It's a girl!

We found out yesterday that our second baby, due April 9th, will be a girl. Needless to say, we are very excited for this new adventure and are frantically trying to get ready.

First Birthday

We celebrated Carters first birthday on September 3rd at Hood Canal and had a great time with our family. He was not into the presents or cake, but more excited about playing with his cousins. Who could blame him? We've had a great first year and I'm looking forward to next year. Some final monthly milestones for you:

• Carter is blubbering, all the time. He is talking away to himself when he is reading stories or playing on his own, and he'll walk up to you talking gibberish and expect you to understand what he wants.
• He's surprisingly good at communicating what he wants and it is clear that he understands a lot of what we are saying. You can tell him to go find his shoes and he'll track them down from his bedroom. Some of his favorite words include ball, shoe, hat, truck, up, down, boat, and Chewy (Keith & Maria's dog who is staying with us this month).
• He loves books. He likes you to read to him, but he turns the pages and determines the pace. And he'll take all of the books off his shelf one at a time to have you read them to him. He also sits and reads to himself.
• He pretends to talk on the phone. He holds the phone up to his ear backwards and starts jabbering. Really cute.
• He's doing better at playing independently - he loves taking stuff out of the kitchen cabinets and getting into the garbage. Time to install some locks on the drawers...
• He's fascinated with buckles - tries to unbuckle his highchair or car seat.
• Easily frustrated if something isn't going his way. And he gets overstimulated quickly if there are too many people around or it is too noisy - Gets very fussy. He also started biting when he is mad. We've got to work on that.
• He's a good eater - loves eggs, grapes, edamame, beans - pretty much any finger food that isn't crunchy. We've got to work on the vegetables a little bit. Still having a reaction to tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots. But it is nice because we can feed him food that I prepare for dinner.

I posted new pictures to his first year album from the birthday party. I've also created a new one for his toddler years since there were almost 180 pictures in the other album. Enjoy!