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!

Our house...

It's official!  We are selling our house, and moving far far away to...Lehi again.  I have mixed feelings about moving.  Some have asked me why we're making the switch, and here are my reasons:

• I hate the neighborhood.  Not the NEIGHBORS, mind you, but the unfinished, full of weeds, nasty entrance, no lots on two sides of us neighborhood.
• I hate the mink farm/cows/skunks/lake effects smell.  Sometimes they all combine to create a truly wonderful aroma.
• I can't stand the lake bugs.  Mayflies and mosquitoes everywhere in the summer.  Sometimes I spend 1/2 hour or more vacuuming all the bugs up inside after I've had my door open.
• Our house only has two bedrooms upstairs, and I'd eventually like to have some more children.  We have loved this house, but we are growing out of it.
• This house isn't a house I see us raising our whole family in.
• We have an amazing lot on Traverse Mountain, and a plan for a bit bigger home.  Also, we will be one of the last houses finished in the neighborhood.

So there you have it.  We adore our ward and (most of) our neighbors, so it does make us sad to leave.  We also LOVE our house.  This house was the first house I've lived in since my early childhood, and I was spoiled because since my husband and father-in-law built it, we got to pick everything in it.  It has been a great house to us, and it's full of wonderful memories.  Here are a few pics to send us off:

 My camera has some "quirks," so the picture quality isn't the best, but you get the idea.  We have a lot of fun new changes planned for the new house, and we are hoping to have it finished by September.  Until then, we will be living in a town home in Draper, and playing at the pool every day!

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. 

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 :)

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. 

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!

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.