Tanner's First Steps

Tanner busted out a new trick today. He decided he wanted to walk. I crouched down at his level, held out my hands and he walked right to me. We were all so excited following the debut of his new skill, we sat around watching him walk back and forth between different people for about half an hour. Tanner was sufficiently worn out by then and he fell asleep on our way home. He just turned 11 months old on Saturday and although I'll probably regret these words later, I'm so excited about Tanner walking. My back has been aching for months now from bending over and holding his hands while he walked. Now I must go baby-proof my cabinets. Here are a few pics- they're not the best because its hard to hold my hands out to catch him and hold the camera straight, but you get the idea. This one Chris took He's still wobbly, but its so cute.
Here is another video of Tanner walking. This one is different than the one I put on facebook.
Just ingore our dumb commentary the entire time and focus on the kid.

In Memory of...

This past week we lost "Willy", Tanner's whale floaty. We were swimming at the lake on Friday and it just popped. We were almost to the buoy when Tanner's floaty started sinking with him in it. I grabbed Tanner, swam the rest of the way to the buoy and then Chris helped me lift him out of it. We had to scoot the entire way back along the buoy to get to shore. Chris dragged the whale back to shore with us and the entire time we struggled to get to shore Tanner was just mad because Chris had his floaty and he couldn't be in it.
So farewell to our faithful floaty. We had many good times together.




As you can tell we're very upset about this. We'll have to find him a new one, maybe for his birthday.

We're trying to move on with out lives, but its hard.
But here are a few other pictures from the past week. Tanner is through with pureed foods, which makes my life a lot harder. I am at that stage where I don't know what to feed him because I don't know what he wants. It was so much simpler when I could just give so many ounces of applesauce, sweet potatoes or pears. But now we're moving on to bigger and hopefully better things.
Since getting him to eat is such a struggle, when he finds something he likes I let him eat it (within reason)
He really loves watermelon

and corn on the cob

He's also really into feeding himself, and so I'm resigned to the fact that meal times are just going to be really messy from now on because the chances of Tanner getting the food on his spoon and into his mouth are about 50/50.
Here is the look I get when I try to feed Tanner

This is Tanner feeding himself.

Here is Tanner playing in the sand at the lake.

playing in the swings at the park

playing with his Uncle David

playing with Dad- helping him drive


We've been having a lot of fun this summer as you can tell. Tanner is currently cutting two more teeth so that's not so fun. Hopefully they'll cut through soon and we can all get some sleep.

Exploring the World Around Him

This past week Tanner has been having lots of adventures. It's so funny to watch him with his new found mobility. He is absolutely thrilled with what he can do. Sometimes he just gets so excited that he falls over. Or he'll start clapping for himself and lose his balance and then fall over. Its really funny to watch.

Earlier this week Tanner and I played in the yard for a while. This doesn't happen often because its so stinkin' hot here. But we probably should go outside more because he was having a blast walking back and forth along the porch and playing.



He loves to put sticks and leaves and just about anything he can get his hands on into his mouth.
Its so funny to watch him- look at this face-
He's not too sure what to think about the leaf

Or this stick for that matter
And he really didn't want to crawl in the grass. At first it was funny, but that changed really quick. I don't think he liked how it felt on his hands and knees.

This is how he smiles now- he can't figure out what to do with his new top teeth.

This is Tanner clapping for himself. Luckily, he was already sitting so he didn't fall down.

Tanner's second big adventure was discovering the movie cabinet. I probably should have been more on top of this, but taking pictures of him making his mess was more fun than stopping him.
If you look close you can see his thought process as he goes from bottom shelf of books to the movie shelf.
"I got the cabinet door open, now what is in here?"

"Oh there's more up there...."

"So this is where they keep the movies..."

"This is awesome!!!"

The other day I went to Sonic with Tanner to get a drink- because it was happy hour and its summer- do you need any more of an explanation?
Tanner got to sit up front while we waited for our food. He thought the sheep skin covers on the car seats was really cool. And sitting up front and being able to see was probably fun too, but he couldn't keep his hands off the seats.

The last major adventure we had was at dinner on Friday. Tanner discovered chicken bones. He was in love. Like everything else it went right into his mouth. Then he decided he really liked how it tasted, so he chewed that for a long time.

Then he got a second bone. Oh the fun!

Then it got a little out of hand- and the bones kept going on his head. It was like he was brushing his hair with the chicken bone. SO GROSS!

Needless to say we had a very thorough bath that night. Such a stinker!

That's about all that's going on with us. I've been spending most of Tanner's nap times working on his birthday party. I'm getting so excited- only 1 month to go.
Also, I've been called as the 2nd Counselor in our Primary Presidency. That was kind of a big surprise. I was the primary pianist, and I loved that. No responsibility and all the fun. I loved listening to the kids' funny answers and watching them interact together. It was a sweet gig. But that's about to change. I have a feeling I'm going to be real busy with primary stuff pretty soon. Luckily the girls- I mean- women- I'll be serving with are awesome! So it should be fun. We'll see... I guess you can only give it your best and that's what I'll do. Wish me luck!

oh p.s. Is this not the most beautiful sunset ever? I love ARKANSAS!

The Story of my Life

This is the story of my life right now....
Here is Tanner, standing harmlessly at the table right?

Yeah right...he gets into anything and everything

He knows he's in trouble- look at that face.


I find Tanner in the stangest places. Lately one of his favorite places is under the fridge. He loves to stick his little fingers down there.

Tanner coming for the camera

He is scooting and crawling everywhere and then he'll pull up on something and walk around holding onto the furniture, the tv, or whatever is big enough for him to grab and balance himself on. We've been waiting for him to learn to crawl for a while now- he's kind of a late bloomer- and now he has. Its so fun to watch him get around and most of the time its even fun to watch him try and get into stuff.
Tanner acting so proud of himself

Tanner thinking he can walk faster than I can get to him...

I think he'll start walking soon too. He use to have to hold two hands while he walked, but now he can just hold one hand and walk himself.
We'll see what the next few weeks bring. He's at such a fun age right now- he is constantly finding things that just crack him up. He'll start laughing then we'll start laughing, which only makes him laugh more. I love this boy!
Chris came home early today and surprised us. Chris is Tanner's favorite person right now. Its so cute.

I love both my boys!

I'm Drooling

Little Birdie Secrets is hosting a give-away for one of these Silhouette cutting machines. Its like a cricut but cooler. Click HERE to read all about it. And if you want to join in the chance to win this awesome machine visit this blog and leave a comment. Awesome right? I'm drooling over this machine as we speak.
Good Luck to everyone!

Star Spangled Tanner

I have to give credit to my brother David for the title of this blog. As he was singing to Tanner yesterday and came up with this name. It cracked me up and so I had to use it.
Seeing as this was Tanner's first fourth of July- we had to make a big deal out of it.

4th of July Family picture

Last night we all went to Nanny and Papa's house to eat dinner. We had our traditional bar-b-q beef brisket and lots of yummy side dishes. It was delicious! Then we ate the fruit pizza I brought.

There were so many of us that we ate the entire thing. I think there were 16 of us total. Some family friends came over for dinner and stayed to chat. It was fun.
We didn't buy a lot of big fireworks this year, but we did get some for the little kids to do. We had sparklers, bottle rocks, smoke bombs.. you know- the usual. Chris set off the few big fireworks we did buy and we all watched from the porch.

Tanner was completely enthralled by the sparklers. It was so funny to watch his face.

He wasn't even scared of the loud popping or explosions. Such a big boy!
We had fun watching the bigger firework shows around the neighborhood too. We had the perfect set up fromt he back porch- we could see everything.
Here is Nanny and Tanner on the porch together

Tanner and Papa watching the fireworks together.

Eventually Tanner got tired and I took him into to go to bed. But I'd say it was a pretty successful first 4th of July.

I'm so grateful to live in a land where I'm free to do with my life what I want. I'm especially grateful for the freedom to worship as I wish, since my testimony of the gospel and the blessings it brings to my life and family is one thing I hold closest to my heart. Thank you to the founding fathers who had the wisdom to create a country with these freedoms and for a God who watches over it. Thank you to those who serve to preserve those freedoms and protect its citizens.

Happy Birthday America- Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!

Bow Tie Frenzy

So yesterday I decided to make a few bow ties for Tanner. I had a ton of big ties leftover, because I'd used the skinny back part of the tie to make the baby ties. Using this tutorial I was able to use the fat part of the tie as well. Tanner is such a good model. Check them out.


Don't mind that his shorts don't match at all.. I was in a hurry to get some pictures.

Love his big open mouth smile

I have a ton more to make, but here are a few. I made a few matching sets too- with a neck tie and a bow tie. They're just so easy to make.

Also- yesterday the walker we ordered for Tanner came in. We brought it over to Nanny and Papa's house last night and they put it together. Tanner had a blast on their wood floor.
This picture cracks me up because he face looks like he surprised himself because he was moving without any help.

HE LOVED IT! Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well on the carpet at our house.

But he knew just what to do with it. He wants to walk so bad.
Hopefully he'll learn to walk soon because my back is killing me from bending over and holding his hands while he walks.