First Friends

Natalie and Michael came by this evening and they brought Michael's nephew Julian along! Hurray for play dates! Granted, Philip took an ill-timed nap for a substantial portion of the visit but awoke in time for dinner on the deck with his new buddy.

Julian extending a hand in friendship... Philip is not convinced.

Graciously posing for an onslaught of pictures.

Seriously, how stinkin' cute is this kid??

Julian finally wins Philip over and they knock knuckles to solidify their friendship.

BIG Milestones!

11 Month Monkey Pics

The older Philip gets, the more "interesting" these sessions get!

This was our first and best shot.

Bribing Philip to please sit still with the baby nail clippers: FAIL.

It's kinda hard to tell which one is the monkey in this picture.

My favorite!

Pictures from Months 10-11

Eleven Months Old!

Philip is eleven months old today. Today marks our last "birthday month" day and wouldn't you know, I forgot to take his monkey picture? Not surprising though, as it's been hit-or-miss as to whether or not I remember to take it on the 4th of every month over the past 10 months. Oh well! Tomorrow is another wonderful day with my sweet baby.

So, milestones this month:

• Philip is well on his way to walking. This month he started standing on his own for a few moments, unassisted, and he quickly followed that up with taking a few quick steps towards us without anyone supporting him. We've been saying for months now that he'll be walking by his first birthday and he's well on his way to proving us right!

• He's taken a big interest in what we're eating and we recently started letting him try table food. Yesterday we went to the Olive Garden for lunch and he had a great time sampling our soup and breadsticks. He's definitely showing off the 1/16 Italian in him! LOL

• He loves imitating us, especially if we're making funny sounds or faces at him. He just discovered how to stick out his tongue after watching me do it. Too funny!
  

• His new favorite thing to do is scrunch up his nose and mouth and breathe really hard out through his nose over and over again. He gets the funniest look on his face when he does this--it's hilarious!

• He's started making "ba" sounds and I think he's associating his bottle with the sounds "ba-ba." I've shown him the bottle on a couple of occasions and he's looked at me and said "ba-ba." I'm not sure I'll call this his first word yet or not as it may still be coincidence. That, or I'm just holding out for "ma-ma." ;-)

• He has four teeth now. His top left tooth came in last month and his top right is now poking its way through. He just keeps getting more adorable!

There are so many things that I'm sure I'm forgetting. My little guy is going to be a year old in 30 days and I can't even believe it. There's so much about him right now that I wish I could record for posterity, and it saddens me to think that one day I might not remember the funny little faces he's making today or the way his face lights up when he takes a few steps towards our outstretched hands. I never want to forget a single moment of this special time; the happiest time of my life.

A sign of things to come?

Goings On

I apologize for the lack of any recent updates to the blog. Things have been pretty busy in our household these days. Phil recently resigned his position with the Warrenton Police Department and on Monday of this week he began work with the George Mason Police department. He'll be a part of their campus police force, which in itself is a fully accredited police department. George Mason is a bustling hub of academic activity and, although his calls may be different from those he took on at Warrenton, he's sure to be busy nonetheless. Phil's primary motivation for making the change was Mason's fantastic benefit of a tuition-free education for full time staff. He already has two associates degree, and will be working on his bachelor's degree while working full time.

And in other news, "little Phil" has also been quite busy! He's currently working on cutting his third tooth--one of his top front teeth--and as a result is at times super cranky. But that's to be expected. Otherwise, he's still our bubbly smiling guy. He's getting closer and closer to walking every day and has recently started standing for small bits of time on his own, without the support of anyone/anything. In addition, he's getting more brave by the day and we've caught him on more than one occasion attempting to take steps on his own. He's definitely keeping us on our toes!

As for me, I'm still working on getting the hang of this working mommy bit. It's been 8 months since I went back to work full time, and, although I've adjusted to the demands of the schedule, it's still pretty challenging at times to handle holding down a household, a full time job, and taking care of an almost 11 month old baby boy. Especially given the fact that Phil and I work opposite shifts in order to keep Philip at home with one of us during the day. To make things easier on both of us, I'm in the process of looking into part-time work in my field. I think working part-time would definitely be the best of both worlds.

More pictures and videos to come soon. This weekend we're going to be working on painting our living room and kitchen which will mean our entire downstairs will finally be painted once those rooms are done. If we get it all done and I'm able to contain all of the toys enough to take a decent picture, I'll do so and post it here!