The Big Double 1

This amazing little guy just turned 11 months old! I can't believe he is only one month away from a year old!!! 

Some fun things that have happened this last month...

1. His top two teeth arrived! It feels like this was an incredibly long time coming. They played peek-a-boo for weeks. I felt so bad for him. He was still good-natured through the whole thing, but you could just tell he didn't feel well. Both teeth made their grand entrance on the same day. I am sure he was relieved. 

2. Pierscen can now say Dodger. Okay, not really. But he does know his name. Dad is very clearly Dad. Or Dad Dad. Dodger on the other hand is Dod. He pronounces it just like the real name - just cut short. Occasionally you will hear Dod....g. Dod....g. No question about it. He knows who he is talking about.

3. Pierscen has such adorable facial expressions. He is especially expressive with his eyebrows. One of his newest faces, which I didn't really get a great picture of, is his "Oooo" face. He does it when he is excited and crawling towards something, exploring something, or whenever we make the same face. Just in the last week he has starting making this sound with it- almost like he is clearing his throat, but since his mouth is in an "ooo" shape, it comes out more excited like. It is really cute.

4. He has also started pointing in the last week or so. When he gets excited or is interested in something, he will point to it and lean towards it. Helpful communication.

5. He likes his tongue. He thinks it's funny to stick out and then let me flick it with my finger.

6. He has turned into a kissing machine. It is adorable! It is still the open mouthed, slobbery kind, but we love it. My family especially loved it during Thanksgiving. He was all sorts of hugs and kisses. I like to make lots of kissy noises as I get closer to him and he has recently started mimicking it. Well, he can't quite make the noise, so he just opens and closes his mouth like a fish, but I know what he means. ;)

7. Bath time is always an adventure. He prefers to stand up during his baths. We have a very difficult time getting him to stand sitting. Silly bug.

8. His two favorite foods right now I would say are banana and chicken nuggets. That boy eats a whole banana by himself almost every morning. He eats 3 chicken nuggets easily for lunch. I do want him to eat more finger foods (real foods) but I still feel a little lost when trying to come up with things to feed him that aren't totally worthless in value (like his adored animal crackers. Not cookies - crackers.) We found him eating specks of Butterfinger crumbs off the floor from a package he had dumped out. Yummy. I recently bought some Level 3 foods for him to try. Basically regular baby food but with some chunks of stuff in there. He spit out anything chunky. It doesn't matter if it's stuff he would normally eat like pasta or carrots. If it goes in his mouth on a spoon, it is coming right back out with a look of disgust and betrayal. Not sure what to do about that.

9. He has learned to wave bye bye. The pointing and waving all just really started this last week. Same with the "ooo" noise he makes. If he doesn't wave right away, there is a good chance he will do it as soon as the door closes or as soon as the person walks away. He also says something close to "bye bye" from time to time.

10. He is just barely starting to walk along furniture - one tiny increment at a time. Really it's maybe half a step and then he sit down, crawls where he wants to go, and stands back up. That's fine with me. I don't want him crawling any time soon.

11. He likes to play while kneeling. He has the balance down really well. 

12. He is getting better at stairs. If you turn him around, he does pretty good to slide down backwards. The challenge comes when he decides to sit and turn around while still several stairs up. Today while I was setting up some Christmas stuff, he climed up three stairs and then came right back down on his own. 

13. While in Utah, he had a ton of run with one of those toy car garages, toy fishing poles and barns sets. I think we have some good ideas for Christmas and his birthday. Ahhh! He's almost one!

14. He loves Ryan's parent's coo-coo clock from Germany. We have one too but it has been packed away. I got it out yesterday and whenever it goes off he goes crawling to the railing, points at it on the wall, and says, "Oooo!" However, I am also fairly positive that it woke him up from both of his short naps today. It's not even that loud! But he really likes it. It could have been totally coincidental, but I have turned it to "off" for now and we can just push the button now and again or leave it on when he is awake.

I feel like there are a million other things we could say about our little guy. We sure love him. Can't believe how fast time goes. Sigh... but each new phase is awesome too. He gives me something to look forward to every day.

Little Moments #1

Last night Ryan asked what was for dinner and I replied,

"Rabbit food."

He grunted. I cooked four artichokes and plopped them down in front of us with a bowl of miracle whip for dip and an empty bowl for the leaves. 

"And you expect me to get full from this?" he asked.

I just laughed and told him to dig in.

He ate silently for a while. I didn't expect him to like it. But I was really in the mood for artichoke and that was that. After some time he looked at me and said,

"This is actually pretty good. It's weird. But it's not bad. Probably because I like Miracle Whip."

Hahahaha. I will take the victory however small it comes. Thank you, Miracle Whip, for making Ryan's first artichoke experience a decent one. He did make some "real" food after that, but at least he ate the rabbit food first. And he even liked it. 

(I intend on record more of these small things. Just moments in passing. I hate that I feel I have to justify things like this. But hey - this is my blog. This is pretty much my only journal. If I want to remember that Ryan ate artichoke, then that's my business. So there. Hahaha.)

Father and Son

 One of my most favorite things about being a mom is watching Ryan be a dad. :) He is so gentle, so loving, and so much fun! He would do anything for Pierscen and I love seeing them together. They are going to be inseparable. 

We like reading to little P. He very rarely sits through any of it, but it's still good for their little brains to hear all those new words. Every now and again he will show a lot of interest - probably due to bright, big pictures. I sent Ryan off to the bedroom with P one night to have some daddy/son time and when I came in a short while later, this is what I saw. I love it. 

Ryan also likes to play with Playdough. I thought P would be a bit too young for this, but they are actually pretty cute. In these videos they were using it as a ball, but I have seen them mash it up too. Of course he has tried to eat it, but we try to keep play time to after meal time so that he isn't hungry and doesn't want to put it in his mouth.

I feel incredibly blessed to have such a great husband who loves our son so completely and really wants to be part of his raising. I know he is impatient for P to be old enough to go fishing with him. Hopefully this next summer we will be able to spend some time by the water and let daddy show off his fish catching skills. I bet Pierscen will love that. :)

How Much Is That Baby In The Mirror?

 Last week, in preparation for Ryan's family coming to visit, the boys and I headed upstairs to do some cleaning. There are mirrors for closet doors in both bedrooms. Pierscen discovered himself in one set and was ecstatic.

It was honestly so funny to watch him. Especially when he decided to kiss himself. :) How cute is that?!

Hey, if I was that cute, I would probably kiss my own reflection too. He is getting better with his little kisses. He is such a doll.

He spent time smacking the mirror, dancing, and talking, and laughing at himself. (Can I just say how amazed I am that Dodger didn't worm his way into any of these pictures? He was there the whole time, and typically when I to go take pictures, he will at least get his tail in there. Silly puppy.)

When we picked Ryan up for work, we headed over to our polling station so he could vote. I voted earlier that morning. There was no wait when I went, but there was for Ryan. (Nothing like the lines I was hearing about in Utah and around the country.)

I took Pierscen out in the hall to cruise around for a while. While there, we ran into our next door neighbors who were also there to vote. That was the first time I officially met the husband, David. I have talked to Melody, the wife a couple of times. They have a cute little girl who is only 2 weeks younger than Pierscen. They have two dogs and they are some of the very few that I don't know their names. At last I know! Bo and Yeager. 

The elections did not go how I had hoped. I thought about posting on that, but I don't have much to say, really. Pray that both sides come together and make the best decisions for this country. That's the most important thing. And as always, grow close to the Lord, focus on family, and continue to prepare for the second coming. We still live in an amazing country filled with incredible freedoms. If we can come together as a people, this amazing nation will carry on. 

On a different note, check out this bear! This was at Sam's Club. Pierscen loves stuffed animals. I don't think he really grasped the idea that this was a HUGE stuffed animal. He just saw the furry arm/paw and was happy. Life is pretty awesome when you keep things simple. :)

Oh There They Are!

 When I went to swap out Pierscen's 3-6 month clothes for 6-12, I was absolutely sure that I had another box of clothes... somewhere. I dug through the remaining boxes of things to be unpacked, but came up empty handed. I was bummed about this because A. More clothes would be wonderful great. B. I was positive there was at least one really sweet Halloween costume (a frog) in there from my sister. It just didn't make sense. I knew there was no way it (the costume) could have been bigger than 12 months because I could still picture my nephew wearing it and he was pretty small. But I also know it was not smaller than 6 months because I had all of those clothes in Pierscen's room. Sad day. So we stuck with the skeleton pjs.

Well... look what I found! A week too late. Bummer! But at least it made me feel better knowing that I wasn't crazy. There WAS another box. And now I have lots of extra clothes. :)

I couldn't waste the chance to dress him up and take pictures since he definitely won't fit next year! It turns out this costume, though SO stinking cute, is remarkably a little on the small side. (It says 6-12 months and P runs a little on the small side himself.) He fit okay, but it doesn't have a slit for the legs. Just a sack basically. He was still able to crawl in it, but if he tried to sit up, he couldn't extent his legs enough for balance and would topple over. I don't think he would have been happy in it very long because he is on the go all the time and he wouldn't have been able to pull himself into a standing position. But at least I got some cute pictures of it.

We also discovered a Tigger costume. This one fit him great! What a shame I didn't find this box just a little sooner! 

He makes a pretty cute model, wouldn't you say? He could totally be one of those diaper babies on the side of the box. :)

Picture Book

My biggest dilemma with the blog is that I feel like I only post when things "happen." And to be fair, I think that's what people appreciate. They want to hear what's "going on." But then I find that I have all these other pictures that don't have a "story" but I love them anyway. And of course there are posts that I want to do that are more just thoughts. I used to be a religious journal writer. Just ask Nicia. She can confirm it. But once I got married, it really tappered off. And especially since I have had Pierscen - yeah... This blog is my journal. Now that being said, there are a lot of things I would never post on here because it's just too personal. (My own choice). I just feel like there isn't enough time to get everything done that I would like to. I think every person on earth feels that way. Anyway, while I internalize my problem with journal/blog/scrapbooking, here is a post of pretty much just pictures. I am sure that my readers will appreciate a post like this every now and again. A picture book instead of my usual novels. (With the exception of this paragraph.)

About a month ago, I cut Pierscen's hair again. It's shorter than the first time, but I still like it.

The above picture makes me laugh so hard. Dodger is in panic mode and P is ecstatic. Hahaha!

Don't worry, he isn't getting ready to bite him. That's his kissy face.

 

 And here are some pictures from one of our last walks. It's been so cold lately that I totally avoid taking P if I have to.

We sure love our little guy. More picture books to come.