11 Months

Andrew is now almost a year old. We celebrated his 11 month birthday on Saturday by doing a lot of quick cleaning for some surprise apartment showings... and then doing some playing. Andrew LOVES having his dad home! They spent several hours together on Saturday morning while I slept in until 9am- I have such a super husband!

Baseball cap buddies

Ta-da!

Please weigh in your opinion on this: Black cords w/ blue/navy blue striped shirt? Fashion faux pas? or OK?


Favorite things about my little 11-month old include...

- how nicely he plays with others kids (since he has no concept of what is his yet, if a friend grabs something from him, he just finds something else... I am not looking forward to the "mine" and not liking to share stage)

Hanging out with his buddy

- how a little piece of food can solve pretty much any and every problem- long car rides, bumps on his head... whatever. I feel like this kid eats nonstop. At least I am not wasting groceries any more. I would love any suggestions on good, cheap finger foods and snack foods though.


- and how the little man is starting to understand things I say and follow directions. It makes things a lot easier and more fun. If I'm in another room, I tell him where I am and he finds me. If I ask him to go get one of his toys, there's a high chance that he'll go get what I ask. It is surprising how fast babies pick things up.

Now I just can't wait til next month so I can turn his car seat around!

It's Cookie Time

Despite the fact they are decreasing the box size (see here), I still love this time of year for Girl Scout cookies!

After buying WAY too many from my students last year, I now need to create a Girl Scout cookie budget and start buying... but I haven't found any girls nearby selling them yet. If you know of any... send them my way!

Lazy Days

It has been raining for the past two days and Andrew and I have just been pretty lazy. We rarely leave the house before 2pm. I mostly just follow the little guy around...

Talking on his phone w/ dad

Driving his truck around

Parking at the toilet and doing a little flushing

Off on his next adventure

Under the tunnel

Back to the toys

Helping put his high chair away

Helping bake treats

We are looking forward to the sun's return sometime next week. In the meantime, we're getting a lot of dishes, cleaning, and laundry done! I've also been getting ready for our church young women's program focused on "Finding Joy in the Journey." It has been so easy to enjoy this week with this subject on my mind. I have been cherishing each moment with my cute little guy.

I love this quote from President Monson's talk:

"If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly."

Lazy days are becoming my favorites... and I am learning to appreciate the sticky fingerprints and crumbs everywhere :)

Good Times

Andrew takes after me in more ways than I thought.

- Give him food and he can pretty much sit and chill through even the most mindlessly boring activities. This is the happy kid after our hour run yesterday afternoon. He didn't make a peep. Just pigged out.


- If he wants treats, he'll figure out how to find them. He and his little doggie buddy already discovered my stash.


Fortunately he's more intrigued by the big stuff... which I don't like as much. Go to town little buddy!


- Lastly, the little guy is very curious. The toilet being flushed provides endless minutes of fun. To be honest, the handle is kind of interesting to yank. Although I'm not as entranced as he is by the excitement of the toilet flushing, I can see why he likes it.


The kid is definitely keeping me on my toes. He is drawn to the most dangerous items too- 409, Windex, the iron, glass shower doors, etc. Good times! :) We are having fun finishing up the baby proofing this week.

Date Night at the Tank

Last night Kevin and I got to have date night at the Shark Tank. The game was somewhat lame and the Canucks were winning 1-0 until the Sharks scored with 39.2 seconds left in the game. The game went into overtime and the Sharks scored their second goal after about 3 minutes and won it. It was an awesome end to the game and quite a shocking turn of events.

I was also excited to be at Claude Lemieux's first game back in the NHL after a 5 1/2 year absence. Lemieux played for the New Jersey Devils when I was in middle school and high school and helped them win the Stanley Cup.

We are so grateful to Jeremy & Marissa for hanging out at our place last night playing Rock Band while the little man slept. They were such super babysitters :) Andrew was so excited to see them (and the Rock Band instruments) and was bummed he had to go to bed.

It was so fun to go out on a date! Shari- Thanks for such a great Christmas present!

A Day Off!

On Friday, Andrew and I were surprised to learn from Kevin that he had Monday off. Yay! The weekend was VERY crazy (sick Kevin- Open House- lots of Sunday meetings-work-lots of errands-lots of cleaning, painting, etc)... so we were really happy to have Monday to relax.

Thanks to SUPER DAD, I enjoyed sleeping in until 9am! Below are some pics from our day off and our fun busy weekend.

This kid never stops eating

If anyone is worried about their kids becoming TV addicts, just send them to our house. Somehow we managed to train Andrew to dislike watching his movies on the TV. He only likes to fast forward through movies lately and turn them off. If we hide the remote, he's not interested any more and will leave the room and go play with his toys. Guess we won't be using the TV as a babysitter ...


The crazy kid really likes to bounce up and down and shake- I thought this picture portrayed him in action very well


Kev set up Rock Band this weekend and he and Andrew had fun rocking out with the drums.



Andrew created a train of all the movable objects in our hall and was pushing them around

Still eating... he even gets food on his eyelids

Wacking daddy with the drum sticks

Kev playing the bum drum

Right after I started telling Kevin that is was so nice that Andrew doesn't climb on top of things yet, he climbed on this box. A few minutes later he climbed up on it again, sat down, and fell off backwards. So much fun :) Glad he hasn't tried anything higher yet.

On Monday afternoon we trekked to Santana Row for lunch at Chilis and some shopping. We sat outside and enjoyed the 70 degree weather. It was gorgeous.


Andrew loved his cool kids meal- grilled cheese & mashed potatoes- and thought his new cup was so neat!

Crazy about potatoes!

Trying to fit the whole grilled cheese in his mouth

Afterwards, we headed to Anthro for some good sales. We found some cute baby items for Andrew. These were my favorite ones that we got. He loves playing with the dog, cat and mouse while I pull them around.

I love their vintage looking toys too- on my next trip I want to get the Jack-in-the-box.
We also got Andrew a darling doggy stuffed animal... usually $12 that was marked down to $3. That is my kind of stuffed animal! (looked like this, but is a dog)We ended the day with a trip to Mrs. Fields and some web cam chat w/ my mom and dad. It was an awesome day off!

Happy MLK Jr Day!

All Over the Place!

I love this age. Andrew is constantly moving and is always keeping me entertained. His little personality continues to be more and more fun. Here are some pictures from the past few days.

Roaming around the house. This way is much faster.

Uh oh! Traffic Jam

Playing hide-and-seek with mom...

Why push a truck when I can push my table?

Still moving...

Help! Get me out of this crazy place!

Touchdown!

What sort of ancient object is this?

Might as well shove in as much as I can...
who knows when she'll feed me next...
she just eats chocolate

Fun with the balloon...

I can't wait to go back to Trader Joes for another balloon. This one has kept him entertained for 2 weeks. Can I be honest and say that I can't wait to see his reaction when it actually pops?
Does that make me a bad mom?

The little man also took his first little steps today. He was holding on to me and I let go and moved back. He balanced for a second or two and then walked forward 2 steps. I was so surprised and proud... and he was just surprised. It was pretty cute.

Never a dull moment

Yesterday morning the little man cut his finger. We had quite the time trying to wrestle the little guy into letting us bandage it up. He does not like to sit still and he does not like you to hold his hand either. Eventually we got the blood to stop (the cut wasn't that deep, but bled a lot because he wouldn't stop moving). In order to keep Andrew from ripping off the gauze and tape, we taped a plastic bag around his wrist.


Super Andrew never cried (except when we were trying to make him be still).


He got really good at using his left hand and at crawling around and swatting things with his super cool plastic bag. He spent a good part of the day in my arms, in his stroller, and in his car seat so that he wouldn't keep causing the wound to bleed again. Check out his stylin new hang out spot.


This morning we were all feeling much better. After some liquid bandage spray, little guy was able to be done with his plastic bag. He was very happy!

Such cuties!! They were matching w/out even realizing it.

I have a feeling this is just the beginning of many years of bumps and cuts and breaks! I am not looking forward to it.