As a last minute treat, my office closed between Christmas and New Year's.  This gave Mary, Jack T and I a chance to spend some awesome time together both having fun going out and just hanging around the house.  We also (finally) got to use three of the Groupons we'd purchased over the last few months!

Our first event was a trip to the Museum of Science & Industry.  There are sooo many exhibits there we'd like to see, especially me since I haven't been there since the good ole' days of Highland School.  This Christmas we found out that Jack T LOVES Christmas trees.  Every time we turned on the tree lights at home, his face lit up as he pointed to the tree with jaw dropped.  So our first stop was to see the Christmas trees from around the world.  We walked through the entire exhibit, and stopped to look at the trees that we liked the most.  Jack T really loved it, almost as much as Mary!  After the Christmas trees, we spent a little time looking at the model trains in The Great Train Story exhibit.

A few days later, we decided to stick with the museum theme and we went to the Chicago History Museum.  This is something Mary and I have wanted to check out for a while, so we were excited to finally get to it.  Although it's not big, it was really pretty cool.  There really wasn't that much for Jack T to look at, aside from the old trolley car, but there was a lot of great Chicago history to soak up.

We also finally got to take Jack T to his first Gymboree class.  The first session was all about tunnels.  Big tunnels, little tunnels, long tunnels, short tunnels, I think you get the idea.  The class was about tunnels.  Jack T was a little skeptical at first, but with a little coaxing and patience, he finally decided to crawl through most of them.  He also loved the parachute at the end of class, but I think could have gone without getting bubbles blown in his face!

That same night, Steve and I had a man-date to go see Tron: Legacy at the Navy Pier IMAX Theater.  It was my first 3D experience, and while it took a little getting used to, I'd have to say it's the only way to see that movie.  Awesome.

Finally, we spent New Year's Eve with some close friends.  We enjoyed dinner, some baby play time, some adult Wii time, and comparing New York city's countdown events to Chicago's countdown events.  I have to say, as much as I love Chicago, it has nothing on NYC's New Year's events, despite Ryan Seacrest.  Although I wasn't looking forward to going back to work after the time off, I truly felt mentally refreshed after having so much fun with Mary and Jack T!

As previous months, Jack T had a lot of firsts in his 11th month! Mommy noticed Jack T staring at her while drinking water from a cup, and so upon offering him water, he drank several sips of water directly from the same cup. He got a big toy bus to push around the condo and chase Bentley. After playing with it he went from taking a couple tentative steps on his own to full-fledged walking in about two weeks. He tried all kinds of new foods including cantaloupe, pineapple, blueberries, cheese, turkey, sweet potatoes, and stuffing (yummy Thanksgiving food)! He had his first really bad cold, however, despite being stuffy and tired, he was still a very agreeable baby. His 7th and 8th teeth came in on the bottom and, after several months of showing him the baby sign, he started making the baby sign for “milk.” Jack got to enjoy lots of time with family and friends for Thanksgiving; seeing both sides of his extended family, “playing” with all his cousins, and spending time with Mommy and Daddy's friends when they hosted Friendsgiving.  After Thanksgiving, Jack also started to enjoy his first Christmas season by going to see Santa Claus (of course he had been a good boy all year 'round) and gazing in awe at Mommy's beautifully decorated Christmas Tree!  Every time we turned on the tree lights he was simply delighted!

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This month was packed with exciting new things for Jack T. Just after his 9-month doctor appointment, he started some finger foods. The first item on the menu were puffs. After about three days of trying he was eating them with no hesitation. After a couple weeks of puffs, he started (slowly) eating some other finger foods like banana, cheese and bread. We also took Jack for several mini-adventures like a 5K walk to support the fight against breast cancer, a trip to the pumpkin farm, and trick-or-treating for Halloween! Of course, he also got to spend some quality time with his best buddy, Ben C. Jack excited us this month with a lot more interactivity. He started responding when prompted with “so big!” by raising his hands straight up in the air over his head. He also started waving when someone says “hi” or “bye” and clapping both on his own and when prompted. At the end of the month, he started pushing things around while standing up. It won't be long before he starts walking!

We started this month by lowering Jack T's crib mattress as far as it could go. This didn't stop the teeth marks on the crib, though. Jack did a LOT of crawling this month and was able to start taking a few steps while holding onto Mommy or Daddy's hands. Mommy took him to the park by our house a few times where he got to ride on a swing, go down a slide, and crawl around the playground. He took his third plane trip, this time to Myrtle Beach. He got to put his toes in the ocean (of which he was not a fan), ride in a golf cart, go swimming in the pool, and sit on Grandpa's Harley. He hasn't started finger foods yet, but is working on the “stage 2” combined baby foods and so far, eats pretty much everything we've given him. We also celebrated Daddy's 30th birthday by watching the Bears game with friends!

Ok, so tomorrow Jack will be 10 months old...which is simply ridiculous.  Anyway, I had to at least get his eight month photos posted before then.  Here they are, with hopes of getting month nine and ten photos put together and posted in the next few days! [Facebook viewers be sure to click the "View Original Post" link to view the album]

This month was pretty exciting for us and Jack T! He got four more teeth (on top) almost overnight. We found him kneeling in his crib holding onto the railing (Daddy lowered the crib that night). He started on baby first foods, including apples, carrots, sweet peas and bananas. Jack finally stopped teasing us with rocking on his hands and knees and actually started crawling. Three days after his first actual sign of real crawling, he was cruising across the floor. He had his first swing ride, first (assisted) ride down the slide (with Mommy's help), took his first trip to the Renaissance Faire, took his second plane ride (to Buffalo, New York) and started riding in his stroller without his infant carrier. Finally, Jack T was able to pull himself up into a standing position while holding onto Daddy. Just a few days ago, we found him standing in his crib holding on to the railing!