Happy birthday dear Adam!

Adam's birthday passed a few weeks ago and I haven't posted about it. I have a good reason-I wanted to put together the final laundry basket picture with all of the laundry basket shots (one for each month up to a year) and I haven't done it yet.

But I decided to just go ahead and put this post up and I will show you the laundry baskets later.

I love this little dream boat:

Here's an update on this sweetie at 1 year:

• He hasn't had his Dr. appt. yet so I don't have official measurements, but he's not more than 17 pounds

• He won't perform tricks on command, so we didn't know he knew a lot of things until just recently. For example, he says about 6 or 7 words but I had no idea until June-mama, dada, book, hi, apple, bottle. One day we were driving down the road (on vacation) and Josh was on the phone. Josh said "bottle" to the person he was talking to and from the backseat Adam started to whine and say "ba ba." I thought 'no way' but sure enough, when I handed him his bottle he was happy. I had no idea he knew that word.

• Same goes for clapping and waving. He does it. But don't ask him to because he probably won't do it for you. 

• He started crawling just after 11 months. He gets around pretty great now. And pulls himself to stand sometimes-usually just in the bathtub. A great place to try standing on shaky legs. 

•  He most definitely thinks his brothers are hilarious!

• He barfs all the time and it's really gross now.

• He's happy almost all the time. He is cutting 5 teeth right now and 2 of those are molars. He was fussy for a couple days but otherwise, just a happy guy. 

So, for his first birthday I made his sunshine cupcakes (also because he was born on summer solstice):

He had no issues with digging right in. But he actually didn't get very messy. 

Spur of the Moment Vacation

Two weeks ago and a Saturday late afternoon, Josh and I decided to plan a family trip. Monday morning, we took off. The spontaneity of it made it even more fun.

We drove up to Drigs, ID and stayed in a wonderful little condo that had a killer deal and was located at the base of the Grand Tetons. It was 2 hours out of Yellowstone and about 45 minutes out of Jackson.

On our way there on Monday we stopped at the Idaho Falls temple and did the visitor's center then went out to dinner.

Tuesday we drove into Yellowstone and spent the day there.

We explored geysers:

Loved the stinky mud pots (because we are after all 80% male in our family):

Got very excited (and had to wear jackets because the high was 53 and it was windy):

Watched Old Faithful twice and even got wet from its spray. And earned Little Scientist badges:

Bought 'coon skin caps and ate ice cream:

 Took naps:

Wednesday we drove to Jackson and hiked around Jenny Lake. I didn't bring my camera because who wants to pack that thing all the way around the lake?

That night we went to a show called the Bar J Wranglers and had a real chuck wagon dinner follow by cowboy music. Josh's dream come true and what I thought might be my own hell on Earth. (Am I allowed to say hell?) Turns out it was actually a pretty great show. My favorite part was "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" because I could just imagine my grandpa singing along.

Before the show me and the boys had a little photo shoot:

Thursday we hung around Driggs and celebrated Adam's birthday with ice cream:

We also hot tubbed about 5 times, threw rocks in the river, played at a park, went out to eat several times and just enjoyed being together. 

And we loved this Bison on top of a building.

Dal wouldn't get out for the care for this shot.

11 months

This is the last post I will write about Adam until he is 1. Of all the years of my life, this one has gone by the very fastest! Crazy!!!

We still adore this little guy. Are you surprised?

Next month I will be compiling all the laundry basket shots for one big collage to show his growth in the first year. I am excited to see how that turns out.

Current news about Adam:

This kiddo still does not crawl, though he is close and certainly gets around in his own crazy way. I am not surprised that he doesn't crawl. My boys have all reached physical milestones on the late end and with him being a preemie on top of that I expected it to be later. Plus, his temperament is just SO mellow and easy going. I think he is for the most part perfectly content where he is, so why bother crawling?

That being said, what kid sits on his mom's lap during a 3 hour church block without wriggling or whining or anything? He is an angel!

We have discovered that he loves books. He loves to hold them and play with them and he loves to sit and have a story read to him. He also has 2 big brothers who love to read stories to him.

Isn't that sweet?

Adam is NOT a performer. Nathan had a million "tricks" at this age. Adam, until recently, had none. Just not interested. But now, he loves to do "bonk." We tell him to do bonk and he leans forward and bonks forehead with the person holding him, then giggles.

Still tiny but I tell you, this kid packs it in. And will eat anything you put in front of him. Love that!

Can't wait to celebrate his birthday!

Let them make cake

This is random and old, but for the blue and gold banquet Nathan and Josh (with the help of Jack as well) had to decorate a cake and I thought this should go down in the history of our family. Pretty impressive:

Little Sports

Last week we started "Li'l Sports" with our fellow ward members. One great dad has arranged a whole sports league for our kiddos that is no pressure, low cost and amazing.

We started with baseball. This is Dal's first time getting to play a sport and he was in heaven. He slid into 1st base after his first hit. He told us and everyone he saw that day that he hit a grand slam. The bigger boys felt great about themselves too. Jack even says he hit the ball so hard he cracked the shell.

(In June we will do soccer, then later in the summer football.)

Good times! There were even flags set up all around the field for opening day. Here are some pictures:

 Dal at bat:

 Nathan in the field (wearing his shin guards and soccer socks because we had soccer games right after this. You can see the flags in the background. And way in the background, our neighborhood.)

Snood

By the way, do you know what a Snood is? We didn't know when we started calling Nathan that. We do now. Oh well, we're still calling him that. (It's the red hangy thingy on a turkey's beak.)

I wanted to write a post about Nathan because some pretty special things happened to him back in March.

At his school the older grades get to participate in The Battle of the Books. The kids get a reading list of 20 books and have the whole year up till March to read as many as they can. They are then formed into teams and they compete in a quiz contest to see who knows the most about the books.

In true, over the top, over-achiever fashion that we do in our family, Nathan read all 20 books. (OK, really, I pushed him on that a little. I didn't realize that the average that most kids read was 5. But we are book lovers in this family and he loved doing it, so that's ok.)

His team rocked it. I got a phone call Friday afternoon from my friend who was in charge of the Battles. She said Nathan's team was going to be competing in the semi finals in about 5 minutes if I wanted to come. I had just put the baby down for a nap but I grabbed him and Dal and off we went.

Nathan's team won.

So, Monday morning they were in the finals. This was huge and this was fun. The lights were out, spotlights were on, each kid got called by name and got to run into the gym while the crowd cheered. Cosmo the Cougar (from BYU) was even there. It was really neat.

Nathan's team lost-by 1 question!! Bummer. But it was so neat.

AND, bonus. While I happened to be there to watch the Battle, Nathan got called up for another award. He was given the "Above and Beyond Award." He was so nervous and cute while getting it and it was so special for me to get to witness it. I wouldn't have been there if not for the Battle of the Books that day, so this was great. Here is what his teacher wrote to me in an email about it:

"I thought maybe I should explain the recognition Nathan received this morning because I think it got a little bit lost in translation.  I thought Nathan should receive recognition for going "above and beyond" with his assignments.  If I assign one paragraph, Nathan writes three.  If I ask them to read a book, Nathan reads two.  If I ask them to draw a picture, Nathan creates a whole mural.  He extends all his activities on his own. That is so rare!"

I am so proud of that sweet boy of mine. I just wanted to make sure I always remembered this special time for him. 

Superboy

These pictures have no real story to them. I just made Dal a superhero cape and mask and took some pics and they are so cute I thought I would go ahead and post them:

I love little boys dressed up as superheros.