A Month of "R" Life!

Woah sorry, March was crazy busy and just slipped away from me!

Miles is almost walking and is getting better at balancing.  He will take a few steps and then crash, but is getting more and more willing to be brave.  He can stand really well on his own, though, which is nice!

He is also learning more and more how to express himself and what he wants.  He is great at pointing and making little noises that he's interested.  He also knows how to tell me he wants me to stand up and hold him (not sit and hold him), and throws tantrums like a pro already!  He sits down and kicks his legs and "yells" like I am the meanest mom.  I think the phase will be short lived though; he's figuring out that it doesn't work.  He also loves to climb all over everything.  He especially loves to figure out ways to reach light switches.  I also found him on the kitchen table the other day; sorry no picture, I chose grabbing Miles rather than the camera ;)

Look Mom, I can reach the light switches...and unbutton my jammies...and fall asleep when you aren't looking!

 

Miles and I have been going to a little story and song group for babies 0-2 at the public library each week.  He loves it!  At the end there is free play time with the other babies.  It is so good for him!  And I love being able to visit with the other moms, dads, and occasional grandparent.

Andrew and I got to go on a couple dates this last month, some stay at home with our third wheel and some when he was asleep and we even paid a babysitter to come (our first paid babysitter!)  We did an awesome date on St Patrick's day as part of our dates around the world.  These are supposed to be stay at home dates and they have been so much fun so far!  We went to Paris for February and Dublin for March and this month, we are going to Sydney Australia for our birthdays!  For St Patrick's we ate sausage and cabbage soup, Irish soda bread, apple beer, and ate at our bar with shnazzy Irish pub music (though Andrew's rendition of the drunken sailor song is my favorite).

We watched Leap Year to admire the beautiful Ireland  scenery and the hot Irish...accents...  (Haha!)

I had the awesome opportunity to participate in the Lamb of God, a musical oratorial about the last days of Christ's life.  It was so incredible and I recommend anyone who hasn't heard Rob Gardner's composition to look it up online right this second and listen to it.  I love Rob Gardner's music and so will you!

Next month:  backyard re-landscaping adventures!  We're putting in GRASS!

Happy Birthday Miles!

Miles is a toddler now!  Not quite toddling yet, but he's getting around pretty well all the same.  He's crawling so well, can pull up on anything, cruise like a pro (even on the wall...so basically there's no limit to where he can go and what mischief he can get into), and he can stand on his own for quite a while.

We had a little birthday bash on his birthday, and we had a cake-smashingly good time!  We had gifts, cake and ice cream, and lots of birthday kisses!  We were so so happy to be able to skype the Robinson's during gifts and cake.  We had my siblings and parents and grandparents over, and Miles got WAY too many gifts!  Sadly, we got pictures before he ripped them all open, but none after...  He got blocks and Duplos and animal magnets and graham crackers and a PillowPet bear...  But here's the cutie himself:

He also loved getting the ecard from Grandma and Grandpa Bird!  He LOVES doggies so it was the perfect one:

Back to the party...  After the gifts we had food!  Now, I had a crazy mom moment earlier that day and made Miles a healthy cake, which I made into muffins that I frosted with cream cheese frosting.  I tasted it and it was completely disgusting!  However, Miles gobbled them up!  Everyone else had brownies.  We also made YoNanas (one of those machines that grind up frozen bananas and spits it out like ice cream), so we had healthy "ice cream" also!  Miles loved the YoNanas and we did peanut butter flavored and strawberry flavored.  I'm so so excited that Miles can have peanut butter - whoo hoo!  But on to the pictures:

 In short, it was messy but it was fun!  I apologize again that we only got pictures of Miles...I was running around doing stuff so I didn't realize I wasn't taking very good pictures.  After cake and ice cream, we got Miles in the bath to get him off to bed cause he was so tired.  Then he smashed his finger in a cupboard so we had to do first aid, then a balloon popped (any nurses reading this, we only had balloons up on the fan in the family room - not within baby reach!) and traumatized him.  So, bedtime was a little more tense than usual, but we got settled and he slept well dreaming of playing with all his new toys in the morning  :)

We also celebrated Valentine's Day, which was a treat.  I gave Andrew a passport to twelve different countries over the next year, so we can go on a date each month.  So we celebrated Valentine's day in Paris, France, with fondue and french cafe music and we watched "Julie and Julia."  It was really nice  :)  Next month, Dublin!

Hope everyone reading this is well and I will post again soon!

Happy New Year 2014!

We are happy to report that Miles isn't an epileptic and he enjoys ripping up wrapping paper more than playing with the actual gifts.  I think our jobs as parents just got a little easier! This post is probably mostly going to be pictures since they are far more interesting than anything I could write.  Suffice it to say we had an average Christmas with the morning gifts, breakfast casserole (thanks for the recipe Wendy!), and pajamas the rest of the day.  We visited my parents but all extended family parties had been taken care of prior to the big day so it was very relaxing and low-key.

Waiting in line to see Santa!

Not sure about this guy with the huge beard...

Christmas morning!  Stockings!

Sleepy but excited!

Graham crackers - best treat ever!

The haul!  Thanks everyone for the gifts!

We also celebrated New Year's Eve with friends and family!  The party we went to had a mechanical bull and I think that was Andrew's favorite part for sure... New Year's Day we joined my family on our traditional hike.  We climbed to Tom's Thumb, a picturesque look-out that I can say after-the-fact was worth the gargantuan effort it took to see it!  We didn't take Miles so he is not in the pictures, sorry!  Hope you all had a great holiday!!

Lots of boulders and places to climb around at the top

Group pic at the top (minus Andrew)

Additional hidden trail led to "The Ogre's Cave"

Two thumbs up for making it to Tom's Thumb!

Happy 10 Month Bday, Miles!

That's right!  10 months old today!  December is going fast, probably even faster than November.  November we had our Utah trip to look forward to for Thanksgiving.  Which turned out to be pretty amazingly fun!  We had big family dinners (including The Dinner), went to the art exhibit at BYU's art museum, Andrew went to SLC with his dad for the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, we got caramel apples from Kneader's...  It was doubly relaxing because we had lots of baby sitters!  Miles seemed to really enjoy romping around with his aunts and uncles, and second cousins...once removed?  We also had a chance to visit Miles' great great grandparents a few times - really really enjoyed visiting with them!  Overall, it was a good trip! 
 

Miles is also jumping new milestones almost every day!  He's starting cruising (wrecking his naps!), prefers finger foods to anything else, and can dance to music (video).

We also gave his hair its first trim!  Not even a real haircut, but we took some off the top and around his ears.  Before the haircut, we did try out some new styles!  We thought this one would be good for Church on Sunday (heh heh!)

Next time, we'll have some pictures of Christmas!  I will consciously make an effort to take better pictures than I usually do in order to put them on the blog  :)

Falling into November

Well, October ended with a gust and we're officially into November!  Our Utah trip is just around the corner and we can't wait to spend Thanksgiving with our northern relations.

Love Relief Society "Super Saturday" projects!  Pretty much all my decorations come from RS

We're happy to report that costumes and parties and decorations were as fun as ever this Halloween!  Miles looked stinkin' cute in his little Robin costume (pictures don't do it justice!) and I thought it was funny when we showed up at a party dressed the exact same as my friend, her husband, and their 3 month old babe Kaden.  So classic!

Miles didn't really get the concept of a "funny face"

Robin can fly!

Halloween night was great!  We got the last of our homemade decorations up earlier that day and had lots of fun doing the candy-passing thing.  There was a block party down our street and we ate dinner there.  I swear, chili is the food of the season!  We went to our ward party and the block party and another get together and ate chili at every single one!  Oh well, good thing there are so many different kinds!  Andrew had fun sitting behind our crypt keeper in our yard and scaring kids coming up for candy.  Miles and I were inside getting him some dinner and we kept hearing screaming coming from the porch.  Many kids were so afraid of the crypt keeper that they wouldn't come up for candy!  I guess it looks too scary... is that even possible on Halloween?  We watched "House at the End of the Street" later and it was a well done thriller!  Caution, though, some mild language.  But great twist at the end.  We also watched "Brigham City" to gear up for Halloween and I thought it was great!  (It took forever to find this movie online but it was recently put on YouTube)  

The yard...much creepier at night

We also did family pictures in October!  A girl was in town from Utah and is friends with my sister in law Rebecca so she did them for us.  She was fabulous!  If anyone is looking for a great photographer in Utah, I highly recommend her!  We haven't seen the professional ones yet but I know they will be great!  The location was so pretty and my mom did a great job picking the color scheme for the outfits.  Here are a couple Andrew and I snapped with Miles while the pro was working with Jacob and his family.

We will make sure to get copies to family up in Utah when we get the nice ones back.  Other than that, seems like October went too quickly!  Hope you enjoyed the update!

Playing with toys on the couch - getting good at pulling himself up!

Baby friend in the mirror