June 14 was West’s first birthday.  We had a really fun safari themed party with all of his friends and family.  So I officially have a toddler!  Not only is West looking more and more like a toddler, he is learning things daily that have brought him out of the baby category.  

Here are a few of those things:

*signs all done, more, milk, please and thank you (although please is rubbing the chest of who ever is holding him rather than his own :))

*When reading a book he can point to a cow when asked “where is the cow?”

*climbs stairs

*Taking his first steps

*learning colors (concentrating on red and yellow at the moment)

*VERY opinionated 🙂

West officially has a lovey. His name is Bob because Elephant is just too hard for a baby to say:). I’m desperately hoping Bob will stay in the crib. I’d rather not carry one more thing around when we leave the house. So for now, Bob is greeted with a big smile, hugs and snuggles during nap and bed time. So cute.

Testing how well the wordpress app works for iphone 🙂

I am so blessed to have a wonderful husband, father and father-in-law.  These guys went above and beyond to make sure we felt loved on a our special day.  They spent about 4 hours in the kitchen cooking an extravagant dinner while we sat on the deck out back enjoying the sunshine and each others company.  What a wonderful 1st Mother’s Day!  

Melissa and I are suckers for Apple gear.  We have 2 iphones.  2 mac minis, a couple of mac books, an airport express (this, by the way, RULES and you should get one).  

We love iTunes.  Generally speaking.  But with all this great gear and innovation, making this technology more and more accessible to non-nerd masses, you’d think they’d make it possible to link a couple of iTunes accounts.  Charge me $20 for it.  Or more.  

Seriously, don’t make me load 900 hours of K-12 educational music to my iTunes library so that my wife can sync a few dozen songs out of my library onto her iPhone.  It’s completely insane to me that we can share libraries, listen to each other’s music all day long, play our music from one machine though the stereo, two separate computers and an iPhone all at the same time yet, due to the risk of someone at Starbucks ripping off my super sweet Jefferson Hour podcasts I can’t effectively share the same two libraries between two iPhones.

C’mon guys.  Come up with a unique identifier scheme in the next version of iTunes before the 3.0 firmware ships.  Do something so that my 5 authorized machines can be authorized to two accounts simultaneously and shared libraries from those ‘cross-authorized’ accounts can be added to one another’s playlists.  

Please? 

Today I taught my first Mommy and Me Music class!  There were 3 other babies besides West and it was so much fun :).  This is my first attempt to get back into the working world and it is amazing because I can bring West with me for an hour of fun rather than put him in day care.  I’m hoping that we will get enough interest that I could do 2 classes a week.  I guess we’ll just see how it goes!

Here is all the info.  There is still time to sign up even though we’ve already had one class!

http://www.brainwavesacademy.com/mommyandmemusic.htm

Here are the stats from West’s 9 month well-check.  As well as some of the pictures from his 9 month photo shoot :).

Head:  17 3/4 inches

Weight:  23 lbs

Length:  30 inches

Amelia Christine (Ami).  Born March 23rd!

As I was finishing up an email…

I look back to see my sweet little boy taking my computer mouse and dunking it in the dog water bowl.

As I write this, he’s taking the crinkly paper I gave him to distract him for a minute more…and dunking it in the dog water bowl.

Do dogs REALLY need water? 🙂