Guess where we went?????

We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! We wanted to see how well Anthony travels and go somewhere fun, so we picked somewhere fairly close to go. Monterey is about 3 hours away from our home. Anthony did pretty good on the drive. He slept part of it. He was not happy being stuck in his car seat when he was awake though. I had to try and keep him occupied for about an hour of the trip there. We stayed at the Hyatt which was really nice. We checked in and got settled in. We took Brisa walking when we got there since she had been stuck in the car for 3 hours. After that it was off to the aquarium!

The aquarium is amazing! It is a place I would recommend to everyone and I saw every type of person there enjoying it. There was people from all over the world there. You could spend all day looking at everything and not see it all. Anthony had a lot of fun looking at everything. The colors of the sea life are so vivid and beautiful. Anthony didn't nap the whole time, both days we went. I think he liked the jellyfish best of all. They are so many things to do and see there. It will be so much fun bringing him back when he is older too. They have so much for kids to do there. They have games, exhibits just for kids, sea life you can touch, you can watch them feed the sea life, and so much more. You have to check out the aquarium! Here are some pictures from our trip. Truly you have to see the aquarium in person though to see how beautiful and amazing it is.

Monterey in general reminded me a lot of the area we live in. It is very beautiful, right along the ocean. It is cooler than the central coast though. There are many stores and historical places to visit there. Next time we go hopefully we can check out more things there. It is very family oriented. They have so many things to do there. You can look up the Monterey Bay Aquarium online to find out more about it.

Anthony decided the night we stayed in the hotel was a good night to have a top tooth poke through. It was a very long night. He was extremely fussy and we barely got any sleep. Initially we thought he wasn't sleeping well because he was in a weird place or his sleeping schedule had been messed up. Later we found out his top left tooth had broke through the skin. I wish I would have realized it that night. I forgot to bring teething gel, but I would have sent Mike to the store to get some. Luckily it was just one night of barely any sleep. Last night at home he slept all night and woke up around 5:30 for food, before sleeping some more. It was nice to catch up on lost sleep.

Last night when we got home Anthony was anxious to get down on the floor and play with all of his toys. The first thing he did was go to one of his play toys and get up on his knees to play with it. That was the first time he had ever done that. Minutes later he pulled himself up to stand!! This was also a first. It was amazing. He hadn't played on the floor for two days and then he is on the floor for only a few minutes and manages to get on his knees and pull himself up!

8 Months Old

Anthony turned 8 months old this past weekend. He is so much fun. He likes to investigate everything. We have to keep buying him new toys because he gets bored after a while with his toys. We usually just put a few aside and then introduce him to them a couple weeks later and it is like a new toy to him all over again. About a week before he turned 8 months old he started crawling. He had been army crawling for a couple weeks before that. The first time he actually crawled on all fours, he crawled to the kitchen to slap the tile. He loves the sound of his hands slapping the tile. He is so funny. He was also going to see what Mike was doing. (He was cooking dinner) He doesn't only crawl though. He still likes to roll around. We recently got a very large play yard for our living room. We just figured it would be too hard to baby proof everything. We let him play outside though when we can watch him completely. He is so fast that if you turn your eyes away and back he is already across the room. He has fun playing with all of his toys in his play yard though. He still jumps in the jumperoo.

Anthony is eating a variety of stage 1 and stage 2 foods. His favorite is sweet potatoes. We have tried the puffs with him and he isn't really sure what to think about them yet. He likes to crunch them with his two bottom teeth. I'm pretty sure it will be any day when his top teeth come in. I can feel them right under his gums. He is also having all of the signs of teething.

I am working on weaning Anthony. It would be done by now, but due to his milk allergy it has been somewhat difficult finding the right formula. Last week his doctor's office suggested I use Alimentun, but he has had an upset stomach so we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to talk about what will work for him. I think that talking to the doctor will be the best thing. I am curious of how much he weighs also.

We have been getting a lot of rain here which is pretty unusual since we were in a drought forever. Anthony saw his first lightning and heard his first thunder. He didn't even notice it. It makes it a lot harder to get out of the house in the rain with a baby. When it stops raining we try to get out of the house for walks in the park or neighborhood. We even walk through the mall or stores just to get out of the house. Anthony loves this! He is very interested in the world outside. He likes to watch his dog when we go for walks. He is especially interested in other babies.

Anthony is a HUGE wiggle worm! No one ever told me there would come a time when changing diapers would become difficult. Half of the time I have to change his diapers while he is on his tummy. We have to dress him while he is on his tummy and he is usually trying to crawl away.

He is still very talkative. Mike is pretty happy because he is saying dada a lot. He usually says mama when he is crying or upset. He likes to babble to himself when he is playing with his toys, it is so cute.

I have posted some videos of him crawling on youtube. They should appear also on the side. There are also some pictures of the weather we have been having on picasa which you can get to by clicking on the slideshow.

2010

For 2010 one of my New Years resolutions is to take Anthony to more places in our area. We live in a beautiful area and their are many neat places to go and things to do. Most of the places nearby are free and very close. Everyone knows it isn't the easiest thing to travel far with a baby. Most people come here to vacation in this area, but since we have lived here our whole lives we take it for granted. Places that the tourists come to visit we avoid. My goal is to take Anthony to more of these places. To start the New Year right we took Anthony to a nearby beach. We took him to Avila Beach, also one of Brisa's (our dog) favorite places to run around. It was overcast but not too cold, probably about 65 degrees. After our walk on the beach we met my parents at Fat Cats for a nice lunch. A couple days later we decided to drive to Morro Bay, another local beach area. We took Anthony to a couple beaches there and the aquarium. At the small aquarium they have seals you can feed. I used to go there to feed them when I was kid. He was very interested in the seals. He was especially interested in an octopus there.We also took him to Morro Rock. The waves were unusually high and breaking over the breakwater. Hopefully 2010 will bring many more fun memories and new experiences for all of us. I am going to try to do posts on some of our adventures. There is video of us feeding the seals on our youtube.

Christmas Time

I just realized that I never made a post about Anthony's first Christmas, so here it is. We decided to get a living tree this year, which we got only a couple days before Christmas. It smells wonderful. Currently it is living in our backyard in a pot. It is a Colorado Spruce. We didn't let Anthony touch it because it is pokey, but he loved the lights on the tree.

For Anthony's first Christmas we stayed in the area and spent Christmas with some of our family. Anthony woke up early on Christmas and only got a twenty minute nap in the whole day. He didn't go to bed until about ten pm. He only got fussy once after being woke up from a short lived nap. Around noon we went to my parents house. There we had a yummy lunch and snacks. We did a gift exchange and Anthony opened his presents. We watched a blue ray movie on my parent's flat screen tv. Traditionally in my family we always go to the movies for Christmas, but since we have three new babies in my family this year that wouldn't work. So instead of going to the movies we watched one at my parent's house. Anthony spent the afternoon playing with his toys.

In the late afternoon we went over to Vicki and Lupe's house. We ate a yummy dinner and did another gift exchange. Anthony got more fun toys to play with. He was very happy about all of the new things to play with. Mike's cousin Erika brought her baby boy Kade, so we all got to meet him for the first time. He was very cute. Anthony had a lot of fun being passed around all of the family members.

Anthony ended the night playing with all of his toys even though half of them weren't even out of their wrappers yet. Anthony ended up staying up late because he didn't want to be pulled away from his toys. He had a very fun first Christmas.

Anthony's First Haircut

Well today was the day Anthony got his first haircut. His hair has been getting pretty long just down the middle of his head like a mohawk. I just wanted his hair thinned out a little bit and trimmed so it didn't hang in his eyes. My sister Tiffany did a great job of trimming just enough off.

Anthony was good through the whole haircut, although the haircut was only a couple minutes long. My mom held him in her lap and he just looked around while my sister cut his hair. A piece fell on his nose and he smiled because it tickled. Luckily he didn't seem to mind the haircut at all. He just liked all of the attention on him!

This is what Anthony looked like after his haircut.

6 Month Check Up

On Monday Anthony had his 6 month check up. He weighed 18.6 pounds. We were surprised because he feels like 20! The doctor told us he is in the 90th percentile for his height. Maybe he got that from my side of the family. The men in my family are over 6 feet tall. He ended up getting 2 shots and a liquid one. I don't understand why they don't make them all liquid, it would make things easier.He was pretty good for the shots though. He only cried for a couple seconds. Even though he doesn't weigh as much as we suspected he is still a big baby. He looks like he is a lot older. He is wearing mostly 9 month and 1 year old clothing. He does still fit in 6 month well, but some of the 6 month outfits are snug on him. It really depends on the style of the outfit.
Anthony just recently started crawling, although he is crawling backwards.He can hold his whole body off the ground and push himself around. At this point he is only good at pivoting in a circle and going backwards. He has managed to go forward a couple times, but he hasn't caught on yet. When he moves backwards he lifts up his body and uses his arms to push him backwards, so he looks like a little inch worm moving backwards across the living room. He still rolls all over the place though. I'm pretty sure we need to start baby proofing the living room. He got into a lot of things rolling all over and now that he figured out how to crawl backwards he can pretty much get everywhere. He still isn't sitting up on his own. He can sit up alone for a while and then he usually tips over. He likes to be lower to the ground, so he can roll around with all of his toys. He is very into his toys too. He will spend hours playing with them in the living room. One of his favorite things to do is bang on things. I have a drum that he loves to bang on. At my parents house he bangs on a tambourine. He has a huge grin when he does it too. He likes to bang his toys on each other also. He still loves his jumperoo. The doctor told me not to let him play in it too much though because it teaches him to stand on his tippy toes rather than the on his heels. Anthony likes to make noise. We love listening to him. It is funny listening to him try out his voice and bang on everything.
He is eating solids occasionally now. He usually gets them twice a day. I think his favorite thing so far is sweet potatoes. His other favorites are pears, carrots, prunes, and apples. He doesn't really like green beans or peas yet, but we are working on it.
He recently saw his first parade which he was very interested in, especially the bands. He really likes music. He went to the library the first time. He decided to wake up from his nap right when we got there to blow bubbles and babble. He recently saw his first Christmas lights, which he loved. Our neighbors have lights that flash with the Christmas music they have playing. I think he could have watched and listened to that all day. He got to see Santa. Unfortunately he had just woke up from a short lived nap, so he was pretty out of it in the pictures. I think we will have to see Santa again before Christmas.
I want to take some Christmas photos, so if and when I do I will post them.

New Foods

Anthony tried carrots today and he really liked them. Babies sure get messy when they eat. He is such a happy baby. He thinks it is very fun to try new foods. He pretty much puts anything in his mouth anyways. I can't believe how many places baby food can get even with a bib on!