jude is 8 months

I feel like I just posted Jude's 7 month update, but here we got again. Jude turned 8 months last week! At 8 months, Jude:

*can get from a crawling position into a sitting position

*can scoot anywhere he wants to go

*enjoys playing with toys with his brother in their room

*eats finger foods: bananas, peas, bread, pancakes, puffs, cheerios, crackers, etc.

*LOVES his bath and wagon rides

*has 7 teeth!

I think Jude might be ready for his first hair cut. There is this stubborn piece of hair that hangs in his face and it drives me crazy!

Oh those sweet dimples!
yea for peas! look at his cute teeth!

I love the self-feeding stage. So fun!

yum, yum!

a visit from dee

Dee came to visit us for the weekend. She arrived Saturday at lunch time with Taco Bueno in hand and left mid-morning on Monday. The boys had a great time reading books, throwing balls, and getting wagon rides with their Dee. I enjoyed a great sewing session on Sunday night and feel closer to being a sewer in the near future!

Dee and the boys

(Notice Noah's fabulous monster face :)
Dee bought Noah this fun helicopter at Cracker Barrell where we ate lunch on Sunday. Noah played with it while we waited for our table, while we ate, and then held it the whole way back to our house. That night Clay told him if he cooperated during teeth-brushing then he could sleep with his prize. He cooperated (read: didn't cry) so the helicopter went to bed with him. We all laughed because never did Noah realize that the helicopter was full of candy! He just loved the rest of the toy! Well the mystery ended on Monday when Noah banged the helicopter against a chair and out popped lots of tiny, colorful balls of sweetness. Before I could get them up, Noah was having a field day with the candy, even throwing some to his brother. I don't think I've ever seen my boys so excited about something!

Thanks Dee for visiting us and giving us lots of laughs!

haircut(s)

After Clay cut Noah's hair on Sunday, we found Noah doing this with the clippers...

... cutting Elmo's hair! Isn't it great Noah can have a pal through life that does everything he does?!

valentine's day

These are the fun things we did this Valentine's season:

We made heart-shaped pancakes with blueberry syrup for breakfast today. You can find the recipe here. We substituted the raspberries in the recipe for blueberries. We poured the batter into a heart-shaped cookie cutter to get the pancakes into the heart shape.

Noah made heart-shaped valentines to give to his teachers at school. He asked Elmo if he wanted to join the fun :) Clay and I are both really impressed with how well he shares, even if it is a stuffed animal he's sharing with.

Noah and I made these fun bags to give to his friends at school. They were filled with Kool-aid Playdough. I thought it was a good alternative to the sugar frenzy that is usual at parties for little ones. Actually I was surprised that he had one cupcake at school and his goody bag was only filled with valentine cards and no sweets.

I made these cards to go on the treat bags. The first one had the verse, "God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8). The Kool-aid Playdough recipe was printed on the second tag.

We also received sweet Valentines from MeMe, Dee, and Grammie. Thank you for making Noah and Jude's Valentine's Day so special!

jude and luke

My mom got me a sewing machine for Christmas. Something I am so thrilled about and am looking forward to the endless projects available to me! The problem? I don't know how to sew!! Yet, that is. My friend, Rachel came over on Thursday to try to help me learn the basics. So far she showed me how to thread the bobbin and make simple stitches on scrap pieces of fabric. We tried another project in embroidery a few months ago when our babies were little ones. Now that they are eight months old it's not quite as easy to get work done. We'll have to visit on our weekly "sewing lessons" and wait for weekends to get real sewing accomplished.

A picture of our little ones at play- Jude and Luke

planes, trains, and automobiles

Noah has an obession with things that go. It doesn't matter what things that go. He's not partial. He loves cars, trucks, planes, trains, tractors, buses, backhoes, etc. He even talks a lot about different types of certain forms of transportation. He'll identify city buses versus school buses. He amazingly knows the difference between different types of construction machinery. Something I don't have a clue about. I just take his word for it. They'd all be called dump trucks if it were up to me.

Because of this deep appreciation for things that go, Clay decided to take Noah on a little trip. Today they drove in the car to the train station in downtown Fort Worth, got on the train and rode it to the train station in Dallas. Then they got on a shuttle bus that took them to the airport. They watched planes fly in and walked around a bit. Finally they took all the steps back to return home. Clay said Noah was quiet most of the time, just taking it all in. He's been talking about their great adventure all day. What a fun (and thrifty!) outing for a dad and his son.

Noah enjoying his 1st train ride.

all in a day's work

What all do toddlers do on Fridays? Well, the Iles toddler does many things on one such Friday...

I caught him wiping Elmo's "poopy". I had to put a two wipe limit on him, though.
Noah's attempt at diapering Elmo.

The completed diaper change (with mom's help, of course :)

Noah was making Jude crack up by hiding in the toy box. He'd pop out and say, "hewwo".

... and again in the linen box in my bedroom.

more brotherly love

I mentioned in an earlier post about how much Noah and Jude like each other. People are always asking me, "Is Noah good with Jude?". Surprisingly, yes he is! He's gentle and loving. He loves to take care of Jude. And Jude thinks everything Noah does is cool and funny. Noah is sometimes so distracting that Jude stops nursing for a minute to look his way. Giving up his favorite thing to give his brother the time of day is quite remarkable!

This week they took their first bath together! And today they took a wagon ride together. I love seeing the boys play together and truly enjoy one another.

splashing in the tub

hanging out on the couch- "Jude look at mommy. She's taking our picture."

clay's b-day

Last Thursday we celebrated Clay's 27th birthday. We had birthday donuts for breakfast- my favorite Iles family tradition. For lunch Clay's boss took us and some other Kobi employees out to eat at a burger place. The restaurant waitresses and cook sang happy birthday to Clay and gave him enough brownies covered in ice-cream, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, sprinkles and cherries to share with the whole table. We ended the evening with homemade pizza and breadsticks for dinner upon Clay's request.

Here's some pictures of Noah celebrating "Happy Day Daddy":

Noah set up this ensemble so he could practice singing happy birthday.

The "candle" is the pump to his Thomas the Train.
blowing out the "candle"

"yea for daddy!"

Noah wrapped this present all by himself. He was so proud.

This is the front of the card Noah made for his daddy.

(inside the card)

Notice "Orange Moses" is written at the top of the card. Noah drew a bunch of orange squiggles and told me it was orange Moses, which is a black lab that belongs to our friends Jason and Melissa. I'm baffled by toddlers and their imaginations.

the back of the card