Griffin at 10 Months

Griffin is 10 months old now. Our baby is looking so grown up and he finally got a tooth to go along with his huge grin!! His siblings all had several teeth at this age so we were so excited to finally see one break through. Sadly that means we have to be careful with what he chews on now because those tiny teeth can actually do some damage. 

Griffin's favorite activities right now are eating cheese, emptying drawers, and pulling books off the shelves. He also loves tampering with night lights and playing with toilet paper. And every morning he makes a beeline for the big kids' rooms to check for Legos left on the floor and rummage through their garbage cans. This kid is a busy body!!

Griffin at 10 Months

• He has mastered the stairs for the most part. Going up is no problem, and when he's ready to come back down he will sit at the top and holler for someone to come get him. So far he's made no attempt to try it by himself, but he does love to throw toys and watch them bounce down the steps. 
• He can say "mama" and "dada" but doesn't use them often, and has no other recognizable words. That does not mean he is quiet though. Griffin jabbers all day long and wants to be heard!
• He is still a great eater, but does have strong preferences for meat and cheese vs. grains. He would much rather have ham to cereal or some mozerella to crackers. I am also still nursing him 5 times a day.
• Some of his nicknames include "Griffey" (Charlie) and "Goo Goo Baby" (Davey) or "Griffin Grabber" (all the kids).
• Only naps twice a day now. If a nap is skipped or is cut short we just put him to bed earlier rather than try to squeeze in a third nap.
• He loves to have his hair brushed/head rubbed and will lean into it to ask for more.

Always on the lookout for things to bother

Last glimpse of an all gum smile - he's got 1.5 teeth now!

Playing at the park one day after picking Sophie up from school

Baby Crockett

Side note - Davey asked me how old he was when he killed the animal for this hat. He was sad when I told him he did not kill any animals and it was actually from a store.

Despite 100 reminders a day, the kids are still struggling to remember to close the bathroom doors

Emptying my kitchen drawers is a favorite pastime

We love this sweet goober!

January 2021 Roundup

January is always a bit of a dreary month. It's long, mostly cold, and the spark of Christmas is gone. To add some purpose to my days I started a massive home cleanout. I broke down our house into 60 
"micro regions" and got to work purging. This wasn't a deep cleaning endeavor, but purely a mission to go through each nook and cranny, take everything out, and put back what made the cut in a more organized way. Of course it won't stay organized, but it will help clear out a lot of junk that had collected in the three years since we moved in. I made it about half way through my list this month, and should finish the rest up in February.

I also got called to serve in the Stake Primary Presidency this month. It was a bit of a shock, but should hopefully be a good growing experience. I really know nothing about Primary after only serving with youth or in the nursery for the past several years, and it will be good to get to know more as my kids will all be primary age for the next several years. 

Other January happenings, with photos, are below:

Building (and destroying) things with the giant magna tiles at the Discovery Center

Sophie always does a great job looking after Griffin

One of the dangers of working from home, zzzzzz

Taking a nap snuggled with lion

If you squint real hard, you can see the beginning of a tooth that's close to breaking through!

We met up with friends at Cinergy on MLK day. The big kids did the SkyWalk Obstacle course (Sophie's favorite) and then we through them all into the laser tag arena for a couple games.

I have no memory of why I took this photo. It must have been one of those days...

It was our turn to host Letter Group again, this time for N. I was worried at first because nothing obvious came to mind, but the more I thought I was able to come up with "numerous" fun ideas! We made noodle necklaces, wrote nice notes, ate naan with nutella, caught things with nets, used our noses to identify smells, and pretended to be nocturnal animals to night 9 ninjas and 9 numbers hidden in the "night."

Little Bees had an open play day sponsored by a dealership one morning. Admission there is pricey to bring multiple kids, but we will show up for sure if it's free!! 

Charlie collecting eggs, and then Sophie drawing the chicken's portrait

Building walls for his diggers to plow down

I told the kids I would give a candy to whoever could build the largest tower, but it turns out these kids are too competitive. There was sabotage, fighting, and crying so in the end I split it into three different pieces so they could all win.

Charlie and Rossi trying to catch the flying scarves

During my purge I found some fertility drugs in a cupboard from 8 years ago when we were trying to get pregnant with Sophie. Thank goodness we didn't have to go this route again!

Towards the end of January I ordered a book bundle at the library and requested that they include some holiday titles because Valentine's Day was coming up. When I picked up my order I laughed when I saw these instead. Don't forget Groundhog's Day!!

 January 2021 Video Clips

Griffin at 9 Months

 Griffin turned 9 months old while we were in Washington for Christmas, so his well visit at the doctor didn't happen until a bit later. He is growing great and just taking off developmentally! Crawling all over, pulling up on everything, eating all the foods, and we've even caught him free standing a few times. Thankfully he is also starting to sleep better again after some bedtime struggles the past month.

This boy is starting to look too grown up in my opinion, but at least he still has a toothless, gummy smile to make me feel like he's still my little baby.  He has the best goofball grin and loves to flash it at everyone he meets. Despite being a covid baby with limited exposure to people, he hasn't developed much stranger danger yet and will happily go to almost anyone, unless I am standing nearby and then he wants mom.

 

Griffin at 9 Months

• At his check up he measured 29 inches (75%), 18.75 pounds (30%) and had a 30% head. He still fits in 9-12 month clothes and size 3 diapers. 
• He will still eat, or at least try, any food we give him (except eggs). He is extremely messy at meal time and loves to rub whatever he is eating through his hair, so baths are a daily occurrence.
• While we were in Seattle my grandma would ask me all the time if he was usually this happy, and the answer is yes! All it takes to make this kid happy most days is food, rest, and some people nearby for company.
• His hair is still pretty blonde, especially in the sun. It's also fluffy, which makes him look like a dandelion amongst our crew of dark haired kids. 
• He fell down a half flight of stairs over Christmas. It scared him, but he wasn't hurt so we hope it will be a good learning experience. So far he has been cautious of our stairs at home since getting back so we have not put up the gate yet.

The Blue Marshmallow goes sledding

Looking proud that he can reach all these toys to bother

He was a wild man on the airplane! Now that he is moving it was hard to keep him confined to a seat for several hours on our flight home.

At his 9 month well visit. He's had some constipation issues ever since starting solids, but otherwise is a healthy, growing boy.

Figuring out how to open the toy drawer in our coffee table

Loves, loves, loves to be outside

Hurrying Home to Beat a Storm

We flew back from Seattle to Dallas on a Tuesday. We needed a day to recover from our travel, which meant the earliest we would want to drive back to Amarillo was Thursday, and at that point Sophie would only make it for one day of school so why hurry??  We decided to stay the week and go back Sunday so we could see the Howes and our friends for a few days, but then the weather reports started showing chances of a storm that could bring snow to our area. 

Grandma took time off work, Liz even came over for a few days, and we had a game night with friends. While spending time with them, however, we also kept our eyes on the forecast. When the likelihood of snow grew more certain, we decided to pack up and leave Saturday morning instead. We were sad to cut our visit short, but it turned out to be the right choice! The storm did dump a few inches of snow Saturday night into Sunday. It was also really, really cold so the kids didn't even go out to play until Monday afternoon. 

This was our third storm with measurable snow this winter. I never imagined we would use our snow gear this regularly when we moved to Texas. At least it never sticks around for more than a day or two before warming up and melting out.

Charlie has more snow stamina than the other kids and had a great time tromping around the yard

Davey was really excited about the Power Wheels Santa left for him and took it out for a test drive. At least the snow cushioned everything a bit if he crashed!

It was a really dry snow and this was the biggest snowman we could manage to put together

I really wanted to make snow cones, but we didn't have any syrups on hand and I couldn't find any at the store. I tried a recipe online that used Kool-Aid powder for flavoring and the kids liked it, but it wasn't up to my standards. I'll be on the hunt for the real deal so we can be prepared for the next time we get snow.

Sammamish Christmas, Part 5 (Final Fun and Heading Home)

Our trip this Christmas was all about family. Normally there are so many activities that we try to squeeze in (the gingerbread house display, garden of lights, tickets to the theater, holiday carousel, ward party, etc...), but thanks to covid, none of those were happening this year. Sometimes the togetherness was a bit loud and messy, but most of the time it was wonderful. So many great memories with family were made and we enjoyed it to the fullest!!

Reading books, and more books, and more books with GG Grandma

Charlie and Grandmari ready to cheer on the Seahawks

We did at least six puzzles over the break

One more trip up to the cabin for some skiing, snow cones, and fun

Griffin was in a bad habit of going to bed for just an hour or so, and then waking up once the games started. He thought it was so fun to party with the grown ups after all the other kids were in bed.

We had just one ski day on our trip. The snow was very heavy and I felt like I could barely power through it all, but was still so happy to be back on the slopes. Now that we are exiting the baby years, this will hopefully happen more often!

Building a lincoln log village while mom and dad ski

One more round of snow play before packing up to return to Texas

Dave helped the kids build a tunnel slide in the snow bank

We made a lineup of snowmen in the road for the plow to destroy when it came back down the street

Griffin loved all the extra attention he got during our stay

Goodbye snuggles with GG. She was an unexpected guest for our trip, but we were so, so glad to see her.

Video Clips from our Christmas Trip