Zach's new tricks

Zach is doing so many new things these days. He is 11 months old and is reminding me everyday that he is only 1 month away from being a toddler. That is amazing for me to realize as it feels like just yesterday that he was born, but then I realize how worn out I am after playing with him all day and it is a reminder about how much has changed. 

Zach loves life and he wants to go go go. He loves to get out of the house and go places where he can watch other kids. Whenever he sees other kids he gets very excited and starts to squeal and clap his hands. He has some good little buddies his age that we try to spend lots of ti

me with. In fact, 5 of them are coming over tomorrow afternoon to play! 

Zach is eating everything he can get his hands on. This favorite thing is chicken. He loves chicken which makes Andy and I laugh since we are sort of always trying to eat vegetarian. He talks a lot now too. He says Da da, which I have decided now officially refers to Andy. He says it only when he sees him or when it is obvious that he is looking for him. He also says hi! He loves to play with our cell phones and has made a few prank calls to the people on my speed dial. You never know...the next time you get one of those heavy breathing phone call it could be Zach! So since he is familiar with the cell phone he will

 now say hi to us and hold his hand up to his ear like he is talking on the phone. He loves to clap his hands and that is always the sure sign that he is excited. Often he will look up at me and smile and start clapping his hands whenever I walk into the room. I couldn't ask 

for a better greeting than that! 

He has also started cruising around the house using his push toys on w

heels. He does circles around the house looking so proud of himself, however he doesn't know how to turn so he will run into a wall. Bang the toy into the wall a few times and then start "calling" for us to come help him. 

Sorry, these pictures are a bit fuzzy because they are from the camera on my phone.

This is the "How big is Zach" game. 

Playing in the tupperware. 

Droopy eyes...nap time, but still showing "how big he is" 

We filled his extra pack n play with balls so now he has his own ball pit!

He likes to throw the balls over the side and watch us run around and chase them. 

Swimming lessons

Here are a few pictures from his swimming class today. He did a great job! It was a little scary at first but he went under and few times, floated on his back and tummy and practiced kicking. It was lots of fun. You may be wondering why we bothered getting a new camera when the pictures come out looking like this, but that was because Andy was very far away and behind glass with lots of other parents so these were the best we could do. 

A New Camera!

I haven't been posting very much lately because I haven't had a camera but I just got a great new one for my birthday so hopefully you will be seeing many more pictures. The picture loader was going VERY SLOW today so I am going to try again tomorrow, but for now I did manage to get up a short video of Zach crawling around in the pool during his first swimming lesson. He is doing great! It has been a hard week as he is getting all 4 front top teeth in at the same time, but he's a trooper! You will see in the video that he has ditched the army crawl and is up on all fours and moving fast. We can barely keep up with him these days and we have spent the weekend baby proofing some more. He has started to climb stairs now and is interested in mostly just the dangerous things around the house so we are trying to stay one step ahead, but its certainly becoming tougher :-) 

Taking a Stand!

It's amazing how quickly Zach is changing these days. Just when I think I have baby proofed the house according to his new abilities he is doing something else. Its so much fun to see. He is still doing his version of crawling which is using his knees and forearms. Everyone who watches him crawl his amazed at how quickly he zooms around using this method. When he sits on the floor to play he prefers to kneel rather than sit on his bottom. When I go into his playroom and see him sitting on his knees and playing with his toys I am amazed at how much he looks like a little boy and not a little baby. His new thing now is to pull himself up from kneeling to standing. He wants to stand on everything. This is especially true since his play group friends came over last week and he watched some of the older ones standing and even walking around his house and using his toys to climb up on. I think he thought it looked like fun and decided he wanted to try it to. Now if I leave him for one second I come back and he is standing up and hanging on for dear life to some piece of furniture. The funniest is when he stands up using his Tonka truck to hang on to and the truck slowly drives away. Poor little guy!  He is doing lots and lots of talking. His favorite things to talk about are Da Da, Pla, Pla, and Ba Ba. Whenever Maggie comes near him he reaches to pet her or climb on her and starts saying MMMMMM so maybe MMMMMM is Maggie! We actually had a great break through on the communication front last week. He started signing back to me using the sign for more! He will be stuffing handfuls of food into his mouth and suddenly look down and see that is tray is empty and he will quickly give me the sign for more. 

He had his 9 month check up last week. All is well, but he is definitely a little guy! His height was 28 3/4 in (50-75 percentile) his weight was 18lb and 4.5oz (10-25 percentile) and his head was 18 1/2 in (90-95 percentile. So that means he is just like his dad, thin with lots and lots of brains! The doctor wasn't worried about his weight but mentioned that since he hadn't been real excited about eating the blended up baby food anymore that we should let him mostly feed himself with his hands. That has been lots of fun, especially for Maggie who gets to clean up after him. He loves feeding himself and we like it too, but that means that instead of 15 or 20 minute meals we now have meals that last about an hour. Thats life with Zach for now. We're having so much fun and its hard to imagine what life was like without him. 

Zach and baby Elsa

He is always very interested in other babies. 

I just can't get enough of the kneeling-It's too cute!

Feeding himself bananas

This is the game he likes to play with us when he is in the high chair. He tips his head one way-we copy him and he tips it the other way. This can go on forever and he also likes to play it in restaurants with other people sitting at tables around us and the waiters. 

MMMMM Delicious 

Reading-Zach loves being read to and is always climbing into his book box and handing me books to read to him. At this point Andy and I have most of his books memorized. 

Drinking from his sippy cup. 

It takes lots of concentration

Hanging out at Starbucks with mommy...

...and daddy. 

GO BRONCOS

Standing up in his crib

He's pretty proud of himself

He loves when daddy plays the guitar for him

Zach likes to play too

Doing a puzzle

The superbowl at Bryan's cool house in DC

Pretty into the game...or the electronic equipment. 

Chatting with Ryan

The handoff

Yay for the Super Bowl!