A Little Nostalga

I've been organizing a lot of old pictures lately and I came across these. They have reminded me of just how grateful I am that this skinny little baby...

...has grown into this charming, brilliant, kind, healthy, almost three year old. We are truly blessed. Happy November!

10 Months Old!

Our sweet baby is 10 months old. Here are some things you should know. He makes cute faces.

He's a little small for his age. His 9 month stats: Height-26.75 in. 5%, Weight-17lb 3 oz 4%, Head-45.5 cm 50%.

He has four teeth, the bottom middle incisors and the top outside incisors. He is working on at least one of his top front teeth, but I think his smile is so cute this way.

He's super happy all the time. He really just loves life.

I dressed him in the lion costume just to take pictures. I figured, "I have the costume, why not?" (I guess that's about me, not him). He really had fun with the photo shoot. I think he likes the camera and I know he likes attention.

His Grammy made him this hat and it fits like a charm. Isn't it darling? And yes, he wore it to church today. And yes, he took it off the moment he arrived.

He loves to stand. He can't stand on his own and hasn't figured out how to pull up but with Mommy or Daddy's help, he'll stand for days.

He isn't quite crawling, but he does army crawl and he's good at it. It looks like the gate will have to go up soon. We sure love this cute little munchkin!

We had an Incredible Halloween

...and we hope you did too!

Dash--all decked out and ready to trick-or-treat

The Incredibles

Jack-Jack in his superhero pose

Lookin' cute

Cheesin' and showing off his "Dash hair"

Feed me

Yes, for the C-man life is all about the food. He gobbles up solid food like he hasn't eaten in weeks (which I assure you is never the case). Our favorite thing is that after he swallows one bite, his mouth is immediately open and ready for the next (as evidenced in the pictures below). The longer it takes that food to enter his mouth, the wider the mouth opens.

Teeth!

About a month ago, this cute little boy had his first two teeth break through the surface. Today, the next two appeared. I wanted to document his cute smile before it changes with the addition of these new teeth. You can see he has the bottom, middle incisors. Interestingly, the ones that came in today are the upper, outside incisors. It's the same order his brother's teeth came in. I guess pretty soon we can call him fang.

Click on the images if you want a closer look at the pearly whites.

Adventures in LEGOs

Awesome loves many things. First off, he loves LEGOs. They come out almost daily. He also loves Phineas and Ferb, the TV show. Above he has combined those two loves to create the "Tri-State Area." I think it looks like the Evil Incorporated building (and no, I didn't help; the building was all him). The creation is complete with the addition of Dr. D. (the LEGO guy) fighting Agent P (the blue, square block). I love this boy's imagination and memory!

In this video, he combined his love of LEGOs with his love of people. See if you can understand who everyone is. Leave a comment if you need a translation.

In case you were in the mood for some cuteness...

We sure love these guys!

Look Daddy, It's a Rocket!

He is also known to call these wonderful Lego creations, "Way talls," as in a way tall tower. I often hear, "Mommy, make it a way tall!"

My Big Brother Loves to Share

Awesome loves to share with Cool (sharing with other two year olds, now that's another story). Here he's letting his brother have his giant and one of his trains. He was sitting there saying things like, "Here, it's a choo-choo train."


In this picture, Awesome has simply covered Baby C with all the baby toys. C was asleep during the process, but he didn't really seem to care when he woke up.

Check Out That Focus

Cool has really begun to focus on things. It is so fun to see him concentrating super hard. Here he's just engrossed in the mobile but he's also focusing on toys. He's getting good at grabbing things and getting them into his mouth (I think we might have a tooth soon).

Like Brother, Like Brother

We have this really great play mat Grandma Funk gave us when Awesome was born. It has fun hanging down things and both boys completely love it (or at least Awesome did when he was Cool's age). Here's Awesome playing with it on his blessing day.

Eventually both boys figured out how to pull down the butterflies. We found Awesome like this one day.
Guess who else figured out that trick?
I like to call these their pirate pictures. Hooray for brothers.

What FHE Looks Like at My House

My friend and former roommate, Heather, has been doing a series on her blog called, "What FHE looks like at my house." All last week she had guest bloggers write about their typical Family Home Evening. This week, she is hosting a blog hop and inviting others to chime in. This is me chiming.

Because our family consists of two very young boys, our FHE's are short. Baby C (three months old) is typically asleep or eating. His participation will become more mandatory as he gets bigger. The rest of us gather on the couch and start by singing songs. Awesome (our two year old) picks the songs (usually The Wise Man and the Foolish Man and The Wheels on the Bus).

After we sing, my husband or I give an under five minute lesson. We like to use the Gospel Art book as our manual. We find a picture, tell the story, and/or relate a Gospel principle to the picture. For example, the other night I used the picture of the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane and taught about obedience.

After the lesson we usually sing another song and then say a prayer. We typically do our activity after the prayer. The activity is also pretty simple. We get on the floor and play trucks mostly. We have also made treats and watched movies.

Our FHEs are not perfect; we don't all sit there quietly and happily, but it's nice to be together and I feel that the Gospel seeds we are planting are important and will help shape the lives of our young boys. I want to thank Heather for this series on her blog. I have really enjoyed pondering on FHE and how I would like to improve things in my home. I really feel our efforts matter and this is one of the simple things that will "make great things come to pass" (see Alma 37:6).

Big Boy Bed

We finally bit the bullet. Last night (4-16-11), we took away the crib. Awesome was not excited to sleep in his big boy bed and repeated over and over through his tears, "No big boy!" We put him into bed along with his three favorite blankies (Grandma Sue's "I Spy" blankie, Grandma Funk's frog blankie, and Grammy G's Winnie the Pooh blankie. I like to think of them as the Grandma trio) and his three favorite animals (Elmo, the Lorax, and Moo Cow from Mr. Brown Can Moo). He wouldn't accept the comfort items, so we just left them on the bed and left the room. Not long after he was calling for his blankies, so Daddy went in and tucked him in. I found him like this about hour later. Note the pillow is sliding onto the floor.The next time I checked on him his position had changed to this. I think he must have just followed the pillow right onto the floor. It didn't even wake him up.
Daddy went in again and put everything back on the bed and created a makeshift headboard to keep Awesome on the bed. As you can see, he slept comfortably the rest of the night.

So Blessed

Baby Cool was blessed last Sunday (4-10-11). It was a beautiful day surrounded by family. Here are some pictures of the day.

Brothers!

Four Generations: Cool's Gramma-Great, Mommy, and Gramps

The whole gang (minus Mark and Rachel who understandably cut out early).

Our Family

Baby Cool looking sharp

And here are his super cute shoes.