CAMS High School Reunion: 10 years

I have recently been inspired by my friend Peter's blog, so I am going to try and do shorter and perhaps more frequent blog posts now! Thanks Peter. It would usually take me a couple of days (sometimes a week!) to write out my posts and by that point I would already have so much more to write about. So we will see how these goes.

CAMS Class of 2004!

This past weekend was Alex's 10 year high school reunion! Isn't that crazy? It seems crazy, but we celebrated our 10 year anniversary last year so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Realizing that high school did indeed end 10 years ago gave me a mix of emotions. On one hand I felt like high school was so long ago and that 10 years does go by really slow, but on the other hand I realized that in 10 years I will be close to 40! Let this be a reminder to live everyday to the fullest and don't wait around for anything. As an old friend once said, "Don't talk about, be about it!"

 The reunion itself was held at a nice restaurant in Redondo Beach called HT Grill. We had the "Napa Room" all to ourselves. The invite said "Adults Only" but Henley has never really left our side, so of course he went. Our new ring sling came in handy! There were about 35 people there, although I think only 20 or so went to CAMS. Everybody was super friendly and I enjoyed chatting and reminiscing about high school days. I hadn't met many of them in high school, so it was fun having people show me their yearbook photos.   Dinner was amazing and Henley ate everything they served including salad with feta, clam chowder, salmon, asparagus, mashed potatoes, mushroom, tofu, risotto, and chocolate mousse! He is definitely not picky when it comes to food!

Tasty food!

We were put at the kids table. Just kidding! It just worked out that way. 

 During dessert each CAMS student stood up and talked about life since high school. Afterwards they had setup different games having to do with CAMS or 2004 pop culture trivia.

Alex and Gemma

Peter playing with little man. 

How hot are they?

Overall we had such a great time. Henley was a trooper until about 9:15pm, which is way past bedtime. He quickly passed out on the drive home though. So next up is the Brea Olinda reunion, which I believe is at the end of October. I don't talk to many people from high school, so it will be fun to see what everybody's up to.

xoxoxo
-D

Little Man is 9 Months!

9 Month Update

He won't sit still at all anymore. 

This is the best I can do. Have to try again when Dad is around. 

This month has probably been the fastest month so far. I feel like I just did the 8 month update, and here we are at 9 months. So much has happened this month. While he is still the awesome baby that we all know and love, he almost feels like a completely different person sometimes. He is so aware of himself and everybody around him.

WEIGHT: Somewhere around 21 pounds. I just packed up all of his 6 month clothes and pulled out the 12 month clothes.

TEETH: 5! The top 2 just popped through this past week. He has 3 on the bottom and 2 on the top. No nipple biting yet, for those who are curious.

He is on the move. He has been crawling for 2 weeks now, and he is getting faster everyday. He is also pulling himself up to stand. Still working on teaching him to sit back down by himself. He can crawl onto and off the bed all by himself (our mattress is on the ground btw!)

I think he's waving but not quite sure yet.

Babbling machine! I still think he is saying "Mama," but he makes all sorts of noises.

LOVES: Crawling, sticking things in mama's mouth, Tegan,water hanging upside-down, new people, playing with credit cards and spatulas, being carried in our new sling and mickey mouse.

His new favorite game-fishing toys out of the water with a spatula. 

DISLIKES: Diaper changes, putting on clothes and wearing hats.

FOOD: Loves to eat puffy cereal (still trying to find a way to make this at home), sweet potatoes, homemade muffins, smooshed beans and scrambled eggs. Still nursing many times a day. Just yesterday he realized that he could feed Tegan. He throws food off his tray directly to her and laughs. This may be a problem. haha

SLEEP: We have gone back to the carrier for the past week. He has so many things going on both physically and developmentally and he is having a hard time sleeping. I've heard about a sleep regression around this age. Sleeping in the carrier is awesome though because he will stay asleep so much longer in it. Since I had a long break from it for the past month, it's kinda nice having him sleep on me again.

A few mornings ago in our new sling. 

MOOD: He is a very happy baby these days. His body is finally catching up with him. He crawls all around the house laughing most of the time. Going out of the house is still a ton of work, but he loves to meet new people and kids. He just lights up every time someone looks at him!

2nd Angels Game 

Well that's Henley at 9 months in a nutshell! Hope you enjoyed. We don't have many big plans for the next few weeks, so we will probably try and catch up on stuff around the house and just enjoy each others company. Happy back to school for all those teachers and students out there! 

xoxoxox

-D 

Breastfeeding love, independence and a major ooops!

At Latch & Link 

Happy Breastfeeding Week! As most of you know, I am a big supporter of breastfeeding and because it's breastfeeding week there are so many fun and inspiring events happening. Henley is now almost 9 months and we are still going strong. It was a bumpy road at first, but nursing has become second nature by this point. I love to be able to nourish Henley from my own body and it's also super convenient when I forget to pack him a snack! I am not sure how long I plan to nurse, but i'm not stopping anytime soon. I am already getting sad thinking about weaning. It really is a special time for us and i'll be sad when it's gone.

Yep he is standing...

Last Saturday we went to an event called Latch and Link. It was held at a Unitarian Universalist church in Long Beach. The main purpose of the event was to see how many children they could count that are latched on to their mothers at the same time. It was very inspiring to see so many children nursing together. Last year they had around 75 children, and this year it was somewhere around 160! I was also so excited to see so many dads at the event. A lot of the dads were actually wearing the babies, it doesn't get hotter than that! haha They also had many local vendors, so we had a chance to learn about local businesses that support breastfeeding, natural birth, babywearing etc. Today there is another event called Latch, Link, Love that I will be attending here in Sherman Oaks with another latch count, mommy massages, baby and mom yoga and other fun things.

Latch and Link

Sunday we enjoyed our regular morning at church, but this time we actually left Henley in the toddler room while we sat in on the service. We just went in there to play, but the nice ladies said that I should just try leaving. Well we did, and it was awesome. They said he did so well and he was following the older kids and even imitating them. We might try it every weekend just to give him a little independence once a week.

Monday night I baked up big batch of chocolate chip cookies to hand out to some of our neighbors. We got majorly busted sneaking Tegan into our pool and some people complained. I am hoping a nice note and a plate of fresh cookies will soften the blow. haha We also gave a plate to our awesome neighbors downstairs, and I could hear the screams from the girls when Alex delivered them. I might make it a regular thing.

Here are the girls! They LOVE Henley and Tegan. 

One last thing, if you want to see videos of Henley here is our YouTube link: Hurst videos

Have a great week and if you see any breastfeeding mamas out there give em a smile!
xoxoxo
-D

Reaching down for his little corgi.

Loving his kale! 

Tegan knows just where to sit. 

We have a crawler!

Henley has officially started crawling and this guy can really move. He started last Thursday afternoon, and by Thursday night he could crawl from one end of our apartment to the other. He is also pulling himself up onto everything! He might be a walker pretty soon. I've already caught him standing without holding on to anything for a few seconds. I have to say that learning to crawl has made this baby so happy. He just spends his days moving all around, babbling, and playing by himself. His naps are a bit tricky at the moment though, because he does not want to take a break.

This past week it has been nice to just hang out around the house and around town without doing anything too crazy. We spent Alex's birthday at a local craft fair. The fair itself was amazing with numerous vendors displaying many creative pieces. I would have spent so much money if I didn't have both Henley and Tegan to corral. The only bummer was that it was insanely hot. I wasn't too worried since I heard they had a splash pad near by, but apparently they just made a "No Dogs" rule so Tegan was out of luck. :( Henley loved the splash pad though. That night we enjoyed homemade pizza and nice stout beer to round out the day. Sunday, Hal and MM took us to Benihana's and we had a blast. Henley loved watching the chef and the food was pretty good.

Tegan was a hot dog! 

Grand Park 

It has been hot here in the valley this week, so Henley and I have been spending a lot of time indoors. On Tuesdays we usually head down to the Sherman Oaks library for story time. Somebody couldn't stay still and listen to the stories, but we still had fun. We also visited a local free indoor playground for kids of all ages, and they have a separate room for infants. Henley had the best time there! It's funny how bored and fussy he gets at home sometimes, but can just sit and watch other kids play forever.

** I wrote this blog a week ago, but I just got around posting it since nap times have been a little crazy this week. I think because of the crawling Henley really needs to be on me to stay asleep. I just started watching True Blood from the beginning, so I don't mind too much. haha I'll fill you guys in on this past weekend on my next post.

Crawling man 

xoxoxo

-D