What we have been up to

It has been a long time since I have really blogged much (other than Nathan walking). Here is a quick glance at what we have been up to:


We took a trip up to Utah for my Grandma's funeral. It was great to see almost the whole family together, and we had tons of fun. It was great to see all 5 of the cousins together:
My sister Crissy did a wonderful job blogging about that trip, so I don't want to rehash the same thing. You can check it out here though: Utah Trip

While in Utah I was able to visit with two of my former roommates who, strangely enough, have little girls that were both born just days apart from Nathan. It was a blast to see the 3 kiddos play "together"!




About 2 weeks after getting home from Utah, we were off to Ramah to visit the other side of the fam.

The trip up:

We finally got to see Tristan who is just a few weeks younger than Nathan, and so stinkin' adorable!

We made sure to get an updated 4 Generations picture while there

And what Nathan has been up to lately:

He likes to pull all of the clothes out of my laundry basket when I am trying to fold them. More recently he has taken to putting them in a pile on the floor and then laying on them. Frustrating, but oh so cute!

He has finally made the transition to non-baby food! He especially loves yogurt, bread, and cheese (unlike his father!) On this particular day Curtis got up with Nathan while I got to sleep in. I guess Curtis really wore the boy out because he fell asleep in his high chair, a VERY rare thing because he usually won't fall asleep unless he is in his bed. I was very proud of Curtis for thinking to snap a picture of it!

One of the only other times he has fallen asleep anywhere but his crib:

He is absolutely obsessed with playing everywhere he shouldn't, like inside the cupboards!

He went swimming for the first time. Here he is showing off his new swim suit.


He also loves dancing. This is the best video I have, but right as he was really getting into it my phone rang and it distracted him.


And he spends most of his time just being cute!

Up and About

Nathan took his first steps a couple of days ago! I tried to get it on video, but he just doesn't do as well when the camera is on! This video is the best one I could get, but he is a bit better than the video shows.

Blogger isn't working for me for some reason so I uploaded the video here:

Nathan walking

Lazy

I'm feeling a bit too lazy to write much, but here are some pictures and videos that I have taken of Nathan in the past month. The first few are not great pictures but they show his teeth! He is up to 6 now! There are are also some of him playing with his second cousins, and some of him eating his new favorite food: grapes (with the help of the easy feeder mesh thing). Nathan is also quite the talker now, really, the kid never shuts up :) It has made it a bit difficult to teach primary because Nathan wants to talk over us. There are a few videos of his never ending babble. Enjoy:

Family and Friends

Over Easter weekend we visited Curtis' parents in New Mexico. We were able to spend a few days visiting, watching General Conference, and eating delicious food!

Nathan and his daddy sitting on the couch at Grandma and Grandpa Merrill's

Curtis' sister Nikki and her family were able to come up for a bit and Nathan loved playing with his cousins! He tries to fit in and be one of the big kids.

He wanted to play their games...

follow them around...

and just hang out with them!

Nathan enjoyed playing with the many many toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house



He also had his first experience with grass while we were there. He didn't want to touch the grass with his hands because it tickled, so he would do his best to avoid touching it. It was pretty dang amusing!



(Nathan is learning how to clap, and every time he watches the video above and sees himself clapping he will start clapping...too cute!)

He somehow managed to get into a crawling position while on the grass and had a hard time trying to figure out how to sit back up without having to touch the grass...

On our way home from Ramah we stopped by a duckpond (the very duckpond that Curtis used to take girls to in college when he was trying to find out if they were date worthy...)




It was a fun ending to a fun trip. Next time we will have to actually bring some bread to feed the ducks!


The day after we got back Curtis was off to work again, so I decided to drop by and visit my friend Heidi. Nathan loves playing with Heidi's little girl Samantha...but after a while Samantha got a little sick of Nathan following her around and playing with all of her toys. He wouldn't even let Samantha sit with her mommy alone.


Nathan refused to leave her alone and so Samantha had to resort to pushing him away, every time she did Nathan would get the saddest little look on his face...kinda like this:


I hope that Nathan either never gets rejected by a girl when he is older or else he mans up a bit and handles it better than he does now!

We ended up staying for a very long time and poor Nathan was so exhausted, having missed his naps, he ended up just resting his head on the couch for a bit:

When we finally got home I gave Nathan a bottle, but he was so tired he fell asleep eating. It was too cute.



The next day we went to the park with some friends. We got to try out his new Jeep stroller (that's for you dad!), and play on the swings. Nathan loves the swing! He gets so excited on them that he actually doesn't need to be pushed, he pumps his own legs...kinda

So that's what we have been up to lately. Lots of fun with friends and family!

9 Months

Believe it or not, Nathan is 9 months old! Nobody who sees him believes that he is that old because he is just so small! At his doctors appointment last Monday he weighed in at 15.5 lbs, putting him in the 0 percentile...yes you read that right, 0%! He is 26.5 inches (28th%). I have no clue how Curtis and I ended up with such a tiny little boy! He is super healthy and eating lots so no worries! I also had to take him to the lab for his hemoglobin test, an adventure that I was NOT looking forward to! They used to do a little finger poke for this test but I guess that's not good enough anymore because they had to take a whole vial of his blood! I swear this kid is so tiny I was surprised he even had that much blood in him! I was a nervous wreck as they were getting ready to put the needle in, wishing I would have made Curtis take him instead. I had to hold him on my lap with one arm around his body, pinning his right arm down, and the other hand holding his left arm straight. The lady told me to make sure he didn't bend his arm and to brace myself for a struggle. That was almost the breaking point for me, but I tried to be brave...I watched as the needle got closer and closer to my poor tiny little boy's arm and took a deep breath as it made contact with his skin..and then...nothing! Nathan didn't even flinch, it was like he was completely oblivious to the needle in his arm!! Man oh man, I hate getting my blood drawn! It was at that moment that I realized that I am way wussier than a 9 month old :(

Nathan has 3 teeth, the two front bottoms, and one of his vampire teeth (which I must say looks pretty silly). This is the best picture I can find of his top tooth.

However, he seems to be getting 3 more all at the same time, which has not made for a very fun week. Nathan has been the easiest baby in the world so I am not very good at handling the lack of sleep that his teething has caused. The funny thing is this "lack of sleep" that I am referring to is due to Nathan only sleeping about 7 or 8 hours at night as opposed to his usual 11 :) He also has woken up a few times in the night which usually never happens, but he has been able to put himself back to sleep in just a few minutes. He has also been a bit whinier during the day which is also very uncommon for him, so I will be very happy when those teeth are no longer causing him pain!

Like I said, he is sleeping about 11 hours at night (about 8:30 pm-7:30 am) with a couple of 2 hour naps during the day. When he isn't sleeping or eating he is always so happy! He is getting more and more mischievous every day. He loves turning the computer off while I am using it, his favorite toys are our dvds and books, and when we tell him "no" he just looks back at us and smiles. He likes to use his pants to play peek-a-boo while I am changing his diaper, which is one of the cutest things I have ever seen! He is a wicked awesome dancer (like his mother...haha, jk!), when the theme song to The Big Bang Theory comes on he stops whatever he is doing to bounce up and down in time with the music (unless, of course, I have the camera out). He also stood on his own for the first time yesterday! I wouldn't be surprised if he starts walking in the next month or so because in church last week he was walking around pushing a little chair around the back of the primary room, this little adventure didn't end well, however, as evidenced by the huge bump/bruise that soon developed on his forehead.

He is basically just a stinkin cute kid with such a fun little personality.

I have been saving up a lot of cute pictures and videos for the this post, but sadly I deleted most of them from my camera thinking that I had already saved then onto my computer. So here is what I have taken in the last couple of days.







This was the best video I could get of his dancing, it's kind of sad though because right as he starts getting into it he hits his chin on the table :(


This one is an ok one of him dancing, he's not quite as into it as he usually is though.

Nathan's Latest Tricks

As I mentioned before, Nathan is quite mobile now. He has mastered crawling, and has also figured out how to pull himself up to standing. Just today, however, he took his accomplishments a step further...literally. Nathan gets a kick out of standing, he quite often laughs while doing it, or screams happily, or talks loudly...he really seems to enjoy himself. I thought I would try to get this on camera. As I was taking a video of him standing, however, he surprised me by taking the tiniest step sideways. It might not be a huge deal, but it is to me, and I am so glad I got it on camera!



This is some of the fun that Nathan has now that he has learned these new tricks. Needless to say it's been quite the adventure having a mobile little boy!


And this picture is just because I love it, and never posted it.

Nathan and his daddy