Winter Wonderland

We had our second big snow storm of the season. This has been a very unusual winter. We've had over a foot of snow so far and we're expecting more. Its crazy!
Once again, church was cancelled- which is awesome. Chris leaves today for his "series 7" class in St. Louis. He'll be gone until Thursday night. I've never been alone with Tanner for this long, so I'm not looking forward to having my hubby gone. However, my parents invited us over to stay with them until Chris gets home. So I think Tanner and I will head over there tonight, since I hate sleeping alone.
Tanner is going to miss hid Dad. He loves hanging out when Dad gets home from work and they can play.

Tanner and Dad hanging out and working on the computer.
We went to my parents house on Friday after the storm hit and played with my sister Laura and her friend Sam. We hooked a rope to our car and dragged them around in the field on the sled. It was really fun. Tanner loved sitting up front with us while we drove in the snow. Don't worry- we were only going about 10 mph. Then I got a turn to sled. It was so fun!!! I haven't been sledding from the back of a car in years. After we were thoroughly frozen we went inside and drank hot cocoa and watched a movie. Its been a very fun snowy weekend.

Tanner and mom getting ready to go play in the snow.

Tanner in his snowsuit all ready for the snow

Dad showing Tanner all the snow from the window of the car.

Tanner in his new hat from Aunt Julieta.

Getting ready to go sledding
We took Tanner into the doctor's office to get his measurements taken since he's five months now and he was 15.5 lbs and almost 25 inches. So he just a really chunky short baby. But we love all his fat rolls!

Fat boy sitting up tall.

Trying to roll onto his tummy. He gets to about halfway and then realizes he will be on his tummy and rolls back onto his back.

My big project for the week was making Tanner some ties for church. I found this great blog that had a really easy tutorial and so I got some ties from my Dad and from Chris and went to work. Here are some of Tanner's new ties.




But the biggest news of the week is .....drum roll..... I'm going to be an Aunt again! That's right, baby Drake is going to be making his/her big debut on Sept. 20th, 2010. My brother and his wife Julieta just found out they are going to be parents. She is 6 weeks along. I was so excited I literally jumped for joy when they told me.
So all-in-all- an awesome week. Now if I can just survive the next 5 days without my husband- we'll be doing good.

Just going to be Tanner and I- having fun together for 5 days.

Big Steps for my Little Man

Tanner has already had a big week and its only Wednesday.
Last night I gave him his first bath in the big boy tub. He loved it. I think he was in there for about 45 minutes just playing around. He only tried to drink the bath water twice, so all in all- not bad.

Tanner playing in the tub



Its so fun to watch him grow and hit different milestones.
Today we hit another milestone- Tanner found his toes. I had to help him a little first but after he discovered that they were attached to his feet, he had a blast. He just kept raising his legs and grabbing his toes and then just laying there holding his toes. So funny.




















Tanner surprised himself when he discovered his toes.

I made a fabric travel high chair today for Tanner. My friend Julie gave me the idea and after I finally got to go to JoAnn's last weekend, I had material to make one. I like it- and I'm really excited to use it.

Tanner in his new fabric high chair


















Here are some pictures of my boys on the motorcycle- Chris is going to sell it when it gets warmer, but since it was in the 60's today, he decided to take it for a ride.

My cute boys on the motorcycle


















Tanner has mastered rolling over from his front to his back. Now I'm trying to get him to roll from his back to his front. But he is totally content laying on his back, so I'm not sure that will happen. I also haven't been able to to motivate him enough to crawl.
Tonight in the tub he pulled himself forward a little, but its easy to do in the tub because its so slippery. I guess he will just crawl when he's good and ready. He's just growing up so fast, I can't wait to see what else he learns this week.

Babies Don't Keep- A tribute to motherhood- I'm not gonna lie- kind of sappy

I've fallen in love with this poem. My mom could recite the last stanza, but I never knew the whole poem. It sums up perfectly my feelings about motherhood.

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, Lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek-peek-a-boo).
The shopping is not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there is a hullabaloo.
But I'm playing "Kanga" and this is my "Roo."
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, 1958


So I'm sorry to my sweet husband, our house is sometimes a mess. But I'm busy being a mom- and being a mom is just the best!

Having Tanner come into our lives has taught me so much. I want to be the kind of mom that my mom was for me. I know it sounds impossible, but I don't ever remember my mom raising her voice at us. I'm sure she wanted to sometimes, but she never yelled or anything. She was the perfect example of patience. She always put us first, which is alot of selflessness, because she had five kids. Its only now that I'm grown up- or somewhat grown up- that I can look back and see all the things she did for us and the lack of things that she did for herself. She never ever complained about the sacrifices she made for her babies. And yes- we are all still considered her babies. In one word my mom was amazing.
I hope I can just be a fraction of the awesome mom that she was.

I thought that when I married Chris that life couldn't get any better. I was so content being a wife. I loved taking care of him and knowing that I am his and he is mine. But now, we have someone who is ours- together- a little part of both of us. Its amazing how much love the heart can hold. Motherhood is better than I ever dreamed.

From This....


To this....


To now...






















And a few others from this week. This may seem like overkill to everyone else in the world, but I can't help that I'm obsessed.























Tanner on our couch, being the smiley little boy that I love.


Tanner loves to sleep in our beds. Usually he wakes up around 7:30- 8:00 am to eat- and then he falls asleep again in our bed until Chris leaves for work. Morning snuggles are almost as good as bedtime snuggles.





















Sweet boy in his high chair.






















Tanner napping with his favorite Gerald Giraffe.

All Grown Up

This week has flown by so fast I can hardly keep the days seperate in my head. Of course we hated seeing Chris go back to work after having a 5 day weekend, but Tanner and I had a blast playing together all week.


Tanner and Mom playing together in his nursery.


Tanner discovered his new favorite stuffed toy.














It's been so fun to have "Nanny and Papa" back. Those are my parents. They were in Mexico City for my brother's sealing and Tanner missed them. They brought him back this adorable hat. I just love it.


He actually didn't mind wearing it either.















Tanner has started "teething" and everything he can get his little hands on goes into his mouth. He hasn't been fussy at all or had any other "teething" symptoms, but he's sucking on his lips and chewing on my fingers really hard. He's been slobbering for a while, but theres been even more of that. Everyone who sees him asks me if he's teething. I'm convinced he is. Hopefully it won't be too long and painful for the little guy.
Also, Tanner has discovered that maybe, just maybe- cereal isn't all that bad. He chows it down now. Sometimes I can't get it in his mouth fast enough. He smiles really big as soon as it enters his mouth and then most of it falls back out, but hes really enjoying it. Which is so nice for me, because then its so much more fun to feed him.



This is what Tanner's face looks like most of the time when he eats cereal.



Aunt Laura brought Tanner back two really cute onsies from Disney World. This is one of them . It says "100% Awesome" on the bottom.






















Tanner playing with the hand puppets from his Aunt Stephanie. He loves to suck on them. And they of course went straight into his mouth- just like everything else.

After playing in his room for about an hour- Tanner loves to play- we took Tanner in for his first haircut.


He was such a good kid!






















finished product.


The next day- I almost didn't remember he had his haircut the next morning, so I was a little surprised to find all my baby's hair gone.





He sat so still and surprised me by how good he did. I had brought a bottle just in case, but he loved it. He was actually a little sad to have to give up the chair when his haircut was over.
So now I have a little man instead of my baby.
I miss his hair sometimes, but I love his new hairdo.






















Tanner also got to try out his new highchair.























He really is growing up too fast.
I can't get over it. I miss my baby already and he's only 4 1/2 months. What am I going to do?

New Years and Winter Fun

We celebrated New Years with my sister Sarah, who is home from BYU for Christmas break. We stayed up and watched "Indiana Jones" movies and then watched the ball drop. Tanner of course didn't stay up with us, although he tried. He was wide awake that night. We ate dinner with Grams, Aunt Robin and Trev. We had tacos and tostados. Then we started our Indiana Jones marathon. It was fun. But we missed having Nanny and Papa around, they were in Mexico for my brother's sealing.





















My little family on New Years

Also this past week we started cereal with Tanner. In case you can't tell from the pictures below- he really hated it.




Tanner even tried to gag himself on his cereal to try and get me to quit feeding it to him. I'm not sure what to do about this...


Tanner and I playing before he goes to bed.

sweet boy



my little man in his big boy clothes















Then today we got our first snow of the year. We had snow on Christmas and a few days after that, but this morning we woke up to enough snow to actually play in. And its still coming. YAY. They cancelled church and we went outside to play with Tanner in the snow for the first time. He didn't really know what to think at first, but then a snowflake fell on his face and he decided he'd had enough. So our "playing in the snow" lasted about 2 minutes.



Tanner in his snow suit























Its so much fun to watch Tanner as he grows. He brings such joy and laughter into our lives. It will be so fun next year when he can appreciate the snow. The whole town shuts down when we get snow, so school almost always gets cancelled- its really an ideal situation for kids. Someday Tanner will appreciate it. Chris and I already do- since church was cancelled today.