The Grashorn Grounds: nathaniel at 8 months

Nathaniel is now 8 months old. This past month has been a very busy one with the holidays, lots of travel, and plenty of good old fashioned family time.

Nathaniel celebrated his first Christmas with our family. Despite our worries that he would either pull down the Christmas tree on himself

come here little christmas tree

or electrocute himself by eating the Christmas lights, he survived and so did the decorations.

the christmas ham

Nathaniel also survived his first long road trip. He had made it all the way to Indiana for Thanksgiving, but for Christmas he made it to Indiana and then to Minnesota. That makes a total of six states that he has been to (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota). Not to shabby for less than a year old.

The first stop was Christmas with the Grashorn family in Indiana. He had a great time hanging out with the family and enjoying the craziness that is Christmas at grammy and papa's house. With 11 people staying under the same roof, I am pretty sure someone was almost always awake at any given moment. Nathaniel did happen to nap through the present opening since he woke up extra early on Christmas morning. He also kept chatting during church so we had to walk around outside with him in the atrium. He went with us to Aunt Jane's house where he got to see his great aunt's and uncles. There was plenty of eating, even by Nathaniel, drinks by the fire, Christmas movies, Christmas cookie making, and staying up way too late.

crawling around is easy, in my christmas jammies

hohoho! merry christmas!

Next stop was the trip to Minnesota to gramma and papa's house. The eight hour car drive was broken into three hour chunks with a lunch stop at Perkins in Wisconsin. Nathaniel was so excited to get out of his car seat that he wouldn't stop jumping in his high chair. Mom was a little worried that he was going to break the straps and fall overboard. He really did fantastic and slept most of the trip or played happily with his toys since he still faces backwards in his car seat. We learned that 3 hours is about the max that we can go without a stop because the boys get a bit restless. We can blame them, because so do we.

Nathaniel got to meet his Plantenberg cousins and aunts and uncles for the first time (except for Uncle Brian, who he met in September).

nathaniel with mom and cousins kaylee and kara

meeting auntie laura

meeting auntie becky

Everyone oohed and ahhed over how sweet he was and, of course, over all of that hair. Everyone waited to open presents until we got there so we had a wonderful second Christmas. We enjoyed spending time with everyone since we hadn't been to Minnesota for a year. Everyone loved seeing the boys, especially Kaylee and Kara.

While in Minnesota, Nathaniel got to go to the Minnesota zoo and the Mall of America. The weather was freezing out, so Nathaniel got a really good taste of a Minnesota winter. It didn't get above -2 deg F the entire time we were there. This led to lots of time spent playing in front of the tree. Mom and dad did get to sneak out of the house and make a trip to Surdyk's and Ikea to pick up a few things.

checking out the animals with papa

gramma and papa with the boys

After a fun filled week with family, it was time to head back home with a quick stop in Indiana for the night to break up the trip. We are lucky he is such a good little traveler.

happy camper

Nathaniel learned how to crawl last month and this month he learned how to kick it into high gear. He has gotten really fast at crawling around and is now pulling himself up on everything that will support his chunky thighs. He has also learned how to climb stairs, which mom found out by finding him halfway up the staircase to the second floor. The baby gate was very quickly reinstated, much to Edmund's annoyance. He still has trouble getting down the step into our living room, face planting on the carpet when he doesn't get his hands out fast enough. We thought it would keep him in for a while, but that lasted all of about two days before he figured how to get out. He also loves to pull himself up on the book cart in our kitchen and bounce up and down. Nathaniel has enjoyed being back home and getting back onto a schedule since two weeks of traveling meant for not as much continuity.

Other firsts this month include his singing time at the library, his first surprise birthday party for our friends, his first finger foods (puffed cereal and avocado), and his first Christmas toys to play with. His favorites so far are his felt play food set and big brother's Duplos. Big brother has done plenty of playing with his toys as well. We started putting Nathaniel in nursery at church and he has been doing really well, which is no surprise given his social nature.

Nathaniel has become a really good eater and has enjoyed the baby food that mom has made him. This month's new foods were peas, roasted rutabaga, pears, peaches, and oatmeal. All of them he now eats like a baby bird, opening his mouth for mom to shovel it in and getting crabby if she doesn't do it fast enough. We now have him on 2 1/2 meals per day. (We only give him a small breakfast.)