9 Month Info

Jared turned 9 months on January 22! I can hardly believe it.
Here's the stats:
19.8 pounds which is in the 50th percentile. Even though he's still skinny he's definitely put on a bit of weight. The new pediatrician was very impressed.
29.5 inches which is in the 80th percentile. He's definitely gonna be tall like his daddy. This also meant that I needed to go and buy a new car seat because he outgrew the infant one.
I don't remember what his head circumference was but it was in the 70th percentile.

Overall the little man is doing great. The doctor was very impressed with his development and said he's sure that he'll be an early walker. Jared's already tried standing on his own a few and most of the time there have been positive results.
The newest development is that Jared has finally started using a sign for more regularly. He's made up his own sign, but it's definitely working. It's great too because most of the time he doesn't start whining when he wants something he just does the sign. Yay for less frustration overall. The one problem is that he seems to be using this sign (patting the backside of his hand against his mouth) to tell us lots of things now. I think it means he wants to eat and then he sometimes just wants to make a fun noise with his mouth and hand. Oh well, I'm sure he'll figure it out sometime.
Here's a link to pictures from our Florida trip along with lots of commentary:
Florida Facebook Pics
I have some great videos that I'll be posting soon too.

Definitely Need to Do Some Updating

Well, it's been awhile.
First of all, I decided that instead of doing a New Year's Resolution (which I don't normally do anyway) I'm going to make a list of things that I would like to do in order to make myself into the person that I want to be. Then throughout the year I'll work through the list. My hope is to really concentrate on one thing each month while keeping the other things in mind. I'm still working on organizing the list, but here's some of the major things:
- Organizing and decluttering the house (which will hopefully lead to easier overall cleaning too)
- Figuring out my style, both clothes and decorating
- Starting an herb garden (hopefully leading to a bigger garden later)
- Taking time for myself to do things I enjoy (actually planning something and putting it on the calendar) Specifically taking another cake decorating class, a cooking class, and maybe doing some ballroom dance lessons
- Regularly having dates with Jon (even if they are sitting at home after Jared goes to bed)
- Spending some real time thinking about what I want to do with my life: Do I want to go back to school? What for? What kinds of things do I enjoy enough to spend lots of time doing them?
- Being more active overall
- Finding somewhere to volunteer
- Keep trying to find some friends out here

So, that's my list. I'm still working on figuring out when I'm going to concentrate on each thing. So far I've purged my dresser and closet. Whoo hoo! I've also started a notebook where I put in pictures of clothes that I like. So far I've used the words classic, comfy, and feminine to describe my clothing style.
Your job (if you want to) is to keep me accountable. Check in and see how I'm doing. =)

Also, for those of you that are interested in what Jared's been doing here's a new list.
-Pulling up to standing and cruising along the furniture all the time.
-Real crawling, not just army crawl
-Dancing, while sitting and while standing
-Pointing out Elmo in a book
-Smiling every time someone makes a "b" sound
-Blowing kisses using the back of his hand
-Playing the drums
-Eating anything and everything in sight
-Babbling all the time
I think that's it for now. I'll post about our fun trip to Florida soon.

Christmas Time

Wow! What a whirlwind Christmas was this year!
We started with visiting Valpo to see Viv on Christmas Eve Eve (or Christmas Christmas Eve as I sometimes accidentally say). Jared stayed with my family and it was nice to be out with people after 7pm. =)
The next day our Christmas adventures really started. We went to Jon's parents' house in Elmhurst for our Christmas Eve celebration. Valerie and the kids were able to come so that was fun. We hung out at the house and had some dinner then we headed to the Christmas Eve service at the Boggs' church. Unfortunately, church didn't start til 6 and Jared normally goes to bed at 6:30, so he was getting a little cranky. He had fun before the service started trying to eat Austin's nose.
We took turns standing in the lobby with Jared. Poor guy just wanted his bed so he could go to sleep. Once we got back we put Jared to bed and then Dad read his Christmas letter. After the letter, Jon got his present from his parents because it was too big to haul to Indiana. And the present was...drum roll please.
Yep, that's a drum set. We're still not sure where it will stay permanently, but for now it's in our living room and both of the boys are loving it. After all the festivities at the Boggs' house, we headed back to Indiana to spend the night at my parents' house.
Santa sure was good to us! Here's Jared with his first present.
He did really well, although there were several times where he just looked overwhelmed. He is absolutely loving all of his new toys though! Jon and I are loving our present too. We've been so blessed with very generous families.
After Jared's nap we went over to Grandma Vela's house to spend some time with her. Next stop was Ben and Brianne's for Christmas with the Boggs Family. It was a good time, especially with all the kids tearing through gifts as quickly as possible. Jared missed most of the fun here because of a nap, but we had a great time with the family.
The last stop of the day was Mimi and Pop's house. There Jared got spoiled yet again! He ate the Christmas feast with the family and seemed to thoroughly enjoy everything. While we were waiting for dinner my dad was feeding Jared pieces of a dinner roll and apparently he wasn't moving fast enough because Jared grabbed the roll out of his hands and tried to shove the whole thing in his mouth.
Overall, it was a great day! Here's some video of Jared from our adventures.