Beach Weekend

While Ryan was in Sweden for a conference, Hunter and I took a mini-vacation to Ocean City to visit Mom-Mom. As you can see from the pictures below we had a blast, filled with lots of quality time together!

Funniest moment of our visit: Mom-mom has a permit to take her truck onto the beach at Assateague Island, so that is where we went 3 out of our 4 day visit. It is nice because it is less crowded than the beach in OC and you don't have to lug all of your beach and baby stuff blocks to get there. You can just drive up and unload behind your truck. However, it can be a rough ride once you are cruising on the sand! So the first day out Hunter's eyes were as big as saucers as his head started bumping from side to side, and back and forth, against his car seat with his first 4-wheeling experience. The next morning as I put Hunter into his car seat to head back out to the beach, I was talking to him and said "Guess where we are going?" and he started throwing his head back and forth against his car seat like he was 4-wheeling again. That cracked us up! For the rest of the weekend, whenever we said "Do you want to go for a ride with Mom-mom?" he would start bumping around, so we figure he is going to associate horrible driving with her!

Sweetest moment of our visit: Our last day at the beach, Mom-mom was taking Hunter down to the water and he found a seashell. He kept turning around to look for me to see if I had noticed. Later when they walked back up to where I was sitting he still had the seashell in his hand and was holding it up in the air to show me with a huge smile on his face. He was so very proud of his very first beach treasure! The moment was so sweet. Now I have a pretty ugly seashell that I will keep and cherish forever!

Hunter's Favorite Game

is "I'm Gonna Get You"! He loves being chased around the house, giggling and squealing the whole time!

Dance Machine

Hunter loves to shake it to music. Whether sitting or standing, when he hears music he will start bobbing up and down or rocking back and forth! He's such a little cutie!

Walking Solo

Hunter is taking more and more steps by himself these days! Sometimes getting up to 6-7 steps! When he takes his time and goes slow he does very well, but he seems to be in a hurry to get everywhere and that trips him up a bit!

These aren't the best videos, but it's all I've been able to capture so far.

Fish Face

LOVE when Hunter makes fish lips!!

Vroom! Vroom!

The fascination with cars and ability to make the "vroom" sound must come naturally with the Y chromosome!

ESCAPE!

Our prisoners are trying to make a jail break!

Got Earplugs?

Independence Day

As with all the other major holidays this year, Hunter managed to get ill the Thursday before 4th of July. He had a horrible stomach bug that kept us up to our eyeballs in dirty diapers and laundry, and extremely worried about dehydration. Luckily, he started to get a bit of his energy and appetite back by Sunday. While we decided to cancel our prior plans to go to Uncle Scott's cookout and watch the fireworks in Havre de Grace, we were able to hang out with our neighbors and catch about 15 mins of fireworks in our neighborhood before Hunter hit a wall and needed to go to bed. He was a trooper though, and he didn't seem at all scared by the sparks or noises from the fireworks.

(Of course, he made a full recovery from his stomach virus by Monday afternoon...just in time for us to go back to work!)

11 Months Old!

Another month down and so much is going on!! Hunter now has 6 teeth, 4 on top and 2 on the bottom. This has helped him to eat more and more table food, to the point that we rarely mash or puree his food anymore. Hunter also mastered drinking from a straw the first time it was offered to him this past month. We've been told this is usually difficult for children, but it's no surprise to us as he seems to quickly adapt to anything involving food or drink! As a result, he continues to grow like a weed and, during his last doctor's visit, he weighed 22 lbs 14 ozs.

This past month Hunter's walking abilities have also improved. He is now walking very well with just a little assistance from us or things around him. He motors around holding on to one of our fingers or by using one hand to balance himself along a wall or the furniture. We figure it won't be much longer before he takes his first steps on his own. His energy level and curiosity have increased quite a bit. He is interacting more with the other kids in our neighborhood; he loves watching them run around and tries to reach for them so he can join in the fun. The other day one of the kids put his water gun on the ground and Hunter jumped at the chance to grab it up and play with it. We are starting to get our first taste of what it is going to take to keep up with him through the toddler years!!

Things have been very warm so far this summer, so we have been spending as much time as we can in the water. Hunter seems to enjoy splashing around in our community pool or in our inflatable pool in the backyard. Needless to say, he continues to impress us, and the photos below are just a sample of what we see on a daily basis. Enjoy!!!