7 months old

Mitchell, as of this past Monday was officially 7 months old. He has become quite the little boy. He is very active and into a lot of things. He is crawling, and his speed is increasing each and every day. He also has been caught climbing a few steps. He pulls himself up and darts towards things that catch his eye. He has been caught saying mama, but I don't think he yet knows to use it for me. He still gets up every few hours during the night to eat. We have attempted to feed Mitchell food for quite some time now, but with a few exceptions he doesn't seem to want to eat more than a few bites. He does however seem very interested in what we are eating. I have wondered for awhile if he just doesn't like the texture of baby food. He loves cheerios and doesn't seem to have a problem popping them into his mouth. Ok he isn't quite getting them popped in himself yet. So tonight I gave him a small piece of the bread I was eating. He couldn't open his mouth wide enough and he kept opening it for pieces of bread, Scott tried to throw in some pureed carrots and Mitchell wanted nothing to do with them. He loves sucking on whole carrots though so it couldn't be the flavor. I then gave him whole grains of rice and he chewed and swollowed them. Tomorrow we are going to try to give him small chunks of carrot to see what he will do. Maybe he will eat more if we feed him chunks and maybe, just maybe he will sleep for longer stretches of time.
On to Nate. He had his first field trip yesterday. Scott accompanied Nate and his preschool class to Appleberry Farm. Nate seemed to really enjoy this trip. He seems to be really enjoying his preschool. On Monday I had a chance to talk to Nate's teacher some more. She said she is really impressed with his thoughtfulness. One example she gave: Nate was playing with a basket and some food at the "market". A kid came up and wanted to take his basket. He said, "there are more baskets over there" the kid didn't look like he was going to go over to get a basket, so Nate went over and got a basket for him to play with. By the time he got back and tried to give the basket to the kid, the kid had moved on to play something else. We are so proud of him.

The above photo is one for Nate to be very proud of. A week ago we went on a camping trip to Devil's Lake with people from church. Nate went on a hike and climbed to the top of the trail all by himself. You can see how far up he is.

Look closely and you will see the Walking Stick. It was found on someone's tent.

This past weekend we hosted our annual Beer Bust. Mitchell enjoyed spending time with his friends Kalea (pictured below) and Cate. and Nate playing with Rory and enjoyed a weekend visit and sleepover with his friend Leah (pictured below) from Minnesota. Nate and Leah really enjoyed playing in the water. It was the last warm day. Now it is chilly.

Today when I got home from work, there were 2 fawn across the road in the neighbors yard. I ran in to get Nate. When we got back outside they were crossing the road into our yard. They proceeded to the backyard and ate some plants from our garden as they sauntered through. It was a wonderful site.