kid, Tillman Wimberly.

Daddy love.

Daddy snuggles!

So strong...

More selfies with Mom.

We love you Eden Anastasis Pugh! So proud of how much you're learning and growing.

Almost Two...

Can you believe that Haddon is almost TWO YEARS OLD? So maybe it depends on your definition of "almost," but he's definitely closer to two than he is to one... Yesterday, he reached the year and 8 months mark! [a.k.a. 20 months]

Lynn Pugh always captures some good ones...

So what has this 20-month-old young man been up to, you might ask? Well quite a lot! He is busy and ALL BOY...

We have some sweet friends that live just right down the street from us that have a boy [Naaman] just a few days older that Haddon and a girl [Quinni] a few months older than Eden. The pictures above are at their house. They are gracious to let us come and enjoy their fun backyard and get some much needed fresh air during some restless afternoons! As you can see, Haddon has developed quite an affinity toward one of Naaman's fun hats. Haddon the Amish boy...

Speaking of fresh air, it's fun to go to parks and just let him roam.

I love this boy's curiosity and delight. So fun...

He still loves food, but only what he wants, when he wants. Meals can sometimes be a struggle and often take place apart from the high chair, but we're striving to choose our battles wisely ;) In the pictures above, he had just got done eating some tasty carrots and is asking for "more." I'm not sure how many of you have witnessed his "more" signal, but it is slowly fading and is being replaced by actually saying "more" ["Mo!']. This little boy is picking up words faster than I can keep count! It's so fun to be able to interpret what he's communicating.

He looks so grown in this picture...

"Helping" Dad with his work.

WICKED bed head.

He still loves books and balls, but the most recent obsession is the one and only...

WINNIE THE POOH!!! Seriously, this kid LOVES him. And all of Pooh's friends. He can name them all [a video of that will come soon!]. We have a few different Pooh shows on Netflix and Haddon just can't get enough. I bet he could sit and watch Pooh all day. Don't worry, we ration the screen time ;)

I'll close this out with one of the sweetest snapshots that I pray will be a normal thing in my little boy's life in the years to come...

May the word of Christ dwell in you richly, Joshua Haddon Pugh.