11 months old

We are getting more and more lax on updates! Things are in full swing around here and life is keeping us busy. We can hardly believe Hayden is 11 months old! He has four teeth, just had his third haircut today and is not yet walking. Which we are fine with :-) He's still an expert crawler and is really working on standing lately and cruising from furniture to furniture. He is into absolutely everything, which means we have installed a new, sturdy baby gate downstairs and blocked his entry from the kitchen as well.

11 months means we're now busy preparing for his first birthday, which I can't believe. Time flies! Jay is still playing flag football and the weather has taken quite a cold turn this week so we have to bundle up a bit more to watch him play. This last week it just got too chilly for us towards the end of the game, so Hayden and I packed up and got the car nice and warm for dad when the game was over. Monday is the semi-final game, so we wish him lots of luck!
We recently took a trip to Ramstein Air Force Base to visit the mall and it was huge! We've lived in Germany over 3 years now so seeing an actual mall is a little overwhelming. It's basically a giant PX with a ton of other shops, but we picked up a lot of things we aren't able to get close to where we live. Mainly things for Hayden, a little Vera Bradley for me and some combatives gloves for Jay. We also got some American chinese food (we miss it the most) and stayed long enough to enjoy dinner at Macaroni Grill. It has quickly replaced Chili's as my favorite place to eat at Ramstein.

Hayden is in his big boy car seat now, since he was just not enjoying his rear-facer anymore. We ordered it from Amazon and to our surprise it was here in less than a week! Hayden is much happier now that he can see what we're doing, and it's also a lot easier for us to get to him when he needs something (usually he wants his shoes off). In his Nikes and his big boy seat with his new hair cut, he barely resembles the tiny infant we brought home from the hospital last November.

We also recently went to Hayden's friend Gabe's birthday party. He's 7! Hayden enjoyed a lot of good dad time while mom socialized, and even got to test out the bouncy boxing ring a little. Mainly he was sitting on the outside where he can just kind of bounce around on his baby butt without being knocked down by kids, but he loved it. He has become quite the birthday partier, and will be in for a big surprise next month when he gets to eat his own piece of cake instead of sharing with us!