Cuddles...

Every once and awhile, Griffin will cuddle with me.  He is a pretty cuddly guy in general, as long as he's drinking a bottle or having us read books to him, but he rarely cuddles beyond that.  I love to drink in the moments when they come, so this post is for me to remind myself later.  There's nothing like a little one lying on your chest...love it.

16 month monster!!

Technically Griffin is now 17 months old, but I like to wait until the month is over to give updates, so I'll get all the fun things he did during the month.  This month, Griffin has been:

• Giving kisses to everyone!  He even puckers up and says "muah!"  It's so cute that we make him do it all the time.
• Learning tons of words: Pa Pa (Grandpa), Kay Kay (Aunt Kathy and/or Katie), Yake (Jake), Clock, knock knock, ding dong, keys, ball, ba ba (bottle), bubbles, all done, car, truck, and so many more.  He can also repeat pretty much anything we say, including beat boxing, which is really funny.
• Learning that saying please gets him things, so he says it all the time before asking for anything, probably 50 times a day.  He also screams it really loudly - sometimes I will hear him screaming "please!" from the other room, and then I walk in and he wants me to do something.
• Still being a little more picky with food, although he has his days where he'll eat pretty much anything.  This month we learned that he likes the mini foster farms corn dogs, and the taco soup that I make from my friend Tatia's recipe (Thanks Tatia!!!).  He also still loves fruit - all day, all the time.  Also, his favorite snack is goldfish crackers.
• Drinking more out of his sippy cup!  He finally learned how to hold the straw-less sippy up, so he can drink it by himself without us holding it for him.  Before, he would only drink from the straw ones, but he doesn't like them as much.
• Wearing 12-18 month clothes, though some are still too big for him.  I think he will be wearing bigger tops than bottoms soon.
• Still sleeping 12 hours at night, with a 3 hour nap around 1:00.  I love it :)

This little monster is the best thing in our lives, and we adore him :)

15 Month Man..

Wow, the 15th month went by SO FAST.  It's been so much fun having Griffin at this age - I've loved all the ages, but this month has been an explosion of words, personality, and new tricks.  This month, Griffin has been:

• Sleeping 12 hours at night without really ever waking up at all, and taking a 3 hour nap in the afternoon.
• Eating a lot some days, and not so much other days.  Breakfast is usually still baby oatmeal, though sometimes I have to sing songs and distract him to get him to eat it.  I usually give him some cereal or fruit after that.  Lunch foods he loves are: cheese of any kind, green beans, sweet potato squares, grilled cheese sandwiches, PB&J, soup, yogurt, quesadillas, and any kind of fruit.  Cantaloupe, pineapple, and strawberries are still the favorites though.  Dinner foods he likes are:  Corn, peas, green beans, pasta salad, some types of chicken, rolls, taco meat, beans, and again - fruit.  Foods he does not like are rice and most fresh veggies, though we keep trying.  He will usually try anything  once, and spit it out if he doesn't like it.  He's gotten much better at drinking out of his sippy, though he still prefers his bottle.  All in all, he's a pretty good eater.
• Talking:  He can mimic pretty much anything we say, and words he knows without us saying them first are:  Mama, Dada, more, truck, car, clock, ding dong, knock knock, up, please, no, and mmmMMMMmmm (which he uses when he's loving what he's eating).  He can also count to three, if we are counting with him.
• Following directions!  The other day I told him to go get his giraffe, and we went all the way into his room to get it and brought it back to me.  I've been testing what other directions he can follow, and so far I've discovered that he can put laundry in the dryer, put the lids away in the drawer, and bring me pretty much anything I ask for!  It's been fun :)
• Walking and running:  This boy loves to "sneak up" on us, and then be chased all around.  
• Tricks:  He loves to turn the lights on and off, ring the doorbell, give high fives, and dance whenever we play music.  He also has this musical toy he'll turn on  and let play while he's playing, and we call it him turning on his tunes :)

 There have been so many more fun things this month, and we're so excited that our boy has grown so much!  We can't wait to see what he does next.

First Haircut!!!

I finally buckled down and got Griffin's hair cut.  I will admit it was getting a bit long, and I may or may not have made an appointment awhile ago, and chickened out.  Some of my (mean, though I love them) friends had been telling me how awful Griffin's hair was for a long time, but I left it long because he had adorable curls and the family didn't want me to have it cut.  I thought he looked cute :)  I took him to Cookie Cutters, and told the girl what I wanted.  I think she did a great job, but I shed a few tears when the hair started coming off.  Afterwards I was wondering where my little baby had gone, and who had given me this big boy in his place.  Here's the pics:

They had fun cars instead of chairs.

It was a little bit traumatizing at first, but he was a trooper.

Cool dude with his hairy sucker :)

Handsome boy!

13 month walker!

This has been such a fun month so far.  Griffin has been:

• Taking steps!  He's walking all over the place.  He'll usually take a couple of steps and then slowly let himself down onto the floor, but sometimes he will take a bunch of steps in a row.  He couldn't be prouder of himself, and always has a HUGE smile when he does it.
• Eating mostly solid food - he loves green beans, peas and carrots, fruit cups, CANTALOUPE, grapes, oranges, bagels, string cheese, and omelets.  He will try pretty much anything we give him.
• Sometimes taking morning naps, sometimes skipping them and taking a longer afternoon nap.
• Drinking out of his sippy, though he still won't drink much out of it.
• Taking less bottles - 3 or 4 a day, and water the rest of the time from a sippy.
• Making hats out of pretty much anything to put on Mommy and Daddy's heads.  Lids are a favorite.
• Gesturing a ton.  he will gesture with his hand up and all his fingers out toward what he wants.
• Throwing little tantrums.  If something doesn't go his way, he will grab whatever is handy and bang it on his mouth and yell.  I try really hard not to react, but it's so hard not to laugh :)
• Riding around in his new big boy car seat.  We are still doing rear facing, but we will see how long that lasts - he's almost out of leg room.
• Super healthy!  This boy has still never been sick yet in his life.  I'm starting to think maybe he's a super hero.
• Taking everything he's given to eat and stuffing it in his mouth at the same time.  A little bit like his Daddy, I think :)

This boy cracks us up.  He's so cute and sweet, and he's funny too.  I can't wait to see what's got in store for us next. 

12 month boy

 

At 12 months, Griffin has been:

• Still usually taking two naps, and sleeping 12 hours at night.
• Eating a lot more solid food and less baby food.
• Liking bread, cheese, yogurt, and fruit best.
• "Talking" all the time and laughing when we laugh.
• Cruising all over the furniture - still not wanting to take steps on his own yet.
• Playing with the lids from the lid drawer in the kitchen.
• Reading books in the morning and at night.
• Not liking having his teeth brushed very much.
• Not liking his diaper changed or being put in his car seat, though he's usually fine once he's settled.
• LOVING hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Fellows, and Aunt Kathy.

This guy has been having so much fun learning new things and playing with all the toys from his birthday.  He loves going to music class, though he enjoys watching the other kids more than actually doing the activities himself.  He's such a good boy, and we sure love him!

Life, at the first.

This is Griffin's birth story. I want to start at the beginning and write down as much of this as I remember.  Some of it may be too much information, or vastly uninteresting, but every mother should write her baby’s birth story, and I’ve been putting Griffin’s off for about a year now.  I’m not sure why; I just keep thinking that I will get around to it when I have time.  I have time now, and I’m sure I’ll want to read it again before the next baby comes, and Griffin may be interested in hearing it someday.  Here goes:

My pregnancy was pretty amazing for the most part.  I hardly had any nausea, and I felt pretty good in my own skin most of the time.  I think the fact that I worked full time until I was a week late helped, because I was up and getting around.  The month before Griffin was due I was getting checked each week at the doctor’s office.  Dr. Jones would check, and tell me that I was 1 centimeter, and hadn’t progressed.  Apparently my uterus is tipped funny, so even though Doc said that would not affect the birth in any way, it made it EXTREMELY painful to get checked.  Because of this, Dr. Jones didn’t really try very hard to find out how many centimeters I was until it looked like I was going to go over the due date.  He would do a cursory check and tell me things were pretty much the same.  

The week of my due date, the doctor said he needed to “really check” this time, to see how things were going.  After me almost jumping off the table and much crying, he told me, “You’re three!!!”  He said I was really lucky that he was able to find that out today, because if I was still at a one, he was going to schedule a C section.  I’m still not sure why things had to be quite so dire, but I guess that was the plan.  I told him that under no circumstances did I want a C section, and that we needed to make sure I had this baby the normal way.  He said, “Ok, and I’m not going to induce you unless you go 10 days over.”  We scheduled an induction date for February 8^th.  

Here’s a side note that I find kind of funny:  when Griffin was 5 days overdue, I got called into court for one of my cases on a Friday, which is supposed to be my day off – I was also supposed to be done working, but I figured that I felt pretty good, so why not go to court?  I remember that the judge asked me to come stand beside my client to report progress, and I stood there for what felt like two hours while she asked questions and talked.  It was like she didn’t even notice that I was standing there like a tomato perched on toothpicks, ready to explode…lovely image.  Finally she noticed me, and asked when I was due.  I said, “5 days ago.”  She said, “You’re probably tired of standing there then, huh?” and I told her I was just hoping not to go into labor at court, ha.

On February 7^th, the day before I was supposed to be induced, I woke up at around 1:30 in the morning feeling a pretty intense kind of pressure.  I had never had any Braxton hicks contractions, so I didn’t really know what contractions were supposed to feel like – I was pretty sure this wasn’t it.  I remember finally waking Tyler up around 6:30 and telling him that I thought maybe I was in labor, but maybe not.  I never really felt any pains, just a lot of pressure.  I called my aunt Lori, who is a labor and delivery nurse with about 20 years of experience.  She lives in Cedar City, and had offered to come help me with the delivery.  She told me to call her when things got started, or else she’d just come when I was induced.  I called her around 8 or 9 am to ask her what she thought I should do, and she told me to call the doctor’s office and find out what they wanted.  She said she was pretty sure they’d want me to go to the hospital and be checked.  

I started to freak out because I didn’t want to be one of those ladies that goes into the hospital because of a million false alarms (never mind that I was already 8 days overdue – pregnant brains don’t think of such things, I guess.), and I was bustling around making sure I had everything I needed for the hospital.  We called the doctor’s office, and sure enough – they wanted me to go to mother/baby at the hospital and get checked.  By this time the pressure was coming in waves, and I felt little cramps now and then, but for some reason I still didn’t really think it was labor.  Go figure.

Tyler had been planning to go into work that Monday morning, so he wanted to make a few calls and get some things done because he would be taking the week after the baby was born off.  I was getting antsy and it was getting pretty uncomfortable (the pressure, not really the cramps – they were not bad), so I kept telling him to hurry up.  He made me wait a pretty long time, considering that I WAS in labor.

We decided to go get a few last minute things from Wal Mart, because we realized we had nothing fun to watch at the hospital, so we bought the second season of Chuck.  We also stopped at Roxbury and got me a smoothie, because I was starving and I knew they wouldn’t let me eat very much if I was in labor.  I guess at that point, maybe somewhere in my mind I knew I was having a baby.

We got to the hospital at around 11:00 and went up to mother/baby, and they took me into a triage room.  The nurse was an older lady and really nice.  She said they didn’t have too much going on, so today was a good day to come in.  She checked me (ouch) and said I was at a 5……half way there!!!!!!!!!!!!  She told me they wanted to admit me, but that if I wanted to wait and have Dr. Jones deliver my baby, we could try to wait for my induction day and see how I do.  Dr. Jones wasn’t on call until the next day, but she didn’t think I would last that long.  She was shocked that I wasn’t in more pain.  By that point the little cramps were more regular, but they still weren’t bothering me much.  I knew that my mom had gone really fast with me, so I didn’t want to chance waiting if I was already at a 5.  

A friend told me long ago that when I go to the hospital to have a baby, I am supposed to say, “Hello.  My name is Jacklyn.  I would like my epidural please.”  That is what I did.  They took me to a delivery room at around 12:45 and put my IV in right away.  I think that was the most painful part, and then the anesthesiologist came in and prepped me for the epidural.  I actually got the epidural around 1:30 p.m.  I was SO freaked out, because I had heard all these horror stories about it, and in my prenatal class the nurse showed us the needle, and that thing was HUGE – It looks like a drill.  She had explained that they put a tiny needle in first, and it has a numbing agent in it, so that’s what I tried to think about.  All of a sudden, the anesthesiologist said, “Done.  You can lay back.”  I was like, what?????  I didn’t really feel anything.  The epidural was the best thing that ever happened to me, seriously.  

I started to go numb pretty fast, but it was amazing – I could still feel my legs and feet.  They were tingly, but I could move them and feel them and everything.  I was a bit worried that the, um, shall we say launch zone, would feel it too, but it didn’t!  Whenever the doctor or nurses would check me, I didn’t feel a thing.  At one point while waiting I could kinda feel a little pain on my left side, but the anesthesiologist came back in and fixed it.  This is my story and thus my own opinion, but I don’t understand why people wouldn’t get an epidural.  I guess it is super trendy now to “go natural” and be able to feel everything, and people say it makes you more able to be present in your experience, but I was pretty present.  I don’t feel like I missed out on anything…except that I didn’t even have to feel one bad contraction J.  I reached 7 centimeters at about 2:00 p.m., and they put in a catheter.  By 4:00 the baby’s head had dropped, but I was still at a 7.

I remember Dr. Lind (whom I had never met) come in at 5:15 p.m. and tell me that he would be delivering my baby.  He is a giant and his pants were like three inches from his shoes, but he seemed nice, and the nurses said good things about him.  He broke my water, and I felt a little sick.  By this time we had been waiting a few hours and my aunt had come.  She was amazing.  She could adjust my machines, and tell me what was happening, and she rubbed my feet, which I could feel because of my amazing epidural.  Another nurse checked me around 6:00 p.m., and said everything was going well.  She gave me an extra puff of epidural.  I had rested a bit and felt less sick.

Things progressed slower after I got my epidural (who cares, naysayers?  I couldn’t feel it), and so they started talking about pitocin.  Dr. Lind came in at 7:40 p.m., checked me (said I was at an 8), and He told me that Griffin was posterior.  If he didn’t turn, we may need to do a C section.  That was freaky.  He placed an internal monitor in for the baby.  

We could tell that my assigned nurse was a little miffed to be upstaged by another nurse with more experience, but boy did she redeem herself.  I think her name was Michelle.  Michelle said she had learned this old midwife trick to turn babies in the womb, and asked if she could try it on me.  I was willing to try just about anything.  All she did was turn me on my right side, and put my left leg up in a side stirrup slightly in front of and over my right leg.  We waited a little while, and with the monitor over my belly we could hear the baby inside start to move.  It sounded like he was swimming and sure enough – he had turned.

So far I hadn’t been given anything to get labor going, and I was doing it on my own.  I wanted to wait and let my body do its thing.  Around 9:05 pm, the doctor said I was 10 centimeters, 100 percent effaced, and baby’s head was at +2 station.  It was time to push.  It was so surreal, and I remember feeling inadequate – like what if I couldn’t do it right or things went crazy and I had to have a C section?  I was really afraid of that.

Tyler held one of my legs and the nurse’s intern (who was also pregnant, and had told me quite pointedly that she was going “natural”) held the other.  I remember that Lori was next to my head.  I started to feel this INSANE urge to push.  No one had to tell me when to push – I told them.  The urge to push and pressure were the most intense thing I have ever felt.  So I was pushing…Lori would count to ten for me and encourage me to go longer and harder if I could.  I am pretty proud of myself – I was a good pusher.  

This is when the pressure of the whole situation started getting to Tyler, and he got strange.  He started making all these jokes and laughing a lot, and I remember telling him that I was going to kick him out of the room if he didn’t stop laughing at me.  Honestly, I just tried to ignore him and focus on Lori, who was actually encouraging me and yelling at me to push.  Then I started to listen to Tyler, because he started saying amazing things.  He could see what was happening, and he told me that he could see the head.  He started saying things like, “Oh my gosh Honey, you’re doing so good.”  “I can see his hair.  He has hair!  Dark hair!”

At some point the doctor came in, and he told me that when he told me to stop pushing, I needed to stop, even though it would feel like I needed to push.  I knew what this was all about even though he didn’t tell me.  It was the episiotomy.  I didn’t feel it, but the sound of the cutting was something that both Tyler and I wish we could forget.  After that, I think I pushed one or two more times.  All in all, I had pushed for about an hour and twenty minutes, and then there he was.  

Everything from here on gets pretty hazy and surreal, but I remember locking eyes with a little purple person, and hearing him cry.  He was just crying, holding his hands with his fingers all splayed out and he was gorgeous.  I instantly knew that he was for me, and I realized right away that he looked like me.  This was a big deal because in my family we don’t bear much resemblance to one another, and having no father or brothers, I had no clue what my baby would look like.  It was amazing to see my big cheeks and mouth on someone else.  On my someone.

All of a sudden he was on my chest and I was crying, and he settled down and got quieter.  I wish I had more words in me for that moment, but there are no words.  There was just feeling, and knowing.  I knew that when my baby was born, I was changed forever – I truly became a mother in that moment.

His Apgar score was 8.5, because he took a little while to pink up, but once he did, he was really pink – everywhere except for his feet, which stayed purple for awhile.  About his feet:  He had 10 toes.  One of the first questions that I asked was how many toes he had, because in one of the ultrasounds it looked like he had 6 on one foot.  Tyler was excited about that and thought it would be cool, but I worried that maybe he wouldn’t want 11 toes.  Luckily, he has 10.  The nurses took him over to the little table by the bed and started to work with him and clean him up.  After they took Griffin over to the table, I remember turning to Tyler and saying, “I think I could do this again.”  

For those of you who have actually read this far, there is a LOT more to the birth story.  I've only told the first half.  The second half is a lot more graphic and pain-filled, because I had a postpartum hemorrhage, not once but twice.  I haven't decided yet if I am willing to blog about it for all to see.  If you have a burning desire to hear the rest of the story, let me know.

Our little miracle man :)

Griffin's FIRST Birthday!!!

My wonderful, amazing, happy, funny, adorable, cute, crazy, happy boy had his first birthday party on Saturday, February, 11th - 4 days after his "real" birthday.  We had so much fun!  I have heard that some babies can crack under the pressure of a first birthday party, so you should keep it low key...we had over 30 people come through, and Griffin took it all in stride, because that's the kind of guy he is :)  We did an owl theme, "Guess Whooooo's 1?" and we decorated my whole house in owls.  My awesome mother-in-law is sort of in love with owls, so she had tons of stuff that we used.  I think it was a big success.  Here's some pics to commemorate the day:

Cupcakes that my friends Cami, Maureen, and I made.

Family shot :)

Some of the other fun little cupcakes.

Decorations!

More decorations - courtesy of my sis-in-law, Katie.

The spread.

First chocolate ever!

He dug in.

...and fed Grandpa

and loved it!

To wrap it up, Katie read the awesome story that she wrote for Griffin, while he napped :)

11 Months :)

 

My guy has been 11 months old for almost a month, and I can't believe it.  Here's what's been happening this month:

LOVES:

• Turning the pages of his books and lifting all the flaps when we read stories.
• Crawling onto the dishwasher and "helping" Mama put away dishes.
• Throwing both arms in the air to say "all done."
• Banging objects on other objects VERY loudly.
• Listening to himself "talk."
• Bath time!
• Eating anything and everything that Mama or Dada has (except we won't let him have sugary things).
•  Being out and about, especially at music class.
• Grandma Julie and her fun sing-song voice.

DOESN'T LOVE:

• Having his face washed.
• Being slowed down in any way, such as being put in the car seat or having his diaper changed.
• Getting out of the bath.
• Being told "no" when he plays with the blinds or the DVD player.
• Having to take naps, sometimes.

This boy  is so special to us.  I can't even remember what we did before he came along!  Every day is something new and fun, and I can't wait to see what he does next :)

This guy...

...is pretty cute!!!  Just 'cause.

Pulling up...

For a few weeks now, Baby Boy has been pulling up on things.  I mentioned it in an earlier post, but I had to give it it's own place because it's so exciting and has changed our lives so profoundly.  I REALLY found out my house wasn't baby proofed when he started doing all this.  He loves to get into the pantry and pull things off, and go from furniture piece to furniture piece.  He likes to stick his hands inside the VCR, and pull up onto the washer and dryer and bang on it as hard as possible.  OH!  He also loves to stand up in his crib.  This is great and all, except that he's supposed to be sleeping.  We were going in there a lot at first to lay him back down, but we eventually figured that if we left him in there, he'd either pass out or figure out how to get himself down.  We were right!  Great parents, I know :)  Anyway, here's the little stander-upper:

9 months!!!

Sorry about the grainy picture, but our camera pretty much stinks.  Anyways, Griffin's 9th month!  Here's what's been going on:

• Tons of crawling all over the place, and getting into stuff.  I thought my house was pretty well baby-proofed, but I was so wrong.
• Eating more things - pieces of cheese, bread, meat, bananas, yogurt drops - his favorite, puffs, mum mums, and also still a lot of baby food.
• Walking around, as long as he's holding on to someone's fingers.
• Pulling up on anything and everything, and "cruising" around the furniture.
• Babbling that actually sounds like he's saying something, instead of just repeating one syllable over and over.
• Still taking two naps, each one and a half to two hours, and sleeping 10-12 hours at night.
• Being so interactive.  He loves to see how what he does affects the people he's around.
• Still hates having his diaper changed, being put in his car seat (though he does fine once he's in there), and being put to sleep.
• Loves playing with anything that's not a real toy - the remote, movie cases, coasters, you name it.

We love this guy so much!  He makes life so much more fun.  I can't wait to see what he does next month!

Crawly Wally

Near the end of October, right before Halloween...Griffin started CRAWLING!  He's so smart I can't even stand it.  One minute he was doing his little creep-pull, creep-pull thing, and the next thing we knew he was cruising along.  I wish I knew how to post videos on here ( I tried, it was taking forever), because I've got some pretty cute footage of it.  Pretty much right when he started crawling, he also started to take steps as long as he was holding onto our hands.  Why is it that when MY baby does something that babies have been doing since the beginning of time, it's so amazing?  I don't know, but it was pretty exciting for everyone. 

Baby's First Halloween!

We've had Griffin's Halloween costume picked out ever since we found out we were having a boy.  It was so fun to see him finally get to wear it!  We opted out of trick-or-treating this year since he was too little too appreciate it, but we took him around to see some friends of ours, and then we went up to a Halloween party at Grandma and Grandpa Fellows' house.  He was a big hit, but then again, he always is :)

Our little dragon is taking steps :)

I sure love this little beast :)

He LOVES this little Halloween snow globe that Grandma got for him.

Happy Halloween!

Farm Country

Since the warm weather is on it's way out for the year, my mother-in-law Julie and I decided to take Griffin to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country petting zoo.  Griffin was pretty enthralled with the animals at first, but then he decided that they were old news and he wanted to play with all of the fall leaves lying around.  The boy had no fear when it came to getting close to the animals, and he even got licked by a goat!  Mommy was a little more afraid of him being touched by animals than he was :)

 Grandma had been wanting to take Griffin to see Farm Country for awhile, so we decided to go do it during the day since I'm no longer working.  I still don't always remember that I'm able to go do whatever I want now that I don't have my days all planned out!  It was really nice weather and it wasn't busy at all.

Griffin has such a sweet little disposition.  He's always good whenever we go anywhere.  He's content to sit in the stroller and watch the world go by, or he's happy to get up close and personal with anyone or anything new that comes along.  I love that he's never had a hard time being held by new people.  He's not shy at all!  I guess he's not shy with the animals either :)

He loved to play with all the leaves, and wanted to take our stickers from the wagon ride.  He's will not be dissuaded from his leaves to take a picture :)

Happy Fall everyone!  I hope you all had a great one, I know we did!

First Food Flop

I thought I'd be a good and domestic little Mommy and make Griffin some baby food.  I've made peaches, sweet potatoes, summer squash, and carrots!  I thought that Griff would love it, being so fresh and all, but the only one he likes is the peaches.  He will also tolerate the squash, but when I fed him the sweet potatoes he gagged and threw up!  I think my little guy is a tad bit texture sensitive.  So much for that!  For now it will stay in my freezer and we can try again in a few months.  Oh well, I guess that's why so many people buy it :)

8 Month Wonder!!

My little man is 8 months old.  In his 8th month, he's been:

• LOVING solids, except the ones Mommy makes - post to come about that.
• Eating less and less formula, which has been driving us crazy
• Sleeping like a champ - 10 to 12 hours at night, and two naps!
• Creeping along on his tummy; he gets around pretty well.
• Getting on all fours and rocking back and forth - crawling is imminent!
• Growing more brown hair.
• "Talking" and screaming a ton - ma ma ma, da da da, etc.
• Eating some finger foods, like Mum Mums and yogurt bites.
• Loving outings in his stroller and being SO good in public.
• Standing up for long periods of time while holding onto things.

We adore this guy!  He's so sweet and adorable.   I can't wait to see what he does next!

Piggy

My kid is going to eat us out of house and home.  He still nurses four times per day, and he's also been eating a 2 or 3 oz. bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, two 4 oz. bottles of baby food for lunch, and two more for dinner!  At bedtime we give him a bottle and he drinks 6 or 8 oz.  He loves baby food with meat in it, and he loves anything with fruit.  Maybe he's just growing, but this boy can sure put it away.

We've been giving him fruit in a feeder thing and he loves that.  Here he is with some bananas:

We sure love this guy!  When we go to restaurants he sits in the little highchair and tries to grab whatever he can.  He loves to play with spoons and straws the best, and he will "talk" for the entire meal.  He's so funny :)

Sitter upper...

We have a sitter!  Actually, he's been sitting up since we went to visit Tyson and Laura in St. George, so over a month now, but I'm only just posting about it.  He doesn't even fall down anymore, unless he does it on purpose to reach a toy.  He's pretty proud of himself:

This giraffe makes lots of soothing noises - he loves it.

He's also doing a totally awesome army crawl type thing, but I haven't learned how to post videos yet, so you don't get to see that.  I don't know how long crawling will last, because he already tries to reach up and grab things, and I'm pretty sure he'll be pulling himself up in no time.

He's going for a little light reading.

Big boy bath!

Griffin took his first big boy bath in the real tub.  I was pretty excited about it, but he pretty much acted like he'd been doing his baths like that all along.  That's our little guy - he takes to new things really easily.  He likes to lay down on his back in the water to have his hair rinsed.  By the way, those hairy legs belong to his Daddy, not me!  :)

I have to admit, for all these years living in our house, I had wondered if and when we'd get to use that tub for a baby of our own.  I got a little teary to think that it finally got put to it's intended use.