Nite Nite

Can I just say how much I LOVE this stage of AJ's life?! He's starting to copy a lot of the things we do and it's just adorable. He's learned "nite, nite" and here is his playing with daddy...

On another note, we're all going camping this weekend. I don't really know how I feel about this. First of all, I'm not really a camper. You see, I like to shower, sleep in my bed and well...I really love my shower :) BUT...Jason really wants to go and we're going with 5 other families to the Rocky Mountain National Forest. It should be beautiful. My two biggest concerns are, 1) AJ sleeping in a pack n play in our tent and 2) AJ crawling around and eating EVERYTHING on the ground. Stay tuned, I'm sure I'll have PLENTY of stories and pictures when we get back!

Playing Ball

I thought this was pretty cute. AJ found this ball and he decided to play fetch...with himself :)

A New Toy

We were able to borrow a neighbors "Walker" the other day and here's a little video of AJ driving the car! It's pretty bad quality, but you can see how much fun he had (most of the time).

Playing Chase!

This is super cute! For a while, he's just playing and stuff and I'm trying to get him to say Mom...then it becomes a game of chase, which he LOVES! Enjoy :)

Mom

Yep! He can FINALLY say it. He doesn't know what it means, or who is "mom" but AJ's crawling around saying "Mom.....Mom...Mum..." It's so cute! Would be cuter if he didn't say it to strangers, or his toys or didn't look at me and say "dadada" but hey, I'll take it!

I'll try to get it on video later today.

Other Kids

AJ just LOVES other kids. I'm convinced he wants to be older so he can run around and scream and yell like other, older kids do. He's always watching kids, no matter where we are and usually lets out a big laugh when he sees them.

This evening, we had our screen door open and there were some kids in the house behind us playing- they were probably 6+ years old. AJ was standing at the screen door yelling at them (of course they couldn't hear) and I imagined AJ was saying "Hey! I want to play too! That looks like a lot of fun!" He was smiling, yelling, talking and just really enjoying listening and watching them. Of course I do not want him to grow up, but at the same time, I can't wait for him to run around with other kids and just have the time of his life :)

No More Nursing...

It's official; I am done nursing. I've been nursing AJ now for over 11 months and for the past few weeks, he's wanted it less and less. He's such a great eater and hasn't really been getting much nutrients from me for a while; it's mainly been a comfort thing and a way to get him to sleep (or back to sleep in the middle of the night).

I have been working really hard at just laying him in his crib when it's time for bed and I'm trying even harder to let him cry it out in the middle of the night. Nap time hasn't been tough at all, as he falls asleep pretty quickly. The hard part has been when he wakes up at 4am and can't fall back asleep. This morning I listened to him cry for an hour and a half and it was EXHAUSTING! I had to be strong though because he just has to get this figured out.

I will say that part of me is happy to be done with nursing, but there's a small part of me that will really miss that bonding time I had with AJ. It was a special time for us when we would just sit together and stare into each others eyes and I would play with his hair and just love him. I'm SO lucky to have had that time with him and thrilled to have giving him such wonderful nutrients for so long.