The 9th month

September was a month of 9's in our house.  Andrew turned 9 months and Carter turned 9 years old.

Andrew at 9 months weighs 19 lbs (30%) and is 72 inches (58%).  He has gone from the 75th percentile all the way to the 30th in 4 months.  He is growing just like his brothers and sister did, tall and skinny.  The provider that we saw wasn't concerned with his drop in growth at all (at 4 months he weighed 17 lbs) although she's been practicing for a very long time, she mentioned that if we had seen someone else they most likely would have freaked out that he dropped so much and would have ordered a bunch of tests.  I just shrug, I know he is eating, and he is still growing, no need for the freak out. I have found that the military doctors order all sorts of unnecessary tests.

Some fun things about Andrew:

• crawls just like Carter did--pushing off with one foot, one knee on the ground
• LOVES the cords under the computer
• still loves being outside 
• loves going on walks
• loves to play in Hunter's room
• loves stories
• will point to things/people he knows from across the room 
• says 'dada' and 'momma'
• get's so excited when Daddy gets home, flaps his arms and squeals, if dad walks out of the room with out picking him up we all hear about it
• his favorite food is watermelon.  He also loves strawberries, yogurt, cereal, green beans, hot dogs, cheese, and pretty much anything we are eating.
• if he notices that he is eating something different than us at dinner time he becomes quite upset
• he does not like tomatoes. At all.
• he doesn't like sleeping either
• at 9 months he had no teeth, today at 10 months, he's got almost 4 (yeah, we've had a fun few weeks)
• loves trying to figure out the stairs.  Hanna is kind enough to sit by him while he tires, we have hardwood stairs...
• he doesn't like to sit still for too long, he wants to be down and playing
• still loves to be held by the momma the most, unless of course daddy just got home
• has recently figured out how to stand in his bed, however, he can't figure out how to sit back down and screams when he's stuck.
• finally found a formula he won't throw up, unfortunately he doesn't really like it.
• loves animals and going to the zoo

watermelon, destroyed 

Carter also turned 9 this month.  Where has the time gone, 9 years has just flown by!!  Carter is such a good kid.  He has his moments, just as everyone does, but overall he is a good kid.  He is kind to others, works hard at school, and is always willing to help at home.  He's been in scouts for a year now and is loving it.  After scouts each week they play basketball or football and he loves it!  He always wants to stay a little longer to play just a little more. He loves playing all sports; basketball, football, baseball, and dodgeball are some of his favorites. He LOVES to read, loves math and science.  He pretty much loves school.  He is the GATE program at school, it's a program for the gifted and talented students, and loves the challenge that it brings him.  He learns about stuff that I've never even heard before...tessellations any one.  He does really well in school, getting all A's, smart like his daddy.  He's been taking a pretest each week for spelling, and getting 100% so he doesn't have to do the spelling homework or the spelling test at the end of the week.

lucky boy had 2 little parties!

He had two birthday celebrations. The first with our good friends, who also had a child with a birthday that week.  They were moving later in the week so we had to make sure we partied before they left. Then on his actual birthday, and then again on the day after with our neighbors.  For his birthday dinner he got alfredo with shrimp (no big surprise there!) and for his birthday breakfast he asked for crepes.  Hunter blew out his candle before we even sang Happy Birthday to him, so we had to relight it.  

It was such a beautiful morning, after breakfast we sat outside with our neighbors till almost 11 am.  All of us in our pajamas. I started to see kids running around with their bike helmets on, but no one was ridding bikes....they were playing football.  Of course, you have to have protective gear one :) 

Then before we all got dressed we skyped with Grandma and Grandpa Hunter, JoJo and Jamie were there too.  Carter opened the cards he got in the mail, and JoJo sent him LOTS of books.  Trent and I gave him two more Harry Potter books (4 & 5), he is loving them, although I won't let him see the movies just yet.

For his birthday date he wanted to go to Joe's Crab Shack again, he ordered a crab pot.  The kid was in heaven.  I don't know if he had ever had crab before, he's defiantly not had a whole crab he's had to take apart to get to the meat, he loved it!

After lunch we went to Toys-R-Us so he could spend his birthday money.  There was a lego set he really really wanted, he had just enough money for it. After picking it up and heading to the front to pay he spotted something else he wanted really really bad.  An air hogs remote control helicopter.  Oh the decisions that had to be made at that moment! After much thought and agony he went with the helicopter. Then we were off to go bowling.  We played two games, and had a lot of fun!  

We are so blessed that Carter is apart of our family!!  What a good example he is to his younger siblings. We sure love him.