Cole--8 months old

Cole turned 8 months old on October 8th. Here are a few things about him at this age:

He weighs about 21 lbs and wears size 12 month clothes but has been sporting 18 month clothes lately.

He is always, always happy. Okay, maybe not always, but it is rare for him to be grumpy. He's always smiling and laughing, especially at his older brothers. My favorite is when he's nursing and he looks up at me and starts giggling when we make eye contact. Love it!

He still has trouble sleeping through the night, but usually only gets up once and will go back to sleep with a pat on the back and a "good night".

He has two teeth on the bottom that have come in all the way (they came in when he was 4 months old) and is now getting his four front teeth on the top.

He's starting to wave at people when we say "Hi."

He can crawl everywhere and is pulling himself up to standing. We may have an early walker on our hands! Jude didn't walk until he was about 12 months old, but Lance took off around 9 1/2 months. 

Cole just discovered how fun it is to unroll the toilet paper. If I can't find him, he's probably in the bathroom batting at the roll of paper, watching it all pile up on the floor.

He always wants to be a part of whatever is going on. He's very observant (so much so that he can't eat if anything else is going on) and will follow you around the house. If he's left by himself, he'll get sad and cry until he either finds you or is found by you. He's my little buddy and my constant shadow.

He loves wheels. Anything with wheels is attractive to him and he'll sit there for several minutes spinning the wheels on the skateboard, cars, even Lance's roller blades.

He eats just about anything he can chew, so most soft things. His favorites are pretzels, chocolate chip waffles (a favorite of Lance and Jude as well), and apple sauce. He doesn't care for baby food, so we will usually blend up whatever we're having and feed him that. He drinks out of a sippy cup and does fair if I give him sips out of my open class, but he still won't take a bottle. Stinker.

Cole likes animals, especially dogs. He laughs when he sees them and gets excited if we're reading a book and we come across a picture of a dog and I make the dog noises.

He is such a stinker. I walked in on him and Jude this morning to find this mess all over the family room floor. They had taken a new bag of fishies and dumped them out (Jude's been in this phase where he dumps out everything). Cole was sitting in the middle of the mess--in fishie heaven--just eating as many as he pleased.

Cole tries very hard to talk to you. If you say "Ma ma" or "banana", he'll make the "ba-na-a-ba-ma" babble and then look very pleased with himself. It's so cute. He has a soft voice when he's trying to talk but can get very loud when he's screaming happily with his brothers who are all too happy to encourage him. The only time our house is quiet is at night when all boys are asleep. I often wonder what our neighbors must think of us and the ruckus that is our daily life.

I really cannot get enough of this precious little boy. He is truly a joy to have in our family. He gets compliments wherever he goes and smiles at everyone he meets. I just want to squeeze him every time I see him. He brings so much happiness to our home. I can't image our life without our baby Cole!