ALL ABOUT B.

Knott’s Berry Farm

2011-07-15T16:06:00.000-06:00

We got to the amusement park bright and early to make the most of the day. It wasn’t easy to wake up after just 3 hours of sleep, but we didn’t want to miss out on the family fun!It was already pretty warm and they had the water sprayer station on. Brandon thought it was so fun. Here he is with our Nephew’s friend Bronson:

We were there with Chris’ parents, the Largents, and Jennifer and Gavin. With so many people of all different ages, it is always hard to decide who is going where and with whom. Brandon and his cousin Gavin had fun throwing pennies into a fountain while the adults tried to come up with a plan.

View Full Album

The Largent’s and Paul went for some of the big rollercoasters and other rides. Cousin Jessica excited about the rollercoasters:Kirsten, Bronson, Chad and abby on the rafting ride:

We ended up going to Snoopy camp with Cindy, Gavin and Jennifer at first so the little kids could have fun. Brandon likes trains, so we started off with a train ride. I would say it was a success because he didn’t cry.

He really liked a lot of the rides last time we went, so we were surprised this time when he cried on almost every single ride. Not our best trip to Snoopy Camp. It didn’t help that the lines were pretty long. It felt like we spent a lot of the morning just waiting:Brandon is not the most patient soul, and we all spent a lot of time and energy trying to keep in him line or chasing him when he escaped. We borrowed this leash from his cousin but he hated it. Here I am bringing him back to line after chasing him down:

We thought he would love the balloon ride – nice and slow, not too high. He was fine at first:But the tears came as soon as the ride started. I spent the entire ride trying to console him and keep him in his seat: I didn’t do a very good job. He stood right up and jumped into my arms:

We took a break from rides while Gavin played some arcade games.Gavin was very sweet and gave Brandon one of the prizes he had won:

We let Brandon explore a bit more while Gavin got his face painted:

Then we decided to try the bus ride he loved our last visit. Once again, everything was fine at first… Then he Freaked Out:

View Full Album

I was so grateful that it was a very short ride. He screamed the entire time. Look at Gavin covering his ears and the entire row in front of them turned around to see if he was OK. It was pretty bad. Looking back at these pictures, I can’t help notice he looks really tired in many of them. He didn’t sleep well in the car the night before, so I bet the poor kid was just exhausted.

I went on a ride with Gavin while Chris and Brandon hung out with Jennifer and Cindy.

View Full Album

We decided to be done with the rides for Brandon and do something “safe”. Everyone loves Snoopy, right?Not our boy!I finally got him to touch his nose:

That went so well that we decided to introduce him to cute Sally Brown. What a mistake! I blame our sleep deprivation for all of these poor choices/bad parenting:

View Full Album

After that lovely experience, he got a binky and promptly fell asleep in the stroller.

Brandon wasn’t the only one having a hard day – here is poor cousin Abby:

Chris and I got to go on some of the big rollercoasters while he slept and then we all met up for BBQ buffet lunch. Brandon was in a much better mood after some sleep and food.

The Grandparents bought the kids some toys after lunch. This popper gun was a big hit – thanks Grandma and Grandpa! We just walked around after lunch while the other kids did some arcades. Brandon loved the music for the square dancing class going on:

We did one final ride with everyone and then called it a day.

Brandon, of course, cried when we went down the final drop. In the last picture, you can see that Brandon is clapping. I wish I had a video of this reaction – he does it when he is upset, but everyone around him is clapping – like in a large audience or on this ride where we were all cheering trying to make him feel like it was OK. He frantically claps and cries at the same time. So sad…but a little bit funny too.

Our little family was exhausted so we just grabbed a quick dinner on the way home and relaxed a bit before turning in for the night nice and early.

Drive to California

2011-07-14T16:00:00.000-06:00

We headed out to California in the middle of July to visit Chris’ family and so I could attend his sister Shawna’s baby shower. We were supposed to leave after lunch on Thursday, but Chris got hung up at work and we didn’t end up leaving until close to 7pm. Brandon stayed up a lot later than usual because it was hard for him to sleep while it was still light out. While he was awake, his favorite thing to do was find the moon which was especially big and bright that night.

Eventually the sun set and B. was able to get some sleep. I was worried about Chris driving through the night, so I tried to stay awake. I think I feel asleep for half an hour at some point. We made it there safely about 3am and finally got to bed ourselves near 4am. This was not an ideal start to our trip and we knew the next day at Knott’s Berry Farm would be tough.

Geocaching

2011-07-13T17:03:00.000-06:00

Because the family hike had gone so well, Chris decided to try to find something that would get us outdoors more often and make it a little more fun for him. He decided geocaching would do just that. For those of you who haven’t heard of this, it is basically a treasure hunt using GPS where people all over the world hide and seek containers. Sometimes it is just a log where you can sign that you had been there, other times people leave things behind.

The first time he just took Brandon. They found two caches on one short hike up this canyon.

View Full Album

The first container they found: The second container that they found:

Looks like it was a fun activity! Brandon came home with a bunch of strange toys and sunglasses that needed immediate sanitizing. Glad that Chris found something to get us outdoors more!

Escape Artist

2011-07-10T23:11:00.000-06:00

July 5th marked the start of a fun new phase:I am not sure where it came from or who gave him the idea, but he thinks it is pretty greatHe got a big reaction from me the first few times it happened, so I am guessing it is his latest attention getter.

And even though I KNOW he knows he isn’t supposed to do it,

View Full Album

He just can’t seem to help himself!

Sometimes when I find him, he tries to hurry and put it back on:

But for the most part, he just laughs about it:

View Full Album

Thankfully, I have only had to break this out a few times:But I have had to change his sheets several times as well. Such a headache.

My strategy was to just stay calm, put his diaper back on, and keep him in onsies until this phase passed, but I am not sure that is going to be enough. He has gotten out of his diaper even with a onsie on and his diaper backwards! See his pj bottoms and diaper next to him? Oh Brandon… Hoping this phase passes quickly!

Family Hike

2011-07-09T00:59:00.000-06:00

Possibly a first in our marriage – Chris suggested that we go on a family hike! I can’t even begin to express how excited I was to hear those words coming out of his mouth. I have always loved the outdoors and used to beg him to go camping and hiking – or even on a walk with me, but the answer was almost always no, so I gave up asking. So you can imagine my surprise when he suggested it. A friend at work had told him about a short hike to a waterfall and he thought Brandon and I would enjoy it. So Saturday morning we set out. It was a beautiful day, great little hike and had a fun waterfall at the end. I was in heaven and B. happily played in the freezing water and threw sticks for a long time. Nature really is such a great playground! I think Chris enjoyed it too. Being outdoors with my two favorite people made for one great morning. And because I loved it so much and don’t want to forget it, I am posting LOTS of pictures. :)

Thank you honey – I REALLY loved it! (hint hint…)

BYU Creamery with Lani

2011-07-08T23:49:00.000-06:00

My friend Lani was in town and we meet up for ice cream. I met Lani at church back in Boston so we have known each other for a long long time but hadn’t met in person for several years. It was fun to catch up and meet her fourth baby – so sweet. Lani was the one who introduced me to the idea of unmediated childbirth and doulas. I feel like I was blessed with a really positive birth experience and I attribute a large part of that to the information I was armed with that Lani had shared with me. She has a great website about childbirth that is full of good information for anyone that is expecting – http://birthfaith.org/. Great to see you Lani!

18 Months

2011-07-05T14:57:00.000-06:00

Where to start with this cool dude? Our little man has more personality that I could have ever imagined when I held him for the first time a year and a half ago. I feel like his character is so defined already. He is so smart, curious, a quick learner, funny, has an infectious laugh and a gleam in his eye when he is excited and happy – all of which he undoubtedly got from Chris. He is also stubborn, defiant, moody and overly sensitive – sadly, I am sure this was my lovely contribution. (Someone please tell me all the negative things I listed are due to his age and he will grow out of them!) Every day is filled with many ups and downs – depending on his mood. It certainly makes life interesting!

I think his 18th month was hard for both of us. I am sure he felt like he didn’t get to go/do/eat a lot of the things he wanted and is still figuring out how to deal with that. Mostly I just felt like he was just plain mean a lot of the time. Many days Chris would come home and I was so relieved to get a break from B’s rollercoaster attitude. I remember saying “I am so done!” a lot this month. Not that we didn’t have wonderful times too, but I think the overall impression was just frustration that we were butting heads so much. And it wasn’t even a communication thing. I think we understand each other pretty perfectly at this point – it was just two strong personalities wanting/needing to do different things. I thought all this didn’t come until the Terrible Twos?! I miss having my kind, sweet baby all day. I am sure this is all normal, but it has thrown us both for a loop and is taking a lot of patience and understanding from both of us to get through.

Here he is so mad about something he just fell to the floor crying. I remember my good friend Concessa was at my house when this happened. She said “That is a pretty strong reaction, don’t you want to document that?” So I took a picture:

But honestly, he has pretty strong reactions to a lot of things. He is a passionate little guy! We started doing very brief time outs. He now knows to go to his room for a time out when he has been naughty and comes out saying “sorry” when he is ready to be happy and nice again. For the most part, this has worked and he has been able to change his attitude really quickly with a short break. He would often come out with a big smile, wave and say “Hi!” cheerfully, but I wonder if he is really understanding why he has to go away to calm down, etc. I make sure to explain it each time, but who knows how much is sinking in.

Enough of the ugly stuff, on to fonder memories! Like this sweet boy who insisted on putting lotion on my leg. He loves lotion and can now get it down and pump it out by himself.

View Full Album

That picture of my foot reminded me that he saw me painting my toenails one day and the next day he dug through my drawer, pulled out a nail file and polish and came and gave me a pedicure! He is very observant and is so ready to do grown up things.

Here he has put a bunch of “lotion” (mini hand sanitizers) in a convenient tote. I thought he was clever to get and use this!

He loves books. I often find him reading to himself. He jabbers away and turns the pages. He knows most of his books really well now and I can always tell which book he is reading just by listening to the words he says in connection to them. Time to get some new reading material!

View Full Album

It still blows me away when I hear him talk. It is so exciting to be able to communicate more. At his 18 month pediatric appointment, I was supposed to write down examples of things he could say – specifically if he had put 2 or more words together. I wanted to write one of his first 3 words together, but I thought it might look bad “Momma kick mouth”. He had kicked me in the mouth by accident and said this, but I didn’t know if they would believe me!

Other new words/combinations he said this month “Two phones” (when he was holding both of our phones and he will count, “1, 2! Two phones!”), “Slip”, “Set, go!”, “Dada’s wawa”, “Big fork”, “All better” (after getting an owie kissed), "pink” “2 cars” (when asked how many cars he had), “Mommy’s chair”, “Brandon shoe”, “Brandon chair”, “Mommy sock”, “Mom sick”, “Oh…crash!” (when playing angry birds), “tummy” “guy guy guy!”, “toot”, and Chris taught him to say “Mommy tooted” which never happened and I didn’t think was funny, he counted “1,2,3…6!”, “P-apple” (pineapple) and more that I didn’t write down.

Here are the stats from his 18 month check-up: Wt 23 lbs (13.4%) Lt 33 in (73.3%) Head circ 18.5 in (27%) The biggest change was his height. He went from the 28% for length to the 73% – growing 3 inches in 3 months!

He has been eating 4 big meals each day and his weight was still on the lower end, but I am sure it is just because he grew 3 inches. It makes me happy that he enjoys eating more now. Here is is munching on one of his favorites – a nectarine:

July 3rd he climbed out the crib and woke us up by walking into our room! So scary! We converted his bed into a toddler bed, but he wouldn’t sleep in it…we finally turned it back into a crib at 10pm. He kept climbing out sporadically for a week or so, but finally stopped right before I bought a crib tent. He never fell or hurt himself and was good at getting down safely, but we were so relieved he stopped.

He loves music and does the cutest little dance – which is more like a bounce with fist pumps. He danced to all aboard the choo choo train song all day. Oh and he started singing! At the end of the month he sang all the lullabies with me when I was putting him to sleep. He has such a sweet little voice. And he is learning to play the drums:

July 20 was the first day we finally got him to wear sandals and also his first scraped knee. :(

He doesn't color with crayons or markers well, but he Loves drawing on the whiteboard. He “drew” and identified a tree and boat the other day! So cool to see him use his imagination.

I thought he was sick again, but the runny nose turned out to be his 6th top tooth coming out. He has had a runny nose for so long now that he gets tissues on his own, wipes or blows his nose and throws the tissue away! Here he is when I thought he was sick, blowing a kiss to Grandma:

He helps clean up his toys a little bit now.

He is not good at listening/obeying. Won’t stop or come when I ask. Hates holding my hand so I usually have to carry him across parking lots and such. Throws a lot of fits when he doesn’t get his way or something upsets him:

B. will only go downs slides occasionally and always backwards:

We have been to Seven Peaks Water Park a bunch. He loves the water and is a little too adventurous in the wave pool. Here is the one and only picture I have of him there: (It was his first day and he was a little apprehensive at first. He smiles a lot more when we are there now.)

Here is the “Kellogg’s Box” incident. We have a family joke about my dad because he isn’t the most delicate when opening things. There was one particularly memorable Kellogg’s cereal box that my dad had torn up trying to get open, so we always reference it to tease him. It was too perfect that B. had done the same thing!

We had a lot of visitors this month and B. developed quite a bit of stranger anxiety. He would make mean faces, turn away and cry when new people would come up to him – especially older people. He would make this face that looked like he was disgusted and scared at the same time and then bury his face in my shoulder. It was a strange little phase that made a lot of people who were just being nice and trying to get to know him feel bad.

On good days at home, with no strangers around, there were plenty of bright moments with our funny, happy boy. Here he is with a steam basket on his head – aka: “hat”. He was in a silly mood and kept me laughing for about 15 minutes doing this:

View Full Album

And it is those silly, happy moments that make all of the hard ones bearable!

July 4th 2011

2011-07-05T00:16:00.000-06:00

We had such a wonderfully classic Independence Day this year. Holidays are even more fun with B. around, and he really enjoyed this one.

Growing up, I loved going to our church for a pancake breakfast and flag raising. Sadly, our ward doesn’t do this, and Chris doesn’t like pancakes. So our patriotic breakfast was oatmeal with blueberries and strawberries. Not quite what I was hoping for, but it worked.

After breakfast we hurried over to the Provo Parade. Chris was skeptical that it would be worth the hassle (we had heard you need to camp out overnight to get a good spot), but we found a great parking spot and easily found standing ground very close to the road in the shade of some trees. We had a great time! I can’t believe I have never seen this in my 10+ years in Provo. I am pretty sure Chris as been in a parade before. He had a totally float worthy wave:

Brandon’s favorite parts were the horses, big trucks, and the marching bands:

We left a little early to beat the crowd and get some much needed water. After lunch and nap we headed out to Eagle Mountain for a family BBQ. Brandon had such a blast playing in water all afternoon and we got to enjoy great company and yummy food.

We ate a yummy dinner of hamburgers, hotdogs and steak, pasta salads, frog-eye salad, and watermelon! Guess what Brandon’s favorite thing was:

After dinner, Chris took Brandon around the block on the ATV (really slowly) and then spent about 2 hours with him in the spa! He was in heaven. The spa had speakers and Brandon danced most of the time he was in there:

View Full Album

B. loves wearing any kind of glasses and quickly became obsessed with these goggles:

View Full Album

He was also quite taken with the waterfall – just like his Grandpa Olsen: Chris has been working really hard lately and putting in a ton of hours at the office. It was so nice for us to spend so much time together this weekend. Brandon loves his dad so much and he was so happy to spend the whole afternoon with Chris’ undivided attention:

We hung out around the fire pit and ate s’mores while we waited for it to get dark.

The Largent’s and their neighbors had quite the pile of fireworks for us! They made some of the bigger mortar fireworks legal this year, so we had a great show!

The kids started off with the small firecrakers. Brandon’s cousin Kirsten helped him pop them by stepping on them because he wasn’t strong enough to throw them. It was pretty cute. Here it is live:

It was pretty late by the time it was dark enough for fireworks (9:30ish), but Brandon was doing great. Chris helped him with some sparklers (while I tried not to have a heart attack). He said “wow” and “woah” a bunch for the first two. By the third, he was just mesmerized.

Then we got to sit back and enjoy the show! Brandon was so excited he couldn’t sit still. I think he sat with almost everyone there at least once. We only had one small fire that Donavon quickly put out:

The grand finale with the big mortar fireworks was amazing! It was so exciting to be so close to these huge ones; although, a little too exciting when the first one they lit had a dud that exploded about eye level! The rest went off perfectly and we oohed and ahhed with delight! It was a pretty perfect 4th of July!

Balloon Fest

2011-07-02T13:19:00.001-06:00

I had heard about the hot air balloon festival for years and always wanted to go, but never made it. I was determined to go this year! I was so happy that my mom wanted to go with me because Chris ended up being sick and we didn’t want to wake Brandon up so early. I am glad we went and hope to bring the boys next time.

Next year we will make sure we are there right at 6:30am because in the 20 minutes it took us to drive over and find parking we missed most of the balloons being inflated. I got to see several take off while my mom parked:It was so magical to see all the balloons rising as the sun came up over the mountains! These colorful ones were my favorite:

View Full Album

I liked the Smoky the Bear one too, but it must have caught a strong wind current because it took off for the mountains and I never saw it again! The largest balloon was the Coke bottle. I rarely drink soda and never drink Coke, so I am not sure why I took so many pictures of this one. I guess it was the only one left to inflate when we arrived:

View Full Album

The black blob in this next picture was the highly anticipated Darth Vader balloon:We weren’t too impressed. It never even went anywhere. Just floated over to the Provo High School and loomed behind some trees. Can you tell I am not a huge Star Wars fan?Back to the pretty ones: And the not so pretty ones: (Give us a break, it was early!)Besides being fun to look at, the balloons were in the “Hare and the Hound competition” where “hound” balloons try to drop bean bags onto a target laid out by the “hare.” They could get more points by trying to pop large balloons with sharp sticks 200 to 300 feet above the ground. Apparently, top pilots from around the nation come to compete in this event. It must have been hard, because in the hour and a half we were there, only 2 balloons came close enough to the target to attempt a bean bag drop or balloon pop: The rest of the balloons were scattered all over the valley by the time we had to leave. I am not sure how or where they landed.We did get to see the Coke bottle land (it was just hovering in the field) and deflate. They had all the kids “milk the envelope” where they got to roll down the fabric to get all the air out.

View Full Album

It was a fun morning and definitely worth getting up early for. Unfortunately, when we got back to the spot where mom parked, we saw these guys and our car was no where to be found. Turned out to be a pretty expensive festival and a sad, sour end to our morning.

Carriage Ride

2011-06-30T00:54:00.000-06:00

My old mission companion Diana and her darling baby Scotlyn were in town, so we met up at Thanksgiving Point for the afternoon (this is what I was late for when the eyeliner incident happened). They had a carriage this day instead of the wagon ride we had done before:Although it doesn’t look like it, Brandon really did like it:

We met up with Alicia (another former companion) for dinner later that evening. Sorry, no pictures from that. I blame Brandon because I spent the majority of the meal chasing him. He kept running out of cafe and I had to sprint to catch him - he is getting really fast! Anyway, as usual, it was a blast with these girls. Thanks for a great day!

Eyeliner

2011-06-30T00:49:00.000-06:00

We are late – Again. In desperation, I turn on Mickey Mouse Playhouse for some crucial baby free minutes. Now if only I could find my eyeliner.

“Brandon, have you seen my eyeliner?”

frantic searching…

“Buggy, did you take Mommy’s makeup?

still searching…

I give up, whip on two layers of mascara and grab B’s clothes grateful that all I have to do for him is get him dressed. We will be out the door in 2 minutes or less!

Or not: Oh Brandon, I love you so.

Monkey!

2011-06-30T00:48:00.000-06:00

This kid really likes bananas:

He started out with one, but begged for the one I was peeling for myself. His little “pleeease?” combined with the ASL sign and those big brown eyes were so cute I couldn’t say no. He was so happy and very fair – taking a huge bite from each banana in turn. “You are next, my friend”:

Have I mentioned Brandon’s big mouth? It doesn’t matter what he is eating - it could be one grain of rice - he opens his mouth as wide as he possibly can. I always feel a little embarrassed when I am feeding him in public because I am sure other moms are looking at me like “why are you letting your child shove so much in his mouth” or “why are you not cutting smaller pieces for that poor boy?!” Trust me, he can handle it. He has always taken big bites. We are just going to have some serious etiquette lessons when he gets older. This won’t be nearly as cute when he is a teenager:

View Full Album

Just a few more bites and he was “all done”:

View Full Album

What a monkey!

When All Else Fails…

2011-06-29T00:45:00.000-06:00

How we went from this grumpy toddler who refused to eat:To this happy, full boy:

Superheroes!

Simply attach to any spoon and your child will be begging for more!

Makes mealtime fun for everyone!

View Full Album

Why didn’t I think of this sooner?!

First Pony Ride

2011-06-25T00:36:00.000-06:00

Chris finally got to join us at Thanksgiving Point. Now, I know I have posted a bunch of times about this place, but we did something totally new this time! They let Brandon ride a horse! He was thrilled! He talked about it for weeks after and it started him on the “horsey” kick where he rides everything from his toy school bus and fire truck to small stuffed animals that look nothing like horses.

As usual, everything is more fun when Dad is along. I just love watching these two together. Chris is such a good dad.

View Full Album

Brandon loved feeding the animals corn this time. We spent quite a bit of time waiting for him to carefully place a single kernel on his palm.

B. loved making all the animal sounds. I like his version of a peacock:

This cute little calf was a favorite:As well as this goofy guy:I love how all 3 of them turned to me for this next picture. That lama may be homely, but he poses well!I did get one picture with me in it, but I look shockingly similar to the lama above, so I chose not to post it!

It was a hot day and we were all pretty tired by the end of it. Great trip with Dad along and Brandon’s first pony ride!

Rain Rain Go Away

2011-06-19T00:32:00.000-06:00

What a strange summer. We have had so much rain this year. I am not complaining, I love summer thunderstorms and the the cooler nights, but did it have to be the one summer I bought a pool pass?

St. George

2011-06-18T00:31:00.000-06:00

Chris and I got to go on a mini vacation! I debated going because I had never been away from Brandon overnight. Once I finally decided to go, my sister-in-law Deborah was an angel and happily took this little mess maker out to Eagle Mountain for the night. She is a super-mom and Brandon just adores her. We were so grateful for her help and didn’t have to worry about him at all.

Chris’s and his coworker Keith bought golf passes together this year. One of the courses included was in St. George. Keith’s wife and my good friend Heidi suggested that we meet them down there so that we could hang out and shop while the boys golfed. I thought that was a fabulous idea!

We drove down Friday night after Chris got home from work, met up with H & K in St. George for a movie. After much deliberation about movie, time and theater (Chris will only go to digital theaters and no one wanted 3-D), we ended up being later than expected and could only catch Green Lantern in 3-D. I think we all laughed our way through it. Possibly the worst movie I have ever seen.

The next morning the boys left early to golf and Heidi and I spent the entire day shopping. Poor Heidi is pregnant and I think I wore her right out. She was very patient with me and I had a pretty successful shopping day (which is rare). It was so fun to be able to shop without worrying about Brandon having a meltdown at any second and I couldn’t get enough of the adult conversation! Heidi was my mission trainer and is one of my favorite people on the planet. So I had a great day! I didn’t even call Deborah a million times to check on Brandon.

We met up with the guys for dinner and then drove home. Actually, we left, and then had to return to the restaurant to get Chris’ credit card back. Oops. It was fun to see Brandon again – despite all the distraction, we had missed him. He was totally happy and didn’t even seem phased by our absence. Deborah and his cousins did a great job entertaining him. I felt bad because he did not sleep well and therefore Deborah did sleep well.

Here are the TWO pictures I took on my phone of our mini-vacation. Ha!

Fun trip – and I was so relieved that Brandon survived and we were able to get away for the first time in a year and a half!

Summer Sandals

2011-06-11T00:22:00.000-06:00

Baby flip flops must not be very comfortable. I bought 3 pair for him trying to find ones that he would walk in! Any time we put them on, he would collapse crying, refuse to stand up and claw at his feet till we took them off. On the third pair, Chris came up with the idea to try distracting him while he got used to how they felt on his feet. He slipped on the sandals right before standing him up on the card table in front of the whiteboard. It worked like magic! He immediately forgot about the shoes and had a blast drawing. And to prove it, I am going to post NINE pictures of him smiling while doing the same exact thing. Just scroll fast – I really don’t feel like condensing these into albums or deciding which I like best.

He didn’t cry about the shoes at all while at the whiteboard. Of course, once we took him off the table he fell apart and refused to wear them. At least he had fun drawing. He will only color with crayons and markers on paper for a few minutes, but the whiteboard holds his attention for much longer! After this day, he asked to draw up there all the time. He even learned to pull a chair up and climb up on his own (with supervision).

Oh, you want more? Here is an extra long, super exciting video of him drawing:

And for those of you who are wondering what we finally did about the shoe problem, I gave up on flip flops and bought some velcro sandals instead.

Date Night

2011-06-06T00:08:00.000-06:00

Let’s be honest. Since having a baby, Chris and I have not had too many date nights that didn’t include Brandon. It is hard to get a babysitter and we enjoy spending time together as a family. That said, I really love and miss going out just the two of us. I get to feel like Diana for a few hours and not “Mommy” and reconnect with Chris. And even though a lot of our conversations end up being about Brandon, it is so great to have Chris all to myself. And dinner is so much more relaxing without having to worry about feeding someone else! Also, I love going to the movies – which we can’t do with B.

So you can imagine how excited I was when Grandma came to babysit and Chris knocked on the door and kicked off our date by surprising me with flowers! What a good hubby.

We had a fun night eating at Zupas and seeing the new X-Men movie. Thank you Grandma Olsen for watching Brandon!

Return of the Duck Picture

2011-06-05T00:03:00.000-06:00

I thought I would take a duck picture when B. turned 18 months just to see how much he has changed. Bad idea. It was so SO hard to get these pictures. I never did get a very good one and he ended up really mad at me. Here is the best one that I got:And this blurry “smiling” one:

Yeah. Not our best photo shoot. The whole time, he was either unfocused:

View Full Album

Bored:

View Full Album

or trying to escape (and often succeeding):

View Full Album

The few times he actually stuck around and smiled, I must have been shaking with excitement because they are all blurry (or he was playing with his diaper – lovely).

The major distraction was a stuffed leopard. He did not want to sit by the duck, he wanted to ride the “horsey”:

View Full Album

And jump off the “horsey"”:

Over and over again. I finally gave up and decided to try putting the duck by the leopard. He was much happier on the “horse” after all. Here he is saying “YAY! HORSEY!”:Then he saw the duck and from the look in his eyes, I knew both the duck and I were in trouble:“And stay out!”:

I wonder what he was thinking in the last picture. I imagine either “How could you?!?” or “Don’t you dare try that again!!” Either way, it is a pretty fierce expression for an 18 month old! Makes me worry what we have in store for us as he gets older.

And that was the end of that. There is a small chance I will try this again when he turns two. A very small chance…

17 Months

2011-06-04T16:21:00.000-06:00

REALLY good at making messes:

View Full Album

But is getting better at helping to clean up (and spreading with a knife):

View Full Album

Loves books – we always read a bunch before his nap and bed. Lately he has been bringing me books to read during the day as well. He is getting really good at identifying things and will try to say every word we try to teach him.

We both got sick again. I swear it is from all the museums and germy kid places we have been going lately. I have never gotten sick so many times in one year in my life. I got pink eye this time on top of the cold/flu/awfulness we had. He got a happy meal for the first time when I was waiting for our FOUR prescriptions at Wal-Mart. I was desperate – I felt awful, he was starving and we were stuck waiting. Anyway, he liked the milk, apples and chicken nuggets he got, but the toy was the obvious highlight. You can see he didn’t feel well either:

Still wishes he could drive. He usually turns on the wipers, hazards, blinker and radio and dances while moving the wheel. And when he gets bored of that, he puts change in my CD player.

Loves trains. Chris took him on the little on in the mall:

Loves rocks. Picks them up and always wants to throw them into our little stream.

Likes the playground, but still hates the swings. He goes down the slides when he is in the mood, but mostly likes to climb on the most dangerous thing he can find. That or open and shut the gate a billion times.

View Full Album

Likes stickers. Is getting better at coloring – but he prefers markers and drawing on his skin, so we don’t pull those out as often.

He has started initiating little games with me. Like hide and seek, peek-a-boo, and this one that he did for so long – awake, asleep:

Is so funny about candles. He begs me to play with them. He likes the ones with lids best, but he has broken 3 by putting the lid on too aggressively, so he doesn’t get to play with that kind anymore. Likes to line things up sometimes:

Thinks pill bugs (roly polies) are awesome:

View Full Album

Still rather be outside than inside.

Still loves animals. Especially cats:

View Full Album

Unfortunately, still loves to tear apart my cupboards, dishwasher and draws if he gets the chance.

He thinks everything in the kitchen has potential to be a toy. He kept putting this pot on and calling it a “hat”. He thinks he is sooo funny!

View Full Album

Sorts silverware really well. Now I just need to get him to help me put them away:

Loved his first taste of palacinke (Croatian crepes):

He has a lot of energy and is usually a pretty happy kid that is easily impressed:

Has fun “fixing” things. He says “broke” and “fix” while he works. The little folding chair he is working on here is one Chris made in woodshop in middle school. :)

Is a great climber. Did I already mention he can climb out of his crib?

Likes playing with lotion almost as much as water:

View Full Album

Has several tantrums most days, but I am getting used to it and better at helping calm him down and figure out the problem or distract him.

He looks adorable in a robe:

View Full Album

He is talking more – which is so exciting. I write down new things he says on our calendar. Here are some things he said for the first time in May (starting at the beginning of the month) - Where’s Daddy? Momma’s sick, Daddy’s sleep, Dada work, Hi Mama!Eyebrows, Help please, More cheese, Where is she? Right there, More cheese, Said first prayer (Heavenly Father, thank you, food, day, dada, Jesus, amen), Hooray, Counted 1,2 ,3 by self, said More juice, where’s oatmeal, More milk, Come!, Go bye bye, and I pooped.

Other firsts – Went to nursery by self May 29th, first haircut was May 30th, first taste of candy (a dum dum which he only licked once) and he learned to blink when asked:

He also has mastered the 3 flights of stairs at our apartment complex that we have to take multiple times each day to go anywhere. He went down for the first time by himself (with me hovering over him) on June 3rd.

He has a new thing with horses ever since we started seeing them at Thanksgiving Point. He pretends he is riding a “Horsey” all the time – on school buses, fire trucks, stuffed animals. He loves it.

Another big thing this month was I finally weaned him. We had only been doing one feeding right before bed, but I finally cut that out too. He pretty much weaned himself I guess, but it was still hard and I felt badly about it. Definitely a bitter/sweet thing.

He gets really hyper right before bed every night. Here he is dancing off some energy before story time:

He is so fun and interesting right now, but goes non-stop. I didn’t think he would be able to wear me out at such a young age, but believe me, he does! But it is a good tired. :)

Live and Learn

2011-06-01T23:47:00.000-06:00

Two things I will never do again-

1. Buy cheap ink on the internet:

2. Ride an ATV in flip flops:

First Haircut

2011-05-30T22:31:00.000-06:00

B. was starting to look pretty shaggy with hair over his ears and down his neck. We decided one Saturday while doing some shopping at the mall to stop in to Chris’ salon. His stylist had offered to give Brandon a free first haircut and she was working that day. (Yes, he has a specific hairdresser he goes to every 5 weeks. The man is very particular about who cuts his hair. I tried once and ended up in tears.)

I was a typical first mom and almost backed out twenty times. I don’t know why it is so hard to see those locks that have been there since birth go! My worries were for nothing because she barely took anything off. Just trimmed around his ears, shortened the back and took off some of the strange big chunk that grows down the middle of his head.

I thought for sure he would be screaming and crying the entire time, but he did really well! Only fussed a little when she had to trim around his ears. I don’t think he really understood what was happening.

She offered him a sucker at the beginning to help distract him. I, of course, did not want him to have it but let it slide anticipating needed some major distractions. Turned out he just liked holding the think. Chris put it in his mouth once and he made a funny face and just held it the rest of the time. I was thrilled he did so well with his first haircut and didn’t even need a sucker to get him through it!

Oh, I almost forgot – I took a short video. The poor hair lady was probably so annoyed with me documenting this event.

Nursery

2011-05-29T15:29:00.000-06:00

I am ecstatic! Brandon went to nursery all by himself for the first time and stayed in there for all 2 hours!

If any of you have seen Brandon at church for the last 6 months, you know it hasn’t been pretty. He does well in sacrament meeting with the help of lots of church books, snacks and quiet toys, but the second and third hour were always a nightmare. Whoever had him usually ended up in the halls so the classes wouldn’t get disrupted. He just did not like being stuck in one room. At 17 months, we introduced him to nursery and took turns sitting in there with him each Sunday for the full 2 hours. He seemed to really like it, and played pretty well with the other kids. It was fun to sit on the side and watch him interact with the other children. We did a lot of practicing sharing that month at home.

I was sure he would have a total meltdown the first time we left him, but he did great! Here he is after church, showing off his artwork: (Please excuse his full mouth in a lot of these pictures. We get out at 2, so he is always hungry when we get home)

View Full Album

Ready for a nap, not interested in a photo shoot:But first, he had to put his picture up on the fridge:

View Full Album

So proud of you Brandon!

“What?!”

2011-05-27T23:25:00.000-06:00

About 4 or 5 years ago, I was driving around with my mom. I’m not sure where we were going, but I think we were lost or late – most likely both. I was irritated and not in the mood to joke around. All of a sudden, my mom started laughing really hard – at me. I looked at her with the most annoyed, teenager face I could pull of and indignantly said “What?!?” She just pulled the mirror down for me to look at myself. One of the lenses in my sunglasses had fallen out and I hadn’t noticed. I looked so silly, especially with the smirk I was still wearing. I immediately started laughing too and we both laughed so hard we cried. Whenever we are in a tense situation now, we just say “what?!” in the snotty tone I had used and it always makes us laugh.

Brandon was trying on my sunglasses the other day. He was walking around saying “cool” and so proud of himself for getting the sunglasses on. He was totally oblivious of the arm coming out the front. I just had to laugh when I got this picture – he is so my son. Check out his “What?” face:

I laughed for a while, then helped him out. Cool dude:

Moody Boy

2011-05-25T15:24:00.000-06:00

So I come out of the office and see this:Which really isn’t a big deal because I only buy washable crayons/markers. He thought it was funny: But I don’t want the kid growing up thinking it is OK to draw on doors and furniture, so we had little talk. He didn’t like that. First he was sad:Then he was mad: And then 2 seconds later he was fine!

My Cute Boys

2011-05-22T23:46:00.000-06:00

Brandon finally started liking hats recently. I think it helped that he saw his Dad wearing one. He keeps it on and even says “cool hat” when he gets to wear one. Here are my boys in their hats on a family walk.

View Full Album

The only positive about living by the train tracks – a very happy little boy!

Bathroom Reading

2011-05-17T23:34:00.000-06:00

The scenario is not a new one. I am busy with something and suddenly realize it is unnervingly quiet. My heart skips a beat and I rush around calling for Brandon to see what trouble he has gotten into and make sure he is OK.

It was a pleasant, though odd surprise to find him like this:I certainly did not teach him this! He must have just thought it looked like a pretty cool place to read a book.

View Full Album

Playground Visitor

2011-05-16T22:28:00.000-06:00

Darth Vader was at our playground the other day!

Wait…false alarm. Just Brandon being silly.

View Full Album

He demanded my jacket, flung it over his head and blindly marched around the playground like this for a good 10 minutes. How does he come up with this stuff??

Goofy Family

2011-05-16T15:39:00.000-06:00

I am going to be more careful of what I do now that I know Chris can sneak pictures when we are doing Face Time...

Hiking the Y

2011-05-13T15:58:00.000-06:00

I got a call in the morning that my awesome friend Kara would be coming down from ID that night and needed a place to crash. She was just coming for one day, and in a very rare occasion, came without her kids or husband. She arrived about 9:30 or 10pm and we seized the moment by going for a hike. It was wonderful and strange to be hiking again with her without kids or husbands. We felt like we were in college again – it was such a blast! We listened to Dave Matthews Band driving up to the Y – which took way too long as neither of us remembered exactly how to get there. When we finally arrived and started hiking, some rustling in the bushes totally scared me. We were the only ones on the trail and I have an overly active imagination – OK, I am a total baby. Luckily, a big, loud group started hiking right when I was about to call it quits and we followed them the entire way up. I felt a lot safer with more people on the trail and was able to relax and enjoy the hike. We reminisced and caught up on each other’s lives, laughed a lot and took way to many awful self portraits before giving up and asking someone to take one for us. It was a beautiful night and so much fun!!

“Wawa”

2011-05-12T17:33:00.000-06:00

Possibly his favorite indoor activity. It is a MESS, but look at that smile. Worth it.

View Full Album

Milky Pepper Soup Anyone?

2011-05-10T23:04:00.000-06:00

Oh, our little chef! We are so proud of his expanding culinary abilities. He was on a mission to make something this day. He dragged me over to the closet where we keep the ladder, pulled out the pot he wanted, and demanded ingredients: water, milk, salt and pepper.

The best part was he would tell me everything he was doing over and over again. It was almost like a cooking lesson.

“Stir, stir, stir”“Pour, pour, pour” “Lid” “More milk! More water!”“Pepper”, “Hot, ouch!” – even though everything was off and cold. And on and on. What a funny baby…

Mother’s Day

2011-05-08T12:55:00.000-06:00

My sweet boys woke me up with this breakfast: The best part was right before Chris put the tray down on the bed, Brandon got under his feet and he tripped. The juice soaked the pancakes and tray! He had to run and clean it up and make another attempt a few minutes later. :)

View Full Album

Chris was extra helpful with Brandon that day, and I just enjoyed being home with my family. It really has been such a blessing and privilege to be a mother. I love it more that I could have ever imagined – soggy pancakes and all!

TP Revisited

2011-05-05T23:48:00.000-06:00

My sister-in-law Megan and her adorable son Cal came to visit! I didn’t have my camera the day we got together, so the pictures are all courtesy of Megan. Here are the happy grandparents:

We were so excited to see them both – We have really missed having Reed and Megan as neighbors. And Cal is the sweetest baby on the planet. Darling personality to match that cute face. Brandon is 7 months younger, and even though Cal is never mean, Brandon has always been…lets just say…extra sensitive when he is around. B. always ends up crying over little things when the two are together. I am not sure if it is a sharing issue, or if he is jealous or what, but these pictures capture what has happened time and time again: They will be playing and then if Cal comes anywhere near what Brandon is using (Grandma’s steering wheel), even if he is happy and sweet about it, Brandon just loses it. I love the last picture because you can see, Cal is just happy sitting next to him smiling and Brandon is clutching the wheel bawling. So we took them to a place where there were lots of things for everyone to see and do, and lots of space to run around – Thanksgiving Point. My mom was able to join us for the morning, and we had a blast. Being spring, they had a entire section filled with mommies and babies. It was so cute:

The boys were at a perfect age to be excited and interested in all the animals.

View Full Album

However, Cal did not appreciate being licked by this cow:

We all enjoyed a wagon ride together – mom even got us all singing “Horsey Horsey”.

The boys liked playing in the little jail and dance hall:

We were all starving and hot at this point so we headed for the dinosaur museum. Meg treated us to lunch in the Museum Cafe – thank you! Mom had to leave to teach piano lessons at this point, but Megan and I decided to let the boys explore the dinosaur museum for a bit.

Their moods got worse the closer we got to naptime. We had some sharing issues:And some serious grumpy faces at the hands on water erosion exhibit – which was totally unexpected. Maybe it was the aprons?
Thankfully, we ended on a good note as they both loved digging for bones (aka, collecting brushes) in the giant sand pit. Such a fun visit – but way too short!

Twin Falls

2011-05-02T23:38:00.000-06:00

I was so excited that we finally found a free weekend to travel to Idaho and visit my friend Kara. She has been a best friend since college and I am so sad we don’t live closer! Her husband was away working, but we we got to see her cute kids Jake and McKinley. We arrived late Friday night, so we only had two days to play, but we packed in a ton of fun activities.

Saturday morning we went to the waterfalls by Kara’s house. It was beautiful! Brandon was so excited about the double rainbow and all the water!

View Full Album

Then we decided to go on a little walk – which was fun for most of us. It turned out to be a pretty long walk and Brandon’s excitement about the sticks and rocks eventually wore off.

View Full Album

Here I am carrying Brandon who is screaming and crying about something: Kara’s kids did really well:Thankfully, exploring this tiny cave cheered B. right up:

View Full Album

McKinley was a perfect baby the whole weekend. She is such a doll!

We finally reached a good viewpoint and decided to let the kids rest a bit before heading back. Here is a view of the falls so you can see how far we walked:

Jake is about a year older than Brandon, so they don’t play really well together yet, but it was still cute to see them interact: And B. loved McKinley. He is so interested in babies right now and very sweet with them:After the falls, we took the kids home for lunch and naps. Kara and I shopped for and made dinner. While the lasagna baked, we took the kids to the park by Kara’s house and they played soccer and baseball and hung out at the playground. B. had never tried hitting a baseball before and it was funny to see his attempts – he insisted on holding the bat by the fat end. Jake thought it was really funny. That night after dinner we went to a jump house. I think we had as much fun as the kids!

View Full Album

You can see B’s baseball skills here:

And our balancing skills here:

That night, Kara and I enjoyed staying up late talking and eating our traditional no-bake cookies. I almost felt like I was in college again. :)

Sunday was Chris’ birthday! We had a nice time at church - I got to sit in nursery with B. to help him get used to it for the first time. He did pretty well. Only stole toys from a few kids. After church we went to the lake for a delicious dutch oven dinner Kara made us. The boys were really tired and ornery by the time we finished lunch, but overall it was a great afternoon. I always love being outdoors with Kara, so it was a perfect end to our short trip.

Sadly, after lunch it was time for us to go home. B. fell asleep almost instantly. It was way past his usual nap time, can you tell?

View Full Album

On our way down, we stopped at my parent’s house in SLC for birthday dinner and cake for Chris. Chris does about as well as Brandon at smiling for the camera. These are the best pictures I got to document his birthday:

View Full Album

Later that week we had another birthday dinner and Chris got some new golf clubs – his usual request this time of year! One last video from his actual birthday – Brandon learning how to blow out a candle:

Thanks for a great weekend Kara and Happy Birthday Chris!

Growing up

2011-04-29T11:41:00.000-06:00

I feel like B. has all of a sudden turned into a full on toddler. He isn’t our little baby anymore! He is in a forward facing car seat – we finally broke down and switched him end of March because he was too long for his infant seat. He loves it!He also got a pair of sunglasses around the same time, and is equally thrilled about those. He insists on putting them on himself and is so proud (even though he can never put them on properly and they fall off after a few seconds).

We have been going to the playground a lot more often now that the weather is nicer. He goes down the slide all by himself and doesn’t cry. I had a really cute video of this, but he has also learned how to unlock Chris’ iPhone and delete things. :(

He is doing a better job feeding himself and I am so grateful that he is not a picky eater. He eats everything we eat now and literally eats as much as I do sometimes! Favorite foods are oatmeal (every morning soon after he wakes up he chants “oatmeal! oatmeal! oatmeal! oatmeal!”), bananas, yogurt, raisins, omelets, green beans, olives and pizza (just like his dad. Pizza gets the same chant that oatmeal does on the rare occasion that he gets it). Water is his favorite drink still.

He is finally night weaned and slept through the night for the first time without waking up at all in March. Yeah. We will be doing sleep training a lot sooner with our next baby.

His 15 month checkup went well. Despite all the food he eats at the 4 meals I prepare for him each day, he is still just a little guy. He weighed almost 22 lbs, which is only about the 14th percentile and he was 30.4 inches which is the 29th percentile. Developmentally, he is doing really well and is healthy!

At 15 months he had added the following (almost) words to his vocabulary: turtle, bite, help, wawa (water), eyes, “mau” (mouth), choo choo for trian, “pho” (phone), yes, more, box, shoe, outside, pear, sock, open, bye, where, “nana” (banana), oh no!, “quack” when he sees a duck, “neigh” for a horse, “raarrr” for lion (and anything else that looks like it would make that sound – dragon, dinosaur, tiger), thank you, chicken, hat, cracker, cheese, “papa” for grandpa, “nana” for grandma, down, poke, belly and more that I am sure only I understand! It is crazy how much and how quickly kids learn things!

At 16 months now he is learning his colors and getting all the farm animal noises right and learning random things like how to shake hands and line things up in a row and playing peekaboo. He is comes to me now when he goes to the bathroom, tells me what he did and gets a clean diaper! Sounds like a positive step towards potty training! He is chattering all the time and is such a fun little companion to have around. He is also doing a great job folding his arms for prayers and loves to sing children hymns. We got a new picture of the Savior and he points to it now and says “Je Je” for Jesus. Very sweet. He also says “Prop Prop” for the Prophet.

He loves playing outside, climbing ladders, playing with keys, cleaning with the swiffer, dancing, chapstick, headbands, sunglasses, and hats.

Check out how he will dance even without music. All it takes is our uneven clapping and he busts a move:

He is doing better playing with his toys – he built this all by himself:But he still prefers to play with household items when we are stuck indoors. He would help me cook or play in water all day if I let him.

Here he is on his never-ending quest to get outside, looking all grown up:

He also LOVES our apartment complex mailboxes. Every time we pass them he cries to go play with them. This makes getting to the car either a very slow process or a tear filled one these days. when we do have time, I give him my keys and he is in heaven trying to open all the little boxes: One thing he is not growing out of is his binky. In fact, I think his attachment is getting worse:

Since he was one, or even before, we have only allowed him to have it for naps and bedtime and sometimes in the car, but I can tell he is forming an attachment to these things. He knows where I keep them in the house and which pocket I put them in the diaper bag and often goes to those spots trying to get a “B” as he calls it when he feels like he needs some comforting. It looks like it is time to work on this bad habit!

Speaking of getting into things:My glasses are now super-glued together and the book he ripped is now off limits. It was my book when I was a little girl and I was so sad he damaged it. There have been several other casualties since this picture was taken.

He has a strong personality and we have been dealing with more and more tantrums lately. I wish I could blame his bad mood on teething, but I am not sure that is the problem. He is just a passionate little kid!VERY short time outs have been introduced when he is really out of control. Most of the time, I know what he wants, so it is not a communication problem, it is that he can’t have what he wants. Some days are better than others, but we are all learning how to deal with this as I am sure we will do for many more things in the future! I have a sinking feeling that the stage where my patients really gets tried is just around the corner. Good thing he is so darn cute! And I can’t complain when I have such an appreciative husband who supports me and is there to take over when I am sick and tired!And boy does he do a good job when he takes over!

Bath Babble and Casting Spells

2011-04-28T11:45:00.000-06:00

For those of you that haven’t spent a lot of time with B. at home, you may think he is a quiet kid. He has a huge personality at home and is quite loud most of the day, but once we are in public or with people he is not familiar with, he clams up. So these are to prove he really does have a voice – and uses it! Especially if he has new bath crayons that he is excited about.

Socks

2011-04-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

Love that he found and put on my socks - instant superhero!

Easter 2011

2011-04-24T23:11:00.000-06:00

It felt like we celebrated Easter all month long this year. Lots of fun activities and time to think about the wonderful meaning of the holiday. I tried to focus our family home evening lessons on the Savior and the real meaning of Easter, but I am pretty sure 100% of that went over Brandon’s head. I guess I can reuse the 12 Resurrection Eggs I put together next year. :)

We had a ward Easter dinner at the beginning of the month. Brandon got to participate in his first Easter egg hunt (he didn’t really get it when we did this last year). He wasn’t as fast as the older kids there, but he found 3 that they had missed and was very excited about it! Here are the horrible pictures we got:

View Full Album

Grandma Martin sent a box of Easter goodies in the middle of the month. B. wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the giant plastic egg. Was it a mask? A hat? A bowl? Whatever it was, he liked it! Thanks Grandma!

View Full Album

Easter Sunday we spent in SLC with my parents, sister Kathryn and her friend Kate. I feel lucky to have family so close. There is something about being home for the holidays that just feels so good and warm and comfortable. My mom used to do a lot of flower arranging, and I always love the flowers she has in her home – especially around the holidays. Here are the happy tulips waiting to be arranged:

Even though Brandon has no understanding of the Easter bunny, he liked the toys he brought (mean mom didn’t let him have the candy).

View Full Album

Brandon helped Grandma and Aunt Kaki make the rolls:

View Full Album

We ate a delicious ham dinner and relaxed for a bit. Brandon was getting antsy, so Grandpa got the rubber ducks and suggested that we go down to the park and race them. Brandon was in heaven. He had such a blast and we all enjoyed watching his excitement:

View Full Album

Chris giving him some pointers:

View Full Album

Grandma was in charge of catching them and throwing them back to us:

Brandon had fun throwing them in the water and did this over and over and over again:Eventually he got curious about the water, and there was no stopping him: It was a great end to a wonderful Easter!

View Full Album

And if you didn’t quite get the feel of the afternoon from the 500 pictures above, here is some live footage! (And if you can’t tell, when Chris falls over, it is because my mom hit him in the head with a duck)

Silly Faces

2011-04-21T22:43:00.000-06:00

After we taught B. how to smile, we decided to teach him how to make silly faces too. He caught on to this immediately and now he makes silly faces all the time just to be cute and funny. This kid makes me laugh, even after he has painted everything with yogurt!

April 20th:

(There was a lot more yogurt on his face, but I gave him a sponge to clean his tray while I got the camera and he wiped his face off with the sponge – yuck!!)

Here are a few videos of his silly faces when he was first starting to do them April 9-11:

Chris’ idea of fun

2011-04-21T00:07:00.000-06:00

Note the pillows stacked in front of Brandon’s door to keep the noise out:

Bean Museum

2011-04-14T00:04:00.000-06:00

In early spring, I finally decided to make a greater effort get out of the house to try to fight the cabin fever Brandon and I were both suffering from. We went to story time at the library, braved the cold to take walks and play at the park, and tried to attend more museums and mother’s groups. It has really helped to lift our spirits and I know the experiences B. has at these events are good for him.

I didn’t do a great job of documenting all of this, but did take a few fuzzy iphone pictures of our trip to the Bean Museum with my sister. Brandon loved seeing all the animals and roared his way through most of it. At one point he got down on all fours pretending to be a lion. We had a great time and he sure loves his Aunt “Kaka” (and her phone):

Aunt Kaki came over the next week for dinner and he was so excited to see her. He even gave her one of his special smiles when she was helping bathe him:

Pose

2011-04-10T23:09:00.000-06:00

I bought Brandon a few pair of shorts and wanted to see how they would fit. I think he must have short legs, because the 18 month pair almost hit his ankles! He was in a funny mood that day, running around crazy and happy. I randomly asked him to do a pose (even though I have never taught him what that means) just to see what he would do.

I laughed so hard! I still can’t figure out how he knew what to do either!?! I had to ask again just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

Nope!

Bath School

2011-04-10T11:55:00.000-06:00

Because Chris often comes home late from work, bath time is some of the best quality time Brandon gets with his Dad during the week. I love that Chris uses this as a time to teach him too. Here are a few pictures from the latest bath school. I had no idea Chris was such a great artist:

I was impressed that B. could identify all of these random things:

Here is one more funny thing Chris taught Brandon. I have no idea where it came from, but it makes me laugh!

Piano Recital

2011-04-09T14:14:00.000-06:00

My sister Kathryn (aka Kaki) played in a piano recital this weekend. Sadly, we missed the actual recital, but she was nice enough to give us a private show once we arrived. I am actually glad we had the room to ourselves because B. does not quite understand concert edict yet! But he loved the music and clapped randomly through the whole thing. It was well deserved applause - she did a great job and I am always amazed at her musical ability.

Thanksgiving Point

2011-04-07T14:02:00.000-06:00

My cousins Mary Ann invited us to join her and her son at the Thanksgiving Point dinosaur museum. Neither Brandon nor I had been before, so we were excited to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised at all the hands-on activities they had for the kids. I thought B. would be mostly bored, but we had such a great time that I ended up buying a season pass for our family. Thanks Mary Ann!

Here is the only picture I took that day -- our fearless boy with the shark:

Daddy Work

2011-04-05T14:48:00.000-06:00

Brandon has learned that if Chris is missing, it usually means he is at work. He will say goodbye to Chris in the mornings now without crying and simply says “bye bye”. Once he leaves he will say “work” to let me know where he went. We went to visit Chris at the office the other day and he LOVED it. I am not sure how much Chris got done while we were there, but we had fun!

Distracting Smile

2011-04-04T14:35:00.000-06:00

I just love Brandon’s smile, but capturing it on camera is always difficult. I end up with 500 shots of the same thing just hoping that he is smiling in one of them. I finally decided to try to teach him how to smile on demand. The results were so funny and cute! The way he would squint his eyes and raise his eyebrows had us laughing so hard the first few times he did it. Of course, I love his candid smiles the best:

This was General Conference weekend, and we found it much more difficult to pay attention with Brandon running around. Luckily, we have DVR and ended up recording it to watch when he was asleep. I should have paused it for this video, but I was just trying to hurry and catch some of his first forced smiles!

He loves climbing and is getting really adventurous in the way he gets down from things: Always wanting to go outside, despite the April SNOW showers:

Sestre

2011-04-02T14:29:00.000-06:00

Some of my best friends now are old mission companions. I always love getting together with them and wish we could do it more often. Two of my old companions Alicia and Diana came to visit at the beginning of April. I got to meet Diana’s baby who was just a few weeks old at the time. She was so adorable and sweet. Talk about making me baby hungry! We had a great time catching up. I just love these girls!

Diana with baby Scottlyn: Isn’t she a doll?Alicia and the baby:

Brandon loved having a baby in the house. He was kept peeking in her car seat when she was sleeping and was so excited and curious when she woke up. He did a good job being gentle and sweet with her and kept pointing at her and saying “baby! baby!” over and over again. It was very cute. This is the closest we got to a group shot– sorry Alicia!

Punching Bag

2011-04-01T14:52:00.000-06:00

This is just a little video of Brandon playing in the kid’s area at Costa Vida. It is mostly for family who doesn’t get to see him a lot so it may be interesting to them! :)

March Memories

2011-03-30T14:02:00.000-06:00

Found a bunch of random pictures from March as I was cleaning off my memory stick.

He loves our neighbor’s cat:Playing with oven mitts (not opening it though!):Sick and grumpy: He was trying to walk around in Chris’ shoes, but I didn’t get the camera fast enough:These guys are so similar – they both love hanging out and playing phone games! It is scary how much Brandon knows how to do on that thing: Several baths in a row he just wanted to sit in this bucket:

View Full Album

Keeping busy while I made dinner:I went to get the phone and accidentally left the milk out where Brandon could reach it. This is how I found it when I returned:Being goofy:Whining and crying because he didn’t get his way: Happy again:Enjoying a warm day with Dad:

New Tricks

2011-03-27T14:31:00.000-06:00

Brandon just randomly started spinning recently. He does it for no apparent reason and this happens several times a day. He is so happy about it too and always looks very proud of himself. He has also been backing up a lot. He walked all the way down our long hall backwards the other day. It is hard to catch these things on camera because he does it without warning, but here is the best we have so far:

And he is just learning how to jump:

Exciting stuff!

artist

2011-03-07T23:50:00.002-07:00

Circa December 2010, B. found a pencil and went to town on the fridge. Presenting… Brandon’s very first drawing: After he had figured out what pens and pencils could do, he quickly learned where they are kept and would frequently be found rustling around in the office desk drawer pulling out anything he could get his cubby little hands on. Pens and markers are his favorite. Brandon would sit and take the caps off and put them back on all day if I let him. I know this because I made the mistake of letting him do this a few times. Then he figured out it turned his hands really cool colors if he grabbed the tips. We don’t play that game anymore.

View Full Album

So Santa brought him some washable crayons and markers. After all his experimenting, he was ready to make some art! We practiced coloring on paper a few times and on January 17, 2011, Brandon went over to the printer, got some paper (at least 30 sheets), opened the desk drawer, pulled out his markers, sat down and drew these pictures:

And just because I am that proud, here are a few of his later masterpieces. 2/1 and 2/7

Sorry, not for sale.

Bubbles

2011-03-03T23:08:00.000-07:00

What kid doesn’t love bubbles?Especially on Dad’s nose.

He loves to hold out his hand to us covered in bubbles and have us blow them off:

“Fine Mom, I’ll pose for one picture!”

“I said one! Now if you will excuse me, I am trying to take a bath here!”

Playdough

2011-03-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

Brandon’s first experience with Playdough:

California

2011-02-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

The last weekend in February we headed to Southern California. We hadn’t seen Chris’ parents or his two sisters that are still in CA since October, so it was great to spend time with the family. Brandon had changed so much since we last saw them. Another big reason for the trip was to support one of Chris’ best friends Nichelle who was going through the temple for the first time that weekend.

Overall it was a nice, relaxing trip. Chris’ sister Shawna announced that she was pregnant while we were there. We are so excited for them! We mostly hung out at the house and helped with a few projects, so I didn’t take many pictures. One sad thing was I was up most of the night before we were supposed to go to San Diego with Brandon (he still does not do well sleeping in unfamiliar places and was a little sick) so I missed going to the temple with Chris and Nichelle. I was glad that Chris got to go though.

We were hoping for a break from the cold Utah weather, but it was pretty chilly and rainy most of the trip. It was only as we were about to leave that the sun came out! Here we are after church the day before we headed home. Brandon was having so much fun being chased by Grandpa Martin!

And he liked swinging when we got back to the house:

We spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law Jennifer and her kids. I felt like the whole weekend Brandon just got worse and worse at sharing. He doesn’t have to share toys very often, and we saw a new –unpleasant- side of him while we were there. If anyone tried to take his toy he would say NO! and swing out to hit them. Not good. His poor cousins were just trying to play with him too, but he got so paranoid and mean that I don’t think they had very much fun. The morning we left, the sun was out again. We let Brandon play outside with cousin Gavin for a bit before we left to help ease the pain of the upcoming 11 hour drive. There were a few jealousy issues: But Gavin was really nice and understanding and let B. play with all his bikes anyway:Brandon was too small to ride most of them by himself, but Chris pushed him around. What a good dad! Here B. goes again – trying to take whatever Gavin was playing with.

View Full Album

What a good sport. Pushing his cousin around on the toy that just got taken from him!When Chris was busy, B. would just push the bikes around.

View Full Album

They both had fun in the end:And only a few tears from our B.One more fight at the mailbox, and we were on our way!Jennifer was so sweet and bought Brandon the same bus her kids have that he had loved playing with all weekend. It entertained him much of the drive home. Thank you Martins for a wonderful weekend!

Snow, Snow, Go Away

2011-02-20T00:18:00.000-07:00

My poor boy just wants to play at the park. He is still begging to go outside everyday, but it is so cold and the snow just won’t go away.He is finally big enough to enjoy the slides at the little park by our apartment, but they are all covered in wet snow. Poor guy looks so sad that the only thing he can play with is bark:

It doesn’t even taste good:

Thank goodness the park has a chain-link fence!

Maybe bark isn’t so bad after all! Dear Spring, Please come soon!

Valentine’s Day

2011-02-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

Our nephew Richard got married to Danielle on Valentine’s Day this year!

B. excited about the ducks on top of their cake:

It was fun to see the happy couple and think back to the wonderful day that I married Chris. :) We celebrated that weekend with a baby free trip to our favorite Indian restaurant. It was fabulous!

14 months

2011-02-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

(Warning: this post is for the record only. I am pretty sure I am the only one who is interested in these details. This is by no means to say – hey, look what my kid can do!)

I didn’t take a duck picture, but I thought I should record what Brandon was doing around this time. It felt like ever day he was learning something new. Around 13 months, he started say a lot of words by himself. Here were his first words, in approximate order: Dada, mama, ow/ouch, woah/wow, no (nose), ball, car no, woof woof, cold, hot, teeth, more, hat, nigh nigh (night night), cow, juice, hi, cracker, hey, cool, cat, up, hot, cold, apple, please, bagel, help, wawa (water), “I know”. The list gets longer every week.

He is getting better at body parts. He is great at pointing to his belly button, ears, hair, nose, mouth, teeth, and on good days, he knows eyes.

His hair is growing in thicker and he finally got his two front teeth and one more on the bottom in January, bringing him to a total of 5 teeth. It makes him look so grown up!

His animal sounds are great. His roar for a lion is actually pretty fierce. And he does this high pitched moo for a cow that makes us laugh every time. His dog is a typical woof woof, but his bird is great – he actually whistles! (Grandma Olsen taught that one).

Around 13 months, we checked out a Signing Time DVD from the library and started watching it together every other day or so. I was skeptical, but he quickly learned all done, more, up, and again. He learns new signs every time we watch a video and the impressive part to me is that he learns the word too! So when we ask him to identify something, he will often say and sign the word.

We participated in a child development study back in December where they did a test where they would put a bunch of objects down and ask the child to go get certain items. I guess I had never asked him to go get something for me, so I was blown away when he passed the test with flying colors. I talk to him all the time and identify objects throughout the day, but without him being able to say all the words, I didn’t know he had learned what they were. He easily picked out shoes, socks, spoon, cup, and coat at the BYU test and Chris and I did some more experimenting later that night and found he knows bath, fork, spoon, knife, hat, door, light, phone, glasses, marker/pen, towel, straw, trash, screwdriver, hammer, book, binky and more.

Once I discovered how much he understood, I started asking him to do more things! At 13.5 months, here are some of the commands he was following: open, close, turn on the light, fold arms for prayers, take out binky, please give that to me, open your mouth, take a bite, dance, give a kiss, blow a kiss, clap hands, knock on the door, wave bye bye/hello, high five, knuckles, get Ardy, take a drink, poke. Once he learned trash, I would ask him to put things in the trash for me. I was so proud of my little helper – he even thought it was fun! Then I started finding things in the trash I did NOT ask him to throw away:

Here he is caught in the act. About to throw a perfectly good pen away. It took a while to break this habit. I am still hesitant when I throw the trash out - “Should I dig through it just to be sure nothing priceless has gone in?!” Don’t worry, I never do. I just live in fear.

B. has also learned the rooms of our house. I can ask him to take something to the kitchen, and he goes there! When we say time for a bath, he runs to the bathroom. He sometimes goes to his room when I ask him to!

He is getting better at feeding himself, and meals don’t take as long. I am so glad that he can just eat everything I am eating at this point! Here he is eating his first bowl of cereal (well, he was eating it before he got the straw…)

And he is also doing better playing with his toys. He loves this drum and claps along when they tell him to clap:

We were home a lot the week we were sick. Here are some random pictures from the first week of February:

He is in love with my little ladder. Don’t worry, he has never fallen off and is very good at climbing up and down it now. Here he is learning how light switches work. He was happy, despite the look on his face.

Oh the tissues we went through that week!

And on to another one of his favorite thing to play with, the broken humidifier. He takes the pieces apart and puts it back together over and over. And sometimes just hangs out with it:

View Full Album

Browsing through Land of Nod magazine:

He is tall enough and strong enough now to climb onto low furniture. Like our coffee table:

And his rocking chair. He often goes into his room and reads books on the floor, but I found him up in the chair reading on this day. So cute!

Speaking of his room, I FINALLY got some black out curtains for his room. Naps have been much better since. Here is a horrible picture to prove it.

Love this boy and his big brown eyes!

View Full Album

Sunday Dinner

2011-02-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

Almost every week, ever since I have know Chris, we have gone to Sunday dinner at his sister’s house in Eagle Mountain. Three of his six siblings live in the area, and it is wonderful to be able to visit family so often. There are about 20 people there each week and it is loud and crazy and kids are running around everywhere, but I love it. We eat yummy food (and I love that I don’t have to cook a full meal, just contribute. And I’ll be honest, Chris usually prepares what we need to bring because I am so paranoid about cooking for other people!) We play games and I get to hang out with other adults and there are plenty of willing people to help with Brandon. I come from a small family, so it was definitely a new experience/adjustment for me. That said, I have come to love all the chaos that comes with a large family and am grateful that Brandon has so many people to love him. Even if it means he sometimes ends up in his cousin’s tutu.

Crib Dance

2011-02-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

Brandon’s mood (and mine) is always 100% better after a nap.

We have always tried hard to only let Brandon have a binky at naps and bedtime, so he knows once he wakes up it goes away. Still, I was impressed that he understood and gave up his binky so easily – and with a smile!

Sick

2011-02-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if it was all the time we were spending outside, or the time spent inside the library and museums with all the other kids in Provo that got us sick, but sick we got. Somehow Chris escaped this one, but B. and I were down for a bit with a cold. My mom lent us a good humidifier with which Brandon instantly became obsessed. At least he had some fun while we were recovering.