9 months

welp, link has gone and done it again. another month has flown by and here i sit, the mother of a nine month old. yes, he turned 9 months on friday, and to say this has been a very fun month would be an understatement. WHAT a fun age this is!!

he is becoming more independent by the day, and i'm not sure if i am happy or sad about that. ;) we sit and marvel at his growth (literally, his growth - he is 2.5 feet tall!). everyday with this sweet child just gets better and we fall further in love with this boy.

link, you are growing into the sweetest little boy. you love to play peek-a-boo, wave "hi" and smile at anyone who will look your way. you are full of personality and a joy to be around. we love you!!!

and we got the BEST gift for his 9 month birthday - his baby nephew was born! literally 9 months to the day. amazing. we are so excited to welcome jack hudson pritchard to the world. and congrats to his parents, judd and jacque! he is ADORABLE.

we stayed at hunny and papa's house this weekend so we would be close to fort worth and could go see baby jack a couple of times. link had so much fun at their house with all the toys (after 3 kids and now their 8th grandchild, there are a LOT of toys at that house), not to mention having his hunny and papa there to play with him non-stop!

oh how he loves his papa...and a ride around the cul-de-sac in his convertible!!

he is completely mobile, crawling, standing, even taking a few steps (not walking, just letting go and taking a few here and there). link, you are TOUGH to keep up with, but it is SO much fun for me to watch you explore your world.

happy 9 months, little man. we are so proud of you and can't soak this in fast enough. we love you!

we are having a busy and fun summer...

at the zoo, where dad wanted to go with link for father's day...

we pet a giraffe! the new exhibit at the dallas zoo is awesome!

we saw elephants...

look closely (below) and you can see link's and my head. the new movie theater at jay's office is soooooooo very cool!

he loves, loves the sprinklers

crawls straight through them!

drenched. hilarious.

random pic, but the only one i have of the two of us that is from our nights out. it's jay and i on one of our many date nights lately (woohoo!). in the last couple of weeks we've had a lot of fun - granada for josh ritter one night, hibiscus for dinner last week, neighborhood services tavern for drinks, and even a movie one weekend (we saw "babies" - ha!)...looking forward to many more date nights to come. so sad our babysitter is leaving for college in a couple of months! :( at least we still have the grandparents!! thanks, guys!

summertime is so much fun. i don't know if i still get excited just because i did so much when i was in school or what, but i still love, love it! :)

(won't lie that i'm excited for college football in two short months, either!)

summ-a-time

this week and weekend were great. we had link's future cousin, jack hudson pritchard's, baby shower saturday at joe t's. fun. i love that place. it's worth the drive to the fort. then sunday, we had a sip and see at the hamilton's for brittany's baby jack, who is adorable. link especially had a good time with his friend, sutton. (pics below) we even got to see mollie, lily and eve on monday at murff's swim party. and jay's favorite moment was during the shower on saturday. he took link to the fort worth zoo and three generations of pritchards rode the train (jay's dad, jay, and link!). they all loved it and had so much fun. so cute.

my boys on the train

weeeeeeeeeee!!

sutton: nice ride, link, is there room for two?

when babies attack. haha!!! poor sutton. she's a good sport. :)

playtime in the pool with my handsome boy :)

i'm a rollercoaster kinda gal

i have an old mac book and she is on the fritz. tonight i'm on jay's computer, and yes, i am going to get a new one of my own shortly (when i can get myself organized and to the mac store for the transfer!). needless to say, that's for the slacker-ness on the blog. more to come...and some fun and funny pics when i can download them of a fun night with college friends and their kiddos (from tonight) to celebrate brittany's baby jack, shower celebrating link's future cousin, and a mess of others from the week.

for now, my thoughts on a sunday:

i've had several conversations with jay, my family, my friends, lately regarding life - and how crazy it gets the older we get. :) i won't babble it all here, but i think with all the goings-on we sometimes just get so caught up we miss all the fun little details. i tell myself each night as i rock link in his room and quietly say prayers with him before bed how special this time is - after the chaos of a day of chasing him as he races around the house on all fours, pulling up on everything and then crashing down, laughing, screaming, crying, eating, smashing, rolling, just constant movement...just TOTALLY ABSORBING LIFE and everything around him (good lesson to all of us from an 8 month old!). and sometimes i just stop and remind myself that this will all too soon be a distant memory loooong before i want it to be. i'm cherishing every moment. carpe diem-ing. because i don't want to miss a thing. all of it, the ups and the downs. it's all glorious. truly amazing.

to quote my favorite philosopher, "life moves pretty fast. if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - ferris bueller

from one of my old favorites, "parenthood"

first trip to the waterpark

this week is "cousins camp" around these parts - the time of year that my nephews and nieces come in town for lots of fun with their grandparents and aunt katy and uncle jay. today started out as a day that my dad and i were taking the whole crew plus link to the water park. luckily because of late timing, jay and my mom also were able to come and help us reign in the troops. we had a great time sliding, floating, and wave-pooling. it was link's first trip to a water park, and he LOVED it. not one fussy moment, and no fear. he went down a few slides on our laps and really liked the lazy river (pic above). it was so much fun to see him with his cousins and watch these kids i still think of as babies (but that definitely are not!) being so sweet to their baby cousin. (sorry for the iphone pics - it's all i've got).

caroline loves link :)

with his papa

one pic with the whole fam