Sunday, November 21, 2010

Our Big Boy and Many Changes

Okay, I won't spend too much time on apologizing or making excuses for how long it's been since I blogged, but I do want to say I'm sorry. I hope you'll forgive us for keeping you in the dark.
Now, it's onto the fun stuff. :) IAN IS NOW A WHOPPING 1 YEAR OLD!!! Ian turned one on October 15th, 2010. He is the light of our lives, and he brings so much joy to us and those around him. We were in the process of moving on his birthday, but we made sure to take him to fun places, like parks and out to eat, and did our best to help him have a great day, even though he wouldn't understand that it was his birthday. But oh how Ian would smile when we kept say, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, IAN!!!!" and being to happy all day long. Where did the time go?!
Here's a few pictures of the day (our batteries died so we couldn't get too many pictures):

He LOVED his balloons! His face looked about like this for quite awhile. He carried these balloons around everywhere for days. :)

He was elated! Look at that happy face!
Opening presents. Thank you everyone for your thoughtfulness! Ian loved all of his gifts, and we love his cute outfits. :)



Could this be our little baby? Here is a newborn pic vs. a more recent pic.
Look how big he has gotten!!! It's insane to me! Ian is at such an incredibly fun age. Here are a few things that he does now:
- has 7 teeth, 4 on top, 3 on bottom.
- can say many things, most often being "Mama," "Dada," and "Oh wow!"
- has been able to walk REALLY well since about 10 1/2 months.
- great at sharing. He loves to grab two of whatever he is playing with, and hand one of them to either Matt or I, and then he smiles really big. :)
- great at 'helping' to load the dishwasher. Ian will grab something out of the dishwasher as we're loading it, and then he'll come over to us at the sink and stretch his arm up as high as he can without going up on tiptoe, and he'll hold the utensil or dish there until we grab it. He loves to help!
- speaking of help, Ian loves to help Mommy vaccuum. He is a champ at holding on and helping to push the vaccuum around. He even knows to back up when we need to go the other direction.
- Ian is great with other kids. We have many opportunities each week to play with other kids of all ages, and he does fantastic each time.
- He knows where the fruit snacks and licorice are, and his newest thing is to grab a package and bring it to us, and his cute little noises beg us to open it for him.
- Ian is still working on learning how to do stairs, and he is doing pretty well! He's been able to go up them for awhile, but figuring out how to come down has been more interesting. Since he never did more than the one legged scooch/crawl thing, he likes to go down the stairs sitting and scooching his way down each stair, instead of crawling backwards. Whatever works for him! :)
- knows how to turn the lights on and off. It's so cute! His little pointer finger will point straight out when he wants to play with the switches, and you know exactly what he wants.
- At his 12 month check up, he was in the 90th percentile for height at 32 inches, and in the 65th percentile for weight, at 21 3/4 lbs. Perfect!

Ian is so creative and fun. He brings so much joy into our lives. He loves to pretend to cook, and he's working on convincing Mom and Dad that he can help stir things on the stove. :) Ian was super excited when he has succeeded twice. Haha!

Here are a few pictures of Ian's adventure eating his cupcakes. (This was after he turned 13 months old, but better late than never, right?)
Getting ready... (See that cute little finger? He definitely knew he wanted one of those!)
SOOOO excited!
Going for it!
Getting messy!
The action shot. He was not so fond of the frosting sticking to his hands. Here he is trying to fling it off. :)
Going for seconds. :)
And of course, bathtime! It was totally worth all the messy cleanup to see him enjoying himself. Happy birthday, Bud!


Ian loves to play in our new place. It's a two level townhouse-style apartment in Logan. We are blessed to have a spacious kitchen (which I was SUPER excited about after our last galley style kitchen), and three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms. We are loving our new ward and neighbors, and we're excited for the new adventures it will bring. Matt and I miss our old friends from our last ward, but I'm sure it'll be great to make new ones here. We also were sad to leave our callings, but it has been nice to have Matt home on Sunday mornings and we've had more time to spend together. We're excited for the time when we'll get new callings, but for now, we're enjoying the freedom without them.

We're headed to Washington state on Wednesday to spend the Thanksgiving holidays with Matt's family. We are SUPER excited! It should be good times!