Charlie Dean: 8 Months Old.

Our sweet baby is 8 months old today, and we're in denial. Time is going by way too fast!

Doesn't 8 months seem so old? He's acting SO big and doing new things every day that just make him seem more like a big boy than a baby. It's SO fun to watch him learn and grow, but of course it's extremely heartbreaking at the same time. I swear, he's almost 18 years old!!!! I can't take it.

Charlie has such a silly personality. He is so animated, expressive, and has all the feelings!! He's a goofball and totally loves making us laugh. He also loves rough housing with Daddy, which is just so fun to watch. They are best friends!

I always call him my angel baby because he really is such an angel! He's so easy to take care of, sleeps SO well, and he's just so fun to play with. We can't get enough of him!

Alright, here's an update on his 7th month...

-We got an inflatable hot tub and it's in our basement. Okay, I realize how crazy that sounds and I have been making fun of Landon for months telling him we CANNOT get an inflatable hot tub... But, it's freaking awesome! It's actually really sturdy, comfortable, heats just as hot as a normal hot tub, AND there's bubbles. It took awhile for it to heat up, so while it was just warm and not hot, we took Charlie swimming in it. HE LOVED IT! Seriously, this video of him with the bubbles is one of my absolute favorites!

-Charlie gives the BEST kisses. We can't get enough of this sweet boy!

-Henry and Charlie are still the very best of friends. I love watching them together! Charlie will seriously stick his tongue out and lean in to get a Henry kiss.

-We celebrated Charlie's first Thanksgiving at my brother Tim's house. Ang seriously does an AMAZING job at decorating and setting the table. It was SO cute. Charlie had his first bite of turkey (from a jar... so gross, but he loved it). He also loved stuffing! We couldn't be more grateful for our sweet little boy!

Landon and Charlie weren't cooperating for the family selfie on Thanksgiving morning...

So I just joined in with the grumps.

On Thursdays, we wear plaid.

-The day after Thanksgiving Landon and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. Charlie went to Nana's while we saw Dr. Strange. Then we went to Sushi for lunch and Cheesecake Factory in downtown SLC for dinner. It was such a fun day. Charlie LOVED looking at all the Christmas lights! He's the best third wheel, ever.

-Charlie LOVES playing with the cute baby in the mirror. He's so cute!

-We've done a few Christmas activities too, like setting up the tree, looking at Christmas lights around town, and visiting Santa. I felt soooo bad because Charlie really does have stranger danger, and Santa can definitely be kind of scary. Poor baby! It really is so magical to celebrate Christmas with Charlie, even though he's just a baby.

Poor, sweet baby!

-We went to see the Tree of Life in Draper and Charlie LOVED the lights and loved riding Daddy's shoulders.

-I finally got to introduce Charlie to my coworkers. We had a gingerbread house making night. I have the best job and I'm going to miss working with these amazing people so much!

-We went to lunch at the Ridge with Nini and Papa on Saturday and then on Sunday Nini read the Polar Express and we put bells on the tree. Charlie just stared at Suzette the whole time she was reading the book. It was SO sweet and such a cute tradition!!!

matchy matchy!

wearing his bell. 

Charlie grabbed an ornament from the tree and it just happened to be Landon's from his first Christmas. :)

-Charlie LOVES bath time and we sure love to watch him splash! He's seriously the cutest little baby!

-Charlie totally says "mama" when he's sad. I know he's not really saying mama, but it's still so cute! Now we are just working on getting him to say "dada."

-Charlie FINALLY got to meet his Uncle Nick! YAY!!!! Of course, he had some stranger danger at first, but he's warming up to him a bit. I haven't seen my brother in YEARS! He is in the Navy and lives in Spain with his wife and their 2 daughters. I've missed him so much!

-Charlie is starting to get more hair and it is SOOO fuzzy. I'm obsessed with it!

-He's totally mastered sitting up, but he has zero desire to crawl and hates crawling practice. Funny boy!

He pulled this toy basket towards himself and started picking toys out. I can't handle how big he is getting!

-Charlie is the biggest fan of food! I'm still so paranoid about choking though, so I mainly stick to pureed fruits and veggies. I don't break up his puffs into fourths anymore though...progress! He is getting SO good at picking his puffs up and feeding himself. I'm so proud of him! He loves yogurt, cottage cheese, refried beans, avocados, bananas (especially mixed with some peanut butter), and any fruit or veggie puree. He isn't a picky eater, and I just PRAY it stays that way (since I'm the pickiest eater on the planet...)

He eats two solid meals (lunch and dinner) and nurses 4-5 times a day. He NEVER wants to stop eating, whether that's nursing or solid food... Everyone told me to just feed him until he was ready to stop... well I've done that a few times and let him eat a ton and he still wanted to keep eating. Well, he completely gorged himself and puked SOOO much... He seriously never, ever wants to be "done" eating, so I just have to estimate his portion sizes and only give him that much.

-Sometimes I think we have a schedule, but his naps can be a little all over the place. He always goes down between 9-10 am, but the length of the nap totally varies! Sometimes he'll sleep for a solid 2 hours, sometimes 30 minutes. His afternoon nap is always at a random time, depending on how long his morning nap is. This is why it's getting way too hard for me to work part time! It was a lot easier when he napped most of the day. :) He's still a good sleeper and takes good naps, it's just not consistent. He goes down for the night at 10:30 and sleeps until about 9. We are so lucky he sleeps so well!

-Lately Charlie has started flapping his arms, smacking his hands, and rocking back and forth when he's excited. It is the CUTEST thing and we love his silly personality! The other day at my mom's house he totally "danced" to the music of a Christmas toy. He's SOOOO busy and wiggly. He just has SO much personality!

-I got scuba certified to get ready for our cruise in February. The class wasn't necessarily horrible, but it was HORRIBLE being away from Landon and Charlie for 6 nights!!! They had so much fun spending time together, but goodness I missed them!

And here are some random cute pictures and videos, because I'm a crazy person and have WAY too many pictures of sweet Charlie!

Charlie LOOOOVES hanging with Dad!

Can you even handle those cheeks?!?!

Nightly snuggles are the BEST part of my day!!

I really can't take those arm rolls. 

Charlie Dean, you are EVERYTHING to us. You are the light of our life and bring us soooo much joy. I really don't know how we EVER survived without you.