Milestone for Archer - Crawling!

Archer has been close to crawling since the week after thanksgiving and he finally made the milestone the day after Christmas. Jarad and Jerry were up with him early in the morning on the 26th and they said that he crawled about four steps, but he only did it one time. Since then, we hadn't seen him crawl again until we arrived in Moorhead the night of the 28th. We'd been driving in the car all afternoon and when we arrived that evening, he just started crawling. He still moves pretty slow and goes back to sitting quite often, but he is definitely a "crawler" now! Check out these videos.



As soon as we got to MN on Nov. 29th, Archer was getting on all fours and "revving" or "rocking." He would do this often between then and now and he still does it sometimes. When we were in Mpls on Nov. 19th, we first saw him go from all fours back up to sitting on his own. While in Duluth this past week, he became a pro at going from all fours to sitting and he does this all the time. He now crawls to get to where he wants and then tries to grab the item and sit back up. Often times he will sit up a few times before getting to the item he wants depending on how far away it is. He still moves quite slowly as you'll see in the video, but he does manage to get all over the place. He also loves to hold onto our hands and stand now. We are sure it won't be long before he hits the next Milesonte...Pulling Up. Stay tuned.

Christmas Blankets

One of our favorite gifts that we received for Christmas this year are homemade blankets made by our nephew Corbin (pictured above). Corbin made a blanket for both of his cousins, Avalon and Archer. He came up with the idea to make the blankets, he picked out the fabric himself, and he tied all the knots and he is only 7 years old. Amazing! We absolutely LOVE the blankets! Avalon's blanket has Mickey Mouse, which is her favorite character(she has a soft Mickey Mouse that goes with her everywhere), and she already sleeps with it every night. Archer's blanket has Monkeys and soccer balls, which we love and he uses his everyday to sit and play on. THANK YOU Corbin for these amazing gifts!

Do a bottom drop...

We are back in Minnesota for the holidays and Avalon doesn't last too long playing in the cold and neither do I. So we were looking for an indoor activity where Avalon could get some good exercise and burn off some of that energy that all two year old's have. We discover something to do just that...Gymnastics. One of Jarad's friends from college lives in Fargo now and he told us about an open gym at a gymnastics facility for preschoolers ages 2 to 5. Avalon loved it! The gym was huge and the kids could use any of the equipment, so she ran around from one thing to the next and had a blast!

My favorite was when she would run down the tramp and then "jump" into the pit. Our little girl is still pretty cautious, so I placed "jump" in quotes. Watch this video and you'll see why...



In this video she is even more cautious when jumping in the pit and she also does some pretty good bottom drops too.



Jumping on the tramp with our friend and his two girls.



In the big kid pit. She had trouble getting out of this pit by herself, so one of us had to help pull her out.

Balancing on the beam. She did walk across the small beam while holding my hand as well.

Balancing and jumping on the beam that Avalon and our friend's girls made.

Running and jumping into the pit.


Tired out.

Another Milestone for Archer - Sitting Up

We started to sit Archer up in the boppy when he was around 6 months old. He loves being able to sit up and see things and reach the toys around him. And , of course, once he gets hold of the toy, it immediately goes into his mouth. When we first started to sit him up, he usually fell forward pretty quickly, but now we feel confident to sit him up without something behind him. He first sat alone well right before Thanksgiving on November 24th.

A few more pics of Archer sitting up and playing with toys.

And a few pics of Archer's many faces while sitting in the boppy.

Archer's third tooth - 7 months

Archer's third tooth broke through yesterday on his 7 month birthday. It is another one on the bottom on his left side. His first two teeth are in well now, so you can really see them in the picture above. I also weighed him yesterday and he is now 17 pounds, which is still the 16%.

Archer has not been sleeping well since I wrote the post titled "Good Sleeper" when he was 4 months old. He usually wakes up once a night now and the time he wakes up varies from midnight to 5am. He does go to bed earlier around 7:30pm, so sleeping until 5am is a pretty good night sleep, but of course our expectations are higher now. We think the disruption in his sleep may be due to teething as his first tooth came at 5 months. He continues to put everything that he can get his hands on into his mouth and has now started to drool quite a bit too. Thus, he continues to go through lots bibs every day. And, of course, he still spits up quite a bit as well, but that has gotten a little better now. But it's all worth it once we see that beautiful smile! :)

Outdoor playground in MN...are we kidding?

Nope! Grandpa, Mommy and Avalon headed out to a hill in Moorhead to give sledding a try. But after two runs down the hill with Mommy, Avalon spotted the park and was done with sledding. So Mommy took her to the park instead. It was so cold, it was hard to even take my mitten off to take pictures, but I did manage to snap a few shots.

Avie went down the slide with her cousin Corbin.


She rode the horses with her cousin Dorian.

And she tried out the swings too.
She refused to walk through the snow, so Mommy had to carry her around. And she really didn't like getting her hands on the snow.

After a short time at the park, Avalon took a couple of laps around the park on the sled with Mommy pulling. All in all, I think Mommy got the best workout this time!

Dinosaur Playland

Now that the kids and I are back in MN, we went to Dinosaur Playland, an indoor park, in the mall. Grandma and Grandpa came too. Avalon had a great time! Archer played a bit too, but he got tired out much faster than Avalon and was ready for some food and a nap.
Avalon had fun sliding down the slide,


and jumping off the rocks.
This time she actually fell as I snapped the photo.
Archer played on the lava.

Avalon also rode the dinosaurs,

crawled through and played in the tunnels,
and rested on the rocks.
Thank goodness for indoor parks! Stay tuned for the next post when we played at the outdoor playground...brrrr!

Avie painting

Camille takes Avalon to a class called Growing Times once a week where they have lots of fun activities and toys for the kids. Avalon is now in the class for 2-3 year olds and the newest activity is painting and Avalon loves it! Maybe she did get a few of those creativity genes from her Grandma Moeckel. Enjoy these pics and videos of Avalon painting!

This is one of the first times Avie painted in early October. This time I actually had to stop her so that other kids could have a turn.



The next two times she painted, she used these paint pens. She still hasn't figured out how to draw a line with them, but she is really good at making dots.

Here is her latest art project. It was a few days before Halloween, so they had lots of fall colors.