Tuesday 20 May 2014

We have a walker!

As soon as Grant turned one, he immediately turned into a big kid and started changing way too fast for us to keep up!





We have a walker!


The most exciting news of all, April 6th, two weeks after his birthday, he finally decided to take his first steps. It was so sudden, I definitely expected a more gradual buildup but he went from refusing to walk with help to the very next day taking 3 steps on his own, and then the next day 6.......it still boggles my mind how fast kids catch on to things. He is great at changing directions and catching himself from tripping/falling, he will be a pro in no time.





Other tricks and habits

  • Headbutting: He headbutts people, the window, the ground, everything. Over and over again. You think it would hurt him, but his head is so massive it can bulldoze through anything.
  • Headstands.  He is always on his head with his butt up in the air. He thinks it is hilarious when you peek through his chunky thighs to see him.





  • My favorite thing that he has been doing lately is running up to me and jumping on me while laughing. Or sometimes he will just run up to me and rest his head in my lap. It is so cute.

  • Grant loves being around animals, especially dogs.



  • I always find Grant with a bucket on his head







  • I always catch him leaning up against things or burying himself in soft blankets. He loves the way it feels on his face.





  • He loves reading and being read to.


  • He brushes his teeth. Only when I am doing it too though.

  • He brushes his hair

  • He crawls in his sleep. I don't know why I forgot to mention this in previous posts but he does this all the time. If you go into his room while he is sleeping and you make a sound, he will immediately push himself up from off his stomach and start crawling around in his sleep. You grab him, flip him around and he is smiling and clearly still fast asleep. So funny!

  • He talks in his sleep
  • I loath changing this boy's diaper. He makes it close to impossible now. If he is on his change table he always tries to flip over onto his stomach and then stand up. If you are on the ground, he will do the same and crawl away. If you pin him down (ya right, he is way too strong for me) then he shrieks and cries. It is the most frustrating thing in the world. But I have been a lot more creative lately coming up with distractions, some work, some don't.
  • He always laughs at the most random things and random people who usually aren't even aware. If you do something that isn't normally funny and you get a laugh, you better be prepared to do it over and over again all day because he will not stop thinking it is funny.





  • Wrestling. Our bed right now doesn't have a bed frame so it is pretty close to the ground. Grant and I wrestle on the bed everyday and he thinks it is the greatest thing. Sometimes he gets a little too excited and catapults himself right off the bed.







  • He shakes his head 'no'
  • He is always growling. And when he is not growling he is "singing" which sounds a lot like shrieking. It is so funny. He starts singing when he hears me or other people sing. Hopefully his pitch improves.



  • In Sacrament Meeting every Sunday, when a hymn is being song he waves his arms around like he is conducting the music. Garth always did it as a joke and now he does it on his own haha.
  • People always comment not only on how vocal he is but the sounds that he makes. He either makes sounds like he is actually trying to communicate with you or he makes transformer/alien sounds that are just unexplainable, you just have to hear it. My favorite sounds that he makes lately are those gutteral 'g' sounds or his "taka taka taka" noises.


  • I caught him dipping his hand in the toilet and licking it..
  • Anytime he hears music, he bounces up and down and looks at me like "Look mom, I'm dancing!"
  • I am so glad to be out of our house and into an apartment for a little bit because now we don't have to build barricades around him, we can just let him roam freely, with no stairs to climb and fall down.



Other Milestones:



  • No more bottles. He loves his sippy cups.
  • No more soother! So glad to be rid of that dang thing, no more face rashes for Grant hopefully.
  • He has 4 new molars, and they all came in at the same time. Ouch. He definitely lost his appetite for a couple weeks, his mouth was probably pretty sore. That puts his teeth count at 12.
  • Anywhere between 12-24 month clothing


Firsts:

  • First real throw up. I've seen a lot of spit up in my short time as a mom but I've never seen that much barf come out of such a little human being. I am one of those moms who is always super prepared with extra clothes, diapers, toys, wipes everything, but seeing as we just got back from our Utah trip, I hadn't restocked my purse and that happened to be the day he decided to explode everywhere while we were out running errands. I remember him crying in the car (which is unusual), so I turned around to see what he needed and just saw that it was going to happen. I reached out my hand to catch it and I totally did, the problem was it just kept coming and coming.... We stopped on the side of the road and stripped him down. Luckily, there was a nice couple that came to our aid with paper towels so we could clean it all up. As soon as he was done, he was back to his normal happy self, minus the clothes.






  • First bloody nose. A solid head to the nose will do the trick.
  • First haircut! I have been dying to get his haircut so we were really happy when Kensey volunteered to do it.

Before:


After:








Here are some random pictures of the little man:























-A.

Easter Activities!



April 14th was Garth's Grandma's Birthday so lots of the family headed over to wish her a Happy Birthday and eat some cake!


On Friday the 18th, Garth wrote an exam in the morning and then when he came home we quickly decorated some Easter eggs. We dropped the ball on getting any kits but we found that food colouring and markers did the trick.


Our traditional egg design that we do every year... My cousin made it the Easter we were engaged and we thought it was so cute that we just keep making it.


Grant even helped make some...


That afternoon we headed to Barnwell for an Easter Egg hunt, Mexican dinner and egg rolling.

They set up a mini easter egg hunt for the younger ones in the front yard. Grant would grab an egg and I would put it in his basket and then we would go find another one etc. He always crawled past all the eggs just to find the orange ones. When he was done nearly all his eggs in his basket were orange. He definitely has a favorite color ;)





After dinner, the clouds started to roll in so everybody thought they better go roll some eggs before the rain hit. Grant was still sleeping so we stayed behind.


Sometimes we steal Georgia and pretend she is ours...

It is super fun for Grant having lots of Forsyth cousins his age to play with.

Ella, Grant & Charlie
This was the best picture we could get of all the cousins.


Again, not a great picture, but it really was the best one haha. These 4 were all born within a year of each other. It will be a lot of fun for them in a couple years.

Charlie: 16 months; Ella: 13 months; Grant: 12 months; Georgia: 5 months

Grant was pretty sick for the rest of the weekend, Garth even had to take him home after sacrament, but once I got home and the Tylenol kicked in we were able to take so cute pictures and help him find his easter basket.

This picture KILLS me!


I thought Grant was pretty excited about Christmas, but he was even more excited this Easter. I have a feeling holidays are only going to get better as he grows up and realizes more of what is going on.


His favorite part about his easter baskets were definitely the fruit snacks...


and the peanut butter cups!




Despite Grant's never ending fever, we had a great Easter weekend as a family!