Tuesday, February 8, 2011

13 months

in the midst of our groundhog day week, tanner hit 13 months! i really think he is turning into a little guy lately. you can just see the wheels turning in his head. and of course if he can't get his point across, he lets you know it. the fits have started. oh joy!


just the other day after getting the mail, we were sitting in the playroom sorting through all the junk mail. he loves playing with paper, so i have him some of the junk mail and he started sticking it through the mailbox on his house! i couldn't believe it!


he loves all things electronic...the computer, the ipad, cell phones, remotes (don't be fooled-we gave him his own remote but he doesn't like it nearly as much as the ones we use!). i used to be able to put the phone on speaker phone and he thought that was great. now, not so much...he wants to HOLD the phone. makes conversations a little challenging. his favorite toy in his room-his sound machine. anytime i take my eye off him for a second and peek back in the living room to find him "missing," he's always crawled back to his room (even if it's dark...he doesn't care) and is so excited about playing with his sound machine. he LOVES turning it on and off, on and off, on and off. and he loves turning on the light feature on it as well. once he turns it on, he'll crawl over and empty out ALL of his burp rags out of their storage cube, and then come back to the fun times of hitting the off and on button.

he's got several new tricks...he can give high fives, sign all done and sometimes do the sign for more (when he's lazy he just points and makes noises!). he can wave hi and bye. he tells the dogs to "come here" by waving his hand (wonder how he learned that...maybe mommy is always telling him to come?!?). and if you ask him how big he is, he throws his hands up over his head while you say, "SO big!". and he can also shoot hoops-he loves making hoops with his bathtub basketballs. and he's still really good at giving kisses!

teeth-he's got 4 on top and 3 on bottom. and today i saw the 4th one on the bottom starting to poke through.


foods-he loves mandarin oranges, applesauce, pears, peaches, hot dogs, yogurt, carrots and cheese. these are his favs.  and he's decided this month that he likes green beans (not french style like his daddy...those are too skinny) and corn. oh and he likes chips and we tried vanilla wafers and animal crackers too. i think he likes things he can crunch! i did try some veggies from a soup i had made...not so much luck with those. this boy is stubborn...half the time he just starts shaking his head before he even tries something new! UGH! he really wishes he could feed himself using a fork/spoon all the time. that's our meal time challenge. if i am using a fork or spoon, he insists on holding it. he's getting better at "stabbing" his food, but we've got a ways to go before he masters the spoon.


he's doing great with the milk (which is good because of today the milk factory is closed!). yesterday i cut back on the yogurt and he still drank it, so i think we're getting closer to him drinking milk all by itself!
 
sleep-we're still on the bedtime around 6:15-6:30 and waking up around 6:15-6:30 in the morning. he's started sleeping until 6:45ish some mornings which is wonderful!!! this month he's decided that since he's a growing boy, he needs his naps! i am loving it! he's taking great naps! about 1.5 hours in the morning (he usually goes down about 8:45 and sometimes will sleep as late as 10:30). and usually a little over an hour in the afternoon (he usually takes this nap around 12:30-1).


toys-he has discovered his chair this month. not that he'll sit still in it, but it's lots of fun to climb into, stand up, dive off the side, etc. he thinks it hilarious watching me jump towards him to catch him mid-air before he bonks his head as he nose-dives out of it. and he loves his wagon...so much so that he'd rather take a wagon ride and isn't much of a fan of the stroller recently.
walking-just this week he's decided to start letting go and taking steps! it's hilarious...he gets so excited and so proud of himself when he does it. he's usually squealing and laughing as he walks. he's taken as many as 7-10 steps without holding onto anything and is doing it more and more often. lance and i think we'll have an official walker on our hands within the next couple of weeks for sure. he gets his best start if he stands up out of his chair...
clothes-still in 12 months (6-12 month tops work, but 12-18 month pants). he still sleeps in a double pair of pj's...cotton pjs on bottom with a fleece pair on top to keep him warm.

his hair is getting longer and finally starting to grow a little more on the right side. the top and back are getting really long, but we have not reached mullet stage and i'm not quite ready for his first haircut. i think he's going to go blond after his first hair cut. if you look underneath the long red hair on top, it's all blond...really, really blond. 
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Friday, February 4, 2011

same song, different verse

and that brings us to today...lance was supposed to have a 7 am meeting, so when i woke up at 6:30ish and saw the light from the tv on in the living room, i just started praying he had decided to leave it on for me. because if he was still home and watching tv, that only meant one thing-ONE MORE DAY at home. oh yes, the weather man had predicted less than an inch of snow, but oh was he wrong. i'm looking outside at more than 4 inches, and it's been snowing off and on all day.

so now, instead of ice days, it was a snow day (and yes, schools have been closed since monday).

lance tried to go to work but didn't make it very far before turning around to come home. and then he couldn't get his truck back in the driveway...so it's parked down the block at the park. poor guy fell 3 or 4 times walking back from the park to our house...the ice under the snow is slick!

after tman's morning nap we bundled up to go outside. at least on our 4th snow day there was actual snow to play in!

he'll hate me for this picture later. he's got 2 layers of pjs on with some wind pants, a hoodie, his coat, gloves, hat and then i put his rain boots on. he wasn't moving very quickly!

heading out to play...
checking out the snow...it was not sticky enough to make a snowman
not so sure about sitting in this stuff all by himself...but then dakota came to play and it was all better!
staying warm with daddy and mommy!
this stuff is crazy, mom!!! he had lots of laughs watching dakota and gizmo run around like crazy in the snow...and of course trying to eat it too!
 heading inside to warm up...
i decided we could try to make snow ice cream...anything fun to do is sounding great right about now! so i stuck a bowl outside to collect snow...mixed in a little milk, sugar and vanilla...and voila...snow ice cream! tanner was a fan!
we have also played lots of "wheels on the bus" on lance's ipad. not sure what we'll do this afternoon. too bad tanner's not quite old enough to enjoy movies or we would have probably watched every.single.movie. disney has ever made!
here's to highs in the upper 30's tomorrow and sunday!!! crazy how WARM that sounds after this week of single digit temps at night and teens/20s during the day.
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groundhog day

it's felt like i was living the in movie groundhog day all week long (and funny thing was, wednesday actually was groundhog day). it's friday afternoon and me and tanner haven't left the house since our monday afternoon zumba outing at taylor's school. it has been a LONG week.

monday night it sleeted (is that a word?!) for hours and we woke up to an inch or so of ice...e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. our driveway and alley is still a solid sheet of ice. this is a shot out the front door that i took after "skating" to the mailbox.
so we stayed in our pj's all day, lance didn't have to go to work and we played a lot. tuesday afternoon i started realizing that i probably should have braved the grocery store with all the rest of the metroplex monday before the weather hit. lots of ice and highs in the 20's meant this stuff wasn't melting anytime soon.

wednesday we woke up to the same thing (just in a new pair of pj's). lance-no work. ice everywhere. freezing cold. they did start rolling black outs so that mixed it up a bit. we kept most of the lights off and played some more (yup, in our pj's).

the best part about wednesday was that since all the news could talk about was people losing power and their houses getting cold, lance decided that maybe it was time to get our fireplace working. yes, we have lived in our house 5 years and have NEVER had a fire. so i was super excited that we could turn the knob and get the gas logs going (oh wait...you thought we hadn't had a fire because it was the traditional kind where you had to chop firewood...nope...we've got the easy kind-gas logs...you just turn it on and then turn it off...easy peasy!) and to top it off, we only lost power for 30 seconds all day long! but hey-the threat of no heat got me a fire in the fireplace! the only disappointment was that we didn't have marshmallows to roast. next time!

oh and the pipe that runs to the water dispenser on our refrigerator froze...so that's lance sticking his head up into the attic to see what he can figure out. we've turned off the water and are hoping it'll just defrost when it warms up and start working again.
 thursday was...you guessed it...the same. new pair of pj's and hanging around the house. i literally rolled out of the bed and thought, "here we go again." talk about stir crazy. lance ended up going into work around lunchtime and stopped at the store and got dinner on his way home. we were down to the bare bones in terms of food (used my last 2 eggs to make cookies...and being stuck at homes leads to those cookies disappearing rather quickly). and i just needed something from the "outside" world! i decided i could entertain myself by taking pictures...i practiced taking pictures in manual mode. i'm actually kind of excited-i'm getting better and a little more confident not shooting on auto.

tanner likes to "run" to me anytime i pull the camera out...makes it a little more challenging, but hey, i've always liked a challenge! (yes, i'm trying, trying, trying to stay positive and look on the bright side)
 
 we made a fort...i'm sure as he gets older i'm going to have to get more creative and sophisticated in my fort making ability! again, mommy has the camera so he comes "running."
played with his kitchen and entertained himself in the laundry room while i ate lunch. he even had fun playing with the velcro on one of his books...at this point he could play with whatever he wanted as long as it kept him busy and wasn't dangerous. i was getting a little desperate!
we went to bed thursday night and lance told me i could probably try to venture out friday...i think he thought i was on the verge of a breakdown if i didn't get out of the house...um fairly true. so i went to sleep dreaming about going somewhere...anywhere...today.
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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Visit to Grammy and Ipop's

this past weekend we headed to temple...lance went to the men's conference and tanner and i hung out with grammy and taylor. we took the dogs to benny's dog resort and tanner thought it was so much fun-he laughed the whole drive there since he had gizmo staring at him.
friday the guys (jimmy, lance and dad) biked to the men's conference...90 miles. yup, they're crazy!
we spent lots of time...
climbing the stairs...
tanner is fast...he zips up the stairs and anytime we turned our back on him in the living room he was off, scooting as fast as he could to the stairs laughing the whole time as we chased him to follow him up the stairs. he LOVED climbing! 
at the top and so proud of himself...he's "SOOOO big!"
eating and trying new foods...
and of course grammy was convinced she was going to get him to eat all kinds of "good" food...big people oatmeal and mac n cheese. i told her it wouldn't work...and it didn't. but he did decide to like vanilla wafers this weekend. and yes, we had some fun styling tman's hair all crazy!
playing with friends...
grace is only a couple of days older than tanner and we have so much fun seeing them when we're in temple. grace and kim came over saturday afternoon and tanner and grace played really well together. when they got ready to leave tanner decided he needed to give grace a hug...and lots of kisses! we were all dying laughing! 
such cuteness!
grace wasn't so sure at first...boys-ick-they have cooties!
 but then she decided tman was ok!

we also had tanner's 1 year pictures taken which was lots of fun! and did a little shopping...grammy found tanner the CUTEST easter outfit. yup, he's going to look like a stud! and the kid slept like a CHAMP! made this momma proud since the last time we were in temple was mis.er.able in terms of sleep. he slept past 7 am every morning-WHAT?!?! and took good, long naps! wahoo!
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