10 months old!!

It's been a while since I've updated everyone on Case and since he turned 10 months old on Saturday, it seemed like the perfect time! I feel like I can't even call him my baby anymore, he has changed so much since we've left Maryland! He has learned to "scoot" (he doesn't crawl). Instead, from a sitting position he puts his arms out on the floor, pulls himself with his arms with his legs behind him, dragging one of them and using the other one to push with. It's super cute, and we like to call it the "Tiny Tim". He's gotten really good at it and can move around so quickly!

Recently, he learned to crawl up the stairs here at the Eikums and it's almost all he wants to do now. His favorite thing is being "chased" up the stairs. We were of course following him to make sure he didn't fall back down the stairs and now he loves the chase game, especially when Matty does noises along with it. He also recently learned to pull himself up on just about anything. He walks along the furniture and LOVES walking behind his toy walker. He's gotten pretty good and he thinks it's the greatest thing ever, as always smiling his big toothy grin! Case also thinks it's the greatest thing to stand up. He practices all by himself by sitting on the bottom step and standing up and down, giggling away! He can now stand for 3-4 seconds all by himself.

He loves being tickled, and getting anyone to smile at him or laugh with him about who knows what! We love him so much and we are so grateful that he's such a happy baby! We had his "9 month" appointment but because of all the moving/visiting family and trying to get into a pediatrician here it was actually two days before he turned 10 months old. He weighs 17 lbs 9 oz (which is the 5th percentile!!) and he's 29 1/4 inches long (70th percentile). Still a string bean! We'll see if he stays on the charts, he dropped from 25th to 5th percentile in four months! But he's eating like a horse now, he loves real food, especially blueberries! I'm not sure if that's going to help him pack on the pounds, but we'll see! So, here's the good stuff... a bunch of Case pictures!

Happy Case

My new favorite picture of him...
Eating his blueberries
At the zoo in the butterfly area
Case and Cousin Macey

These are from the day he turned 10 months old, how did this happen!?

Farewell to good friends

Matty and I love hanging out with some of our friends from college, the Darrs and the Aldrichs. Unfortunately, we cannot seem to manage being in the same state at the same time as the Aldrichs. They spent a year and a half teaching English in Thailand and Korea and when they moved home, we left for Maryland a month later. Now that we are back, they are taking off to teach in the Philippines. So on Saturday we got together with our usual group!

(Lisa Aldrich, me, Matty, Steve and Sarah Darr, and Andy Aldrich)

We first went to Steve and Sarah's for some appetizers and a little Norwegian Golf. Sarah and I played Steve and Andy, and we won! Steve tried to blame it on Case being too distracting or in the way or something, excuses, excuses... Then we headed to Brasa which is a Creole restaurant. It was really good, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone! After that we walked down to Grand Old Creamery where we of course made a scene - I won't mention which couple was the worst, but between the three of us couples it's always somebody! We always have a great time with these couples, and pretty much spend the whole time laughing, but after the fact I can't even remember what about!

Fun, Food and Freedom

The title of my post definitely sums up the fourth of July weekend. We had plenty of fun, plenty of food and of course, the 4th helps us remember how wonderful our freedom is in this country. However, there is a great story behind how I can up with this title. My mom had this close group of friends from college (she went to Bethel as well) and they are really good about having reunions, keeping in contact, etc. They named themselves the FFF. For years I heard about the FFF and never knew what it stood for, always assuming it was something cheesy about Friends Forever yada, yada, yada. So when I was in college I finally decided to ask her what it stood for. And you guessed it, she said, Fun, Food and Freedom!?! I thought that was hysterical. "Freedom from what?" I asked, and her response was, "Well the Bethel rules of coarse!" Can you tell she was in college in the 70's?! So anyways, that's what popped in my head when I thought of the fourth of July weekend.
On Thursday night we headed to the Saints Game with some of our good college friends, The Darrs, Hyders, Schiestls, and some friends of theirs we just met The Bohlens. It was a perfect MN evening, but I can't even tell you if the Saints won or lost.

Hannah picked Case and I up from the game to head up to her cabin for the weekend. It was great hanging out with her family and some of their family friends. On Friday morning her mom made some delicious chocolate chip pancakes and then we spent the day reading and relaxing in the sun! That evening Andrea, Ryan and Coleman came over to hang out. It was, as always, so much fun to see the boys play and it was great catching up with Andrea and Ryan.
Matt drove up that night to join us. And after Andrea and Ryan left the rest of us stayed up late playing Hoopla and Pass it Pictionary. It was so much fun just sitting around the table laughing and playing games.
On Saturday we woke up to Monkey Bread, does it get any better than that? We then spent the day floating in the water, on the boat, kneeboarding and tubing. Matt, Case and I went on the tube all at the same time. It was so great! Saturday night we made a fire, had smores (my favorite thing, ever!) and watched fireworks. The fireworks woke Case up so we grabbed a blanket and he came and snuggled and watched fireworks with us. It was a perfect end to the weekend!