9 Months

9 months old! That means that in 3 very short months our little baby will be 1!!! He has his very first ear infection as we speak and it breaks my heart. I had to get him out in the horribly cold weather yesterday to go to the doctor. As much as I hate him feeling bad...I LOVE all the sweet cuddly moments I have gotten from him. I can tell his ear is hurting him a lot during the day and so all he wants is to be held or be sitting right next to me. He has woken up a couple of mornings around 4 but will go back to sleep after about an hour of rocking until 9 or 10. I sure am ready for him to get over this thing.

Since we had to drive an hour to see his doctor I figured I might as well have them take all his measurements for fun. I didn't get all of them but our little man is still a tall string bean. He is 18.7 lbs and 30 inches long! 

At 9 months our boy is:

Crawling, crawling and more crawling

He pulls up on everything and slooooowly takes himself back to the ground *pretty cute*

He just started throwing things that we hand him. Example: we were sitting at the computer and I gave him a marker that I always let him hold on to only to have him lean over and drop it on the floor. So, I picked it up, gave it back to him....and he proceeded to lean over to drop it not just once, twice, or three times but multiple times. After that it became everything I gave him.

He still only says "mama" 

When he wants attention he will ever so slightly bump his head on something and start crying...I've seen it. :) 

The dogs are getting so good with him. Hattie still lets him crawl/pull/love on her, Lola is much better with him, and well Wes is getting there.

He still knows where the dog's water bowl is...and loves it.

He is able to put his basketballs in the hoop of his little toy.

He loves to take blocks out of a bucket and put them back in.

When he makes one of his toys play a song or make a noise he looks around with the biggest smile on his sweet face to see who else hears it.

He is interested in a book until I read the first page...then he's done.

He has 6 sweet little teeth.

He is still on my milk but eats just about anything we give him. Correction...he will try anything we give him. If he doesn't like it he refuses to eat it. I'm still trying to find different big boy meals that he can eat. Any advice is welcomed. 

He loves yogurt, just about all fruit, butternut squash when he is in the mood, sweet potatoes, chicken spaghetti, any kind of rice and much more

He pretty much refuses to eat any pureed food..he likes to chew.

 I made him homemade chicken noodle soup when he started to get sick but he refused to eat it...so Shawn and I did. 

Hmm...I think that's it. Here is our little basketball player!

Family weekend

My mom, sister and Brenden visited this past weekend and we had so much fun! The weather was perfect when they got here on Friday so we went to the park to play. Of course, I had my camera in hand (which I believe I fixed...for now anyways.. YAY). Brenden and Uncle Shawn had lots of fun going down the slides and running all over the place. 

Shawn got "B"(Brenden) to believe that there were alligators living in one of our closets...B wouldn't drop it after that. He kept telling my sister that if she wasn't careful the alligators were going to bite her in the "bobo". It was pretty cute. 

We went to the Wheeler County stock show Saturday morning and saw the pig show. It was pretty neat. I haven't been to a pig show since high school when Shawn showed and am convinced that our children will be doing some sort of showing when they reach the right age. I didn't think I would like it but I caught myself really getting into it. 

After that we just hung out at the house...it started to get pretty cool outside so we didn't have much to do. So, I showed my sister how to do some things in photoshop and here's what we got...

I love B's smile...

Laura is married!

My sweet best friend got married! I was so very honored to take her bridal pictures too! We had a great time driving around Lubbock for seriously about 4 hours taking pictures. I think I took somewhere around 400 pictures and if I posted all of them...well I wouldn't because that would take too long. I have just been dying to share them. Since Mrs. Truelock is now married...I can share them :)

*Side note: Shawn LOVES Laura's new name. Anytime I am talking to her he tells me to tell "Detective Laura Truelock" hello. No, she isn't a detective...but he thinks her name sounds like one.*

Anyways, here are some of my favorite of my beautiful friend Laura Truelock :)

She gives the worlds best laughing pictures. *Oh, and her eyes...they are that blue and gorgeous!*

We had to end the evening with a silhouette shot.

Canadian

One thing I love about Shawn's job is that he works up enough credit during the week that he gets every other Friday off. We typically try to plan fun things for us to do on these days off. On this particular Friday we decided to drive to a great little town called Canadian which is about an hour north of us. It's an oil town so there are some nice little restaurants and a fun movie theater. We ate at a BBQ joint and then went out to try and take some pictures. Unfortunately the wind was crazy and some cold weather was blowing through.  I did manage however to get a few pics.

This is Shawn's favorite of him and our boy.

I love that he knows to smile at the camera...when he wants to.

Waiting on Daddy and the Livestock show

I've tried to get Hutch ready for daddy each day when he comes home from work. When I know Shawn should be pulling into the drive I open the door and tell Hutch to go look for daddy. He'll crawl over to the door and stand up to look for him. When he finally sees Shawn he will get so excited and start making all sorts of noises...sometimes even cry because he wants Shawn to hold him! I got some pictures of him waiting on his daddy today. *I broke my camera *sigh* so these may not be the most clear pictures...the focus is all messed up. I even broke my new lens that I got not even 6 months ago...*BIG LONG NAPOLEON DYNAMITE SIGH* I might have even hummed a few bars of P Diddy's "I'll be missing you" when I realized what I had done to my beloved lens.

enjoy.

We also took Hutch to his very first Livestock show last weekend. I don't think he thought much of it. It was pretty much over by the time we got there...and it was pretty small. But I did manage to get a few pictures of him and his daddy.

Brainwash

I was brainwashed...yes brainwashed by the wonderful Lauren Clark earlier this month in Stillwater, OK. 

What is a brainwash? Well, a brainwash session with Lauren Clark is an all day photography workshop!

From 10:00 in the morning to 5:00 in the afternoon we covered EVERYTHING photography...plus a few other things not photography related. It was all girls...what do you expect? :) We went over the business side of things, properly using your camera, flash, lenses, we even went on a shoot with Lauren and got to practice what she taught us. Took a break to have dinner with a fellow "brainwash-ee"? *sounded good* and then met back up with Lauren to drink hot chocolate and talk more photography until about 10:00 pm or so. 

I consider Lauren to be the "best of the best" in the photography world. Her style is right up my alley: simple, bright and colorful. She knows how to bring the natural "model" out of all of her clients. I've never seen a bad picture!

What she taught us was so simple and I can truly tell a huge difference in the pictures that I have taken since the workshop. I think I have told just about everyone that asks about it that I need to completely erase everything I thought I knew about photography from my mind and just start all over! I feel like I need to redo all the pictures I have ever taken of Hutch.  Needless to say I had plenty of "Aha" moments.  As some of you may or may not know, I would love to have my own photography business someday. So this was the perfect way to learn A LOT before I decide to make that decision. 

So how about some examples of what I learned? How about a before and after. I love when photographers post before and afters *disclaimer* I'm not calling myself a photographer just yet ;) 

Not too bad SOOC (Straight out of camera). She had some hairs that I didn't like flying around so I took them out and just did a simple color boost! That's it! *Cue the angelic music to go along with my AHA moment* This sweet couple had a beautiful family with a 2 year old and 5 month old ( I think). Here is one of all of them.

As you can see the before is pretty "blah" but with a few simple tweeks in the color BAM...great photo! 

One more?? Ok.

This little man was precious! It was freezing that day but he played and sang the entire time. He was a trooper. Jingle Bells was his favorite song :)

God has done some tremendous things for Lauren and her business and I know he will continue to do that for this new venture she is on with children and family photography. I had a great time visiting with her and the other girls. Stay tuned for some new and improved pictures of our little Hutchkins :)

Playing Catch up

It's been far too long since I have blogged. We have been so busy with the holidays and a few other things that haven't allowed me to blog...but have given me lots to blog about!

Hutch Irvin is 8 1/2 months old. He truly is the sweetest baby and I think he knows it :) Here is what he is up to:
-He has 6 teeth! Two on bottom and four coming in up top.
-Crawls all over the place. He just discovered the dogs water bowl...I can't keep him away!
-He crawls up to anything and everything to pull up. He just started pulling up to the couch and walking around it.
-HE HOLDS HIS BOTTLE! Finally! haha. This helps a lot!
-He got pretty picky about food for a few weeks after we got home from Lubbock for the holidays but I'm proud to say that I made a huge grocery run the other day to get him some good food and he is eating much better!
-He eats sweet potatoes, acorn squash, butternut squash (I roasted one and then baked fries with another..he loved both), yogurt, BANANAS...HIS FAVORITE, cucumbers, cheese, kiwi, peas...you name it; he eats is. We just started him on table food. I was really hesitant to do this because he seemed to have a sensitive stomach with certain things. He has really taken to table food and loves it! He ate half of my bowl of potato soup, my sandwich with chicken and avocado, a few bites of jello and banana bread!
-He loves drinking from a sippy cup. He does better with the straw style.
-He stands up in his crib when he wakes up.
-Says "mama". We can ask him what a puppy dog does and he will pant...sometimes.
-He loves to copy the sounds that we make.
-He got a blow up bath tub for Christmas and loves it! He can sit up and play with the water now without falling over.
- Still sleeps so good at night from 8:30-8:00 am.
-His naps get shorter everyday it seems. I think it's time for us to end one nap so he will take one big nap.
-He loves the dogs! Hattie is the best with him. She will lay in the floor and let him crawl all over her. Lola is still a little much for him...but she loves him! If Hutch even looks in Wesley's direction he will get up and leave the room :)
-He waves bye bye
-He claps his hands
-Gives daddy a high five
-Loves to turn his bedroom light off and on by pulling the strings. He also holds out his sweet little hand when we are walking out of his room so he can hit the light switch to turn his light off.
-He crawls to his bathroom when it is bath time and patiently waits for daddy to get everything ready.

He is getting so tall! I feel like he is gaining a little bit of weight but he definitely is not a chunky baby. We are having so much fun with him and love to see him grow and learn new things each day. He is constantly making us laugh.  Here are some new pictures I took after church. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for more!