10 months-Hallie, and Bow Photoshoot

Since Hallie is almost 11 months now, and I realize I never finished her 10 month post, here it is in simple bullet point form. :)

• 3 teeth, of which she got all in one week.  2 came in before Havasu, and she got the third while there.  Like Hudson, she didn't really have any behavior changes to getting teeth.  However, she has discovered she can BITE with them, and it's quite painful.  
• She is back to sleeping through the night!  At Havasu we were all in one room and I was worried about her waking Hudson, as she's been waking occasionally in the night.  Because it is so hot there, and our hotel room had poor air conditioning circulation, we also had a fan blowing in the room.  The fan created white noise for both me and Hallie, so it either helped Hallie sleep, or helped me not hear her and she went back to sleep on her own.  Either way, she now 100% sleeps through the night consistently since Havasu.  Hallelujah for vacations altering sleep schedules...now that's something you don't hear everyday!
• She is cruising on the furniture
• She enjoys her walker, but unless we put her outside on the back patio with it, she can't really go anywhere with it.  She mainly has hallways to walk in our place and she doesn't have the control to not just crash into walls. 
• She is now on formula just over half the time.  She nurses in the morning, sometimes followed up with a little formula, has 2 5-6 oz bottles (11:30/3:30) and nurses/has a bottle of freezer breast milk in the evening before bed.  This has been a great change for us and I am not sure how we would have made it through Havasu with her nursing as my supply was dropping and she really doesn't enjoy nursing, especially when it hot and covered. 
• She was given fish for the first time...salmon...and loves it.  What's not to love, right?
• She also has tried a few other table foods, including diced watermelon and cantaloupe and likes those too.
• She is sitting awesomely since havasu.  I think she learned this skill while in the little kiddie pool we had for her and Natalie on the dock.  She of course sits in a "hurdle" position, with one leg out, the other bent back.  Funny girl.  
• She loves the water...pool, bath, toilet (gross)
• She sits in the tub now, and never lays down. 
• favorite toys: currently the cylindrical kitchen storage containers we had in the garage unused that I brought in to store some of Hudson's toys.  I have left the unused ones inside and hallie loves grabbing them and throwing random toys in and hauling it around the house.  She also loves her little stacking cups.  She sticks them over her fists.  Apparently cups are her thing. 
• She has started chatting a lot while in her carseat.  She will just babble on and on, or blow "raspberries."  The carseat is the most consistent place for this to happen, but she does it frequently throughout the day. 

We had some fun this month doing product shots for a bow company, and I loved having sweet Hallie as my little model.  Here are a few of my favorites. And by "a few" I mean a ton...but then again, I started with over 600 images on my camera, so narrowing it down to this was tough!

{see even more from the shoot over on my photography blog: katieheinerphotography.blogspot.com }

Hudson--3 years old!

obsessions: Jake and the Neverland Pirates, vehicles, watching movies
food: loves steak and salmon, chicken nuggetts, and rice & raisins for breakfast. Prefers milk over water.

"10 of them" is a phrase we hear very often, and basically means "a whoooooole lot" in Hudson terms.

We finally have figured out the trick to brushing Hudson's teeth.  It has been a battle.  We now count his teeth as we brush, which leads to 10 long seconds of brushing on the top, and 10 on the bottom, with spitting in between.  His favorite is to request the counting in Spanish, german, english or french...the four languages between Colby and me that we can count to ten in. ;)

He loves playing hide and seek. Typically he hides in the same couple places: on his bed under a pillow/blanket, in the living room behind our floor lamp, behind all the decorative pillows on either the master or guest bed, or under the side table in the living room.  They are all excellent{ly visible} hiding spots. Often he will hide and we will find him, then he will tell us to find him again and simply pull the blanket back over his face.

Naps have been gone since July, and he now has quiet time during Hallie's afternoon nap...1:30-3:30. Some days it's great, other days its a complete failure.  He is supposed to be in his room either reading or playing quietly with his toys.

Speaks very well, with the exception of his "L" and an occasional "th" sound.  My favorite speech impaired words he says are "bwanquet" (blanket) and "Kank you"

He is very well-mannered and says "thank you" so often.  Often he will say "thank you" over and over until you acknowledge him and reply with "you're welcome."

Knows his ABCs and sounds each letter makes. Still not familiar with lowercase though. 

Has a great imagination and it's fun to listen to him play alone or with Hallie and speak his imagination. 

Loves watching TV and movies, which is good and bad. If I let him, I think he'd watch from when he woke up to when he goes to sleep. His favorite tv show has changed from Thomas to dinosaur train to most recently Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Colby purchased several of the Classic Disney DVDs and Hudson has enjoyed watching them. The ones he requests most (and some of the few he's seen more than once) are Toy Story, Lion King and Little Mermaid (Ariel as he calls it) 

Finally poops on the toilet (3 yrs 1 month)   

Very talkative and excited about life in general. From the minute he wakes up he's talking and entergetic. He doesn't need time to "warm up" in the morning. 

He has somehow developed a morning routine of "driving away" with Dad. He climbs into the passenger seat and buckles himself in. Colby drives one house down or to the stop sign (we are two homes from the corncer) and I get him. I open the door and Hudson unbuckled himself, tells dad to have a good day my that he loves him, and always points out that "there's still dirt on the sidewalk", and now adds "but they cleaned it up now." (Referring to our neighbor who had piled dirt on the sidewalk for about a month as they slowly.pit in sprinklers. It's kind of a joke now, and we think Hudson actually understands that and continues his line for comedic effect.

We sure love our growing boy and can't imagine life without him. xo!