More pictures...

Here are some more pictures of Vincent. Yesterday morning, Matt asked Vince "Where is the fan Vince?" and he said "Up!" and pointed up to the ceiling fan in our family room! We were so excited!! He is our little genius :)

Climbing Stairs~

Forgot to post that Vince can climb up our stairs! He went all the way up the front staircase and crawled into his room last night. :)

More Words!

Vince seems to amaze us everyday, but isn't that what kids do? He said "up!" while standing up and pointing towards the ceiling. He loves to point at things now, so curious about what everything is. He also can say "ball". He stills says "dog"; over and over and over again! He will point at things and say "Dog" and look at me like "is that a dog?" He'll look up when you say fan or light and while outside he'll look up if you say bird or airplane.

We started our second set of Kindermusik classes today. He was very happy to be back there. I think the interaction with other babies and the music really helps his development.

We've also been busy with play dates and first birthday parties! Vince loves to pull hair of the other babies and if it's a girl wearing a bow, Vince is sure to rip it out. See the picture above of Vince and his friend Chandler, they are holding hands...too cute!

I am pretty sure he is teething. The past few weeks have been very difficult for me. He has been whining constantly and it's hard for me to get anything done. He also wasn't napping or eating very well! I think I see some teeth coming in and have been giving him Tylenol and that seems to help. He is napping better, but still picky while eating. He wants to feed himself and wants nothing to do with the jar foods. I practically put on a Broadway production of singing and making faces just to distract him so I can shove food in his mouth! I am worn out and some days I think "Oh lord help me!" There are good days, great ones in fact, where I am so consumed with him that I think it's impossible to love him any more than I do. I hope he doesn't grow up with some weird complex from his Mommy kissing him too much! :)

Vince's 1st Words

Vince can now say "Dog!" while pointing to both Oliver and Roxie. I've been working with him on it like crazy and he has been saying it for a few days now and just started pointing at the dogs while saying it. He is such a smart little guy! He tries to say "Flagada" which is french slang for 'pooped out' or tired. One of the songs on the french CD we have is called Flagada and he loves when it comes on the CD player in the car. I am learning the words to it and when I sing it to him he gets really excited. It's so cute! He said "apple" once a couple of weeks ago and hasn't said it since. It's one of his favorite flash cards that we do together and he knows what an apple is, he just won't repeat it again yet. We are working on the word "ball" now.
Vince is also doing well with his baby sign language. He started doing the "all done" sign about a week ago. It freaked me out when he did it. I do that sign to him at the end of every meal and when he did it to me I didn't believe him. I tried giving him more food and he put his hands in front of his mouth, he was really all done!
All in all, 9.5 months of age has brought a lot of communicating!

Happy 4th of July!

It's been a while since our last post and I have a few things to update. We had a play date pool party here last week with some of our friends from the mommy group. That was fun and everyone had a great time. We hope to do it again soon. On Monday the 1st we had another play date here, this time it was a Patriotic Play Date and all of the babies came dressed in red/white/blue. It was cute! Vince was attached to me the whole time and only crawled off a few times to play. He is really going through the separation anxiety and it's bad! I am very tired lately because he just wants to be next to me all the time. My mom said that one day he'll go off and play on his own and I'll want him to be next me as much as he is now. Probably true but a little break would be nice :)

I had a great pre-birthday weekend with Matt. We went to the Fort Worth Symphony Concerts in the Park on Saturday night. Jen watched Vine overnight and we headed over there. It was a great concert with all the music Matt and I love, Star Wars, Indian Jones etc. It was not as good as the Hollywood Bowl concert with the same music but that is because John Williams (the famous composer who created those songs) was not there conducting like he was in LA. Slowly I am finding things to do here that are as good as things in California. There was just so much more to do over there and it's hard to find comparable things here.

For my birthday, Matt, Vince and Gloria (mom-in-law) went to this new place in Allen called Brio. It was soooo good!! The waitress was a little funky and kind of made Vince upset since she was so much in his face. She brought him a balloon and he was really freaked out by it. Not sure if it was because it was attached to his arm, or if he is afraid of balloons in general. I got a lot of nice "frenchie" things for my birthday and things like that make me happy any day! I can't believe I am 29! I feel old and I am sad to leave my twenties behind! I used to say that I can't wait until I am 30 and that I am tired of being 20-something! What was I thinking?? So this is my last year to live it up and I certainly plan on it!

Today we plan to swim, BBQ steaks and maybe head out to a fireworks show later this evening. Hope everyone has a great fourth!