11 months

Here's your life at 11 months:

You weigh 17.2 lbs and you are 28.75 inches long. You stayed the same with your weight but you gained .25 in length.

You are eating at the same time we are. Daddy found out that you love to take bites out of a banana for breakfast. You eat the whole banana this way. You still have quite the appetite. I stopped nursing you after Thanksgiving. You are now taking two bottles a day.

Your sleep schedule has changed quite a bit since last month. You still go to bed at 7pm but you now get up between 6:15-6:35am. You still take two naps a day. The morning nap is your longer nap and you usually sleep about an hour and a half. During the afternoon nap you sleep about 45 min.

You are finally fitting in to 6-12 month clothing. The pants are still too big and you crawl right out of them, but sleepers and onesies are fitting well.

You wear a size 3 diaper during the day, but you have to wear a size 4 diaper at night. Nothing has changed here from last month.

Your hair has grown and grown. I gave you a small trim a few weeks' ago but you need another one. I am trying to let it grow long enough so that Grandpa can tie a jig with your hair.

You still love bathtime. We are trying to teach you not to pull up on the side of the tub. You love to pull up to stand and we can't get you to stop. You drink the bath water and sometimes choke but you are learning.

You are crawling everywhere. You revert back to the army crawl occasionally but you crawl most of the time. You pull up on everything (tables, chairs, doors, walls, etc.). You haven't started crusing yet, but I know its coming.

You talk all the time. Your favorite things to say are: dadada, mamama and bababa. I know you know who Dada and Mama are because when I leave the room you crawl after me and say "mama". It is so precious.

I heart these pants.

This was such a mess. I thought I could wrap presents while you were awake. Big mistake!

This picture cracks me up. You are sporting my new favorite winter hat.

You and Grandpa on Thanksgiving.

Daddy feeding you your nighttime bottle.

I found you standing up like this.

This was the first time you pulled the DVD's off of the shelf. I thought it was super cute. I still think its cute, but you do is so often that I'm getting tired of picking them up.

Family picture at Flat Branch.

Trip to grocery store.

Trying on the owl hat that I got you for your birthday.

Enjoying the swingset/fort that is in our living room.

You were sick with pneumonia this day and super cranky. I put you in your crib and threw stuffed animal in there. It made you smile for about a minute and then you were cranky again.

I love this picture. Your shirt says, "Programmed to love". You can thank your Nana for the shirt.

Playing with one of your favorite toys. This probably ranks #1 in your toys. #2 is probably your bug jug and #3 is this wooden toy with disks.

Chewing on a straw at Flat Branch.

Flat Branch.

Crawling through your tunnel.

Your shirt says " I get in to everything". It is so true.

One of your favorite places to pull up. I had to take the stuff off the shelf.

Your first quarter car ride. Courtesy of your Auntie Brittany and Grandma.

You loved these chairs at Gymboree.

Greyson's 1st Chiefs Game 10/31/10

I was so excited to go to the Chiefs game this year, but also a little worried. I couldn't help but wonder how Greyson would do. Luke and I went back and forth as to whether to take him or not. I finally just said that we should take him. I went online and found noise deafening earmuffs. We bought them and were surprised that they fit. We tried on his outfit that Grandpa and Nana bought him. It was a little bit big but fit, so we were ready to go.

The trip there was uneventful. We made sure we got there extra early so that we could feed Greyson in the car. He still fits in the baby Bjorn so Luke carried him in with that. I'm glad Luke was carrying him because we had a trip up into the stadium. We were in the nose bleeds and I'm mean really in them. I think we were 5 rows from the top.

Chiefs vs. Bills. Game starts. Of course, we have the loudest guy within 20 seats be right behind us. He starts yelling and scares Greyson to death. Greyson starts crying. Luke looks at me and I can just read his mind. He is wondering what we got ourself in to. We pacify Greyson for the first quarter and then realize that he is not going to make it through the second quarter. Fat tears roll down his face.

We trek down the Stadium. I think we do this at least three times. We probably watched half the game from the monitors by the food and half the game from the seats. The game went into overtime and at that point we moved to some open seats by the entrance. No one around us was screaming at the top of their lungs. Surprise, surprise, Greyson did just fine at the new seats.

Chiefs won!

Overall, we had a fun time. I told Dad that it is now a tradition. I want Greyson to be able to say that he has gone to Chiefs games with his Grandpa ever since he was born.

Halloween in Springfield

This post is a bit late, but hey, better late than never! Greyson got to trick-or-treat in Springfield a week early, due the fact that on Halloween we went to a Chiefs game. He looked so adorable in his penguin outfit. I can't wait to tell him that he wore Mommy's socks as tights and Daddy made his penguin feet. He wasn't too sure of the outfit in general, but he left it on for the most part.

One of my favorite shirts of his of all time! I want my Mummy! Ha.

Do you want to come eat with us?

I've actually been cooking lately. Luke is usually the cook at our house, but I've relieved him of his duties temporarily. I've been picking out at least two new recipes a week to try and the past two weeks, the recipes have been easier ones. Hence, the fact that I've been cooking.

I wanted to share two easy ones in case anyone was interested.

1. Upside Down Pizza Pie

Beef, tomato sauce, spinach (recipe called for broccoli but I had spinach in the fridge), cheese and a puff pastry.

Super Easy.

2. Bacon and Leek Tart

Bacon, leek, gruyere cheese, some spices, and thin pizza crust.

Both of these are keepers and that doesn't happen very much.

10 Months

Here's your life at 10 months:

You weigh 17.2 lbs and you are 28.5 inches long.

You are eating three meals a day, but breakfast is definitely your biggest meal. At breakfast you eat, ¾ of a banana and a bigger bowl of oatmeal than me. You pretty much eat anything. We have gotten extremely lax about what we feed you. As long as we aren’t having something spicy, we let you try it. You are still nursing 3 times a day.

We tried changing your sleep schedule and so far you are not cooperating. I dropped the 5:30am feeding and decided that you can just wait to eat until you get up for the morning. You usually wake up at 5:30am and cry, cry, cry until we give in and come get you. I put my foot down until about 6:30am but then you get to get up. I’m not giving up on you getting up later. You are going to do it. You are still taking two naps. They are both about an hour and fifteen minutes.

You still wear 3-6 month pants and 6-9 months onesies. You are wearing 6-9 month sleepers.

You wear a size 3 diaper during the day, but you have to wear a size 4 diaper at night. Otherwise, we wake up to a wet baby and bed.

You have tons of hair. I really need to give you a trim, but I’ve been trying to hold out until it is long enough for Grandpa to tie a jig with it.

You are still a water baby. You are now flipping over on your belly, putting your face in the water to drink and pulling up using the ledge. We turn the water on and say, “Greyson, its bath time,” and you go crawling just as fast as you can go to the bathroom. You are now sitting in the bathtub without using the whale tub.

You are still doing the army crawl, but you now get up on all fours and do a rocking motion. You can pull up on just about everything. I say “up, up, up” and you smile as big as you can and then pull up.

You blabber quite a bit when we are out, but are usually quiet while at home.

1st time at a pumpkin patch

I couldn't find you one day and here is where I found you.

Saying bye bye to the whale tub.

1st time in bathtub without the whale tub.

All of us out to dinner.

Trip to the library.

Photography Class

I'm just about done with my photography class. So far, I've learned less than I expected. The class is relatively laid back and the teacher is very interesting. She shoots only in black & white and prefers to not concentrate on the "rules" of photography. I was hoping to gain more insight on the "rules" of photography, but I'm enjoying the class anyway. We have homework assignments each week. You bring your photos to class and the class discusses/comments on them. I thought I would share my first two homework assignments.

The first assignment was to take a twelve photos of the same object from twelve different angles. I thought this was extremely boring. I'm not going to post all twelve photos, but I will post a few.

Comments on this were that the house was too distracting, but the weed at the bottom of the frame was nice.
Our teacher did not like where the sky hit the landscape, but she thought the lighting was great.

This photo was a favorite among the class, but I don't like it. Everyone liked the softness of the weed and then the texture in the rocks behind it.

My favorite. I feel like this is my style. Our teacher loved this one. She really liked the sun spots and the lighting in general.

The second homework assignment was to take a total of five photos in an urban and rural environment.

Here are the photos that I presented:

This was well liked. The one criticism was that the building and sky at the top right are over exposed. I like how this photo turned out.

This was another well liked photo. I think I'm the only one that had a complaint about this picture. I think the blurriness takes over the photo because it starts halfway through it.

In our class, our teacher talked about cropping in camera and playing with the idea that sometimes photos are better if you have to imagine parts of the person/landscape. I tried to crop this one with that in mind. Did I succeed? I'm not sure. The consensus in class was that this is a strong photograph and would be great if the wall to the left of the guy had more texture in it. Definitely interesting though.

I love the lighting on these two pictures of Greyson. I had some complaints about the sun spots in the first one, but I love them. Overall consensus is that the cropping in camera could have been better.

I really like the feedback that I get. The most important thing to me is to hear the feedback and utilize the things that I want and ignore the things that I want to ignore.

Btw - I posted tons of new pictures of Greyson but it missed up and posted it on the wrong date. If you haven't got your Greyson fix - go back before the cheap shopping trip and you will see them.