Happy Birthday Jake and Walker!

Yesterday was our cousins, Jake and Walkers, birthday! They turned 5 years old so we wanted to sing them a Happy Birthday song!

Big Boy!

Blake is growing up! He is becoming such a big boy! He is getting a lot more steady while sitting up and he actually likes his cereal now! He also loves to drink out of a cup like a big person. So I let him drink a little bit of my water or Tanner will feed him his rice cereal like that, and he loves it! It so fun to see his sense of humor develop and thinks some thing are so funny. He likes when we shake our head from side to side or when we laugh he laughs. I will also let him suck on my apple or grape and he goes crazy for it! He loves the sweet juice from it, but don't worry I don't let him do it too much. I also like to give him carrots or broccoli stems so he learns to like veggies also, but he doesn't like those as much.

Last week Blake and I dressed up as Mary and Jesus and told stories about Jesus's life for a Relief Society activity. It was a fun experience and Blake was such a good baby Jesus. He fell asleep right before we went up there and woke up right when i finished. I think he qualified to play Jesus:)

Right now we are just getting ready to go up to Utah for Christmas. I am so excited to see my family and for them to see Blake he has changed so much. We are also getting ready to move to Kentucky but thats not until April or June. There are a lot of thing we need to do before we move there, like where we will live and pay for everything. I know everything will work out like it's supposed to but its still a little scary to move somewhere we have never even been!

We are Going to Dental School!

11pm November 30 Tanner got an acceptance letter from the University of Louisville School of Dentistry we were so excited! That was our #1 choice.  He also got accepted to USC School of Dentistry but that was our last choice so it wasn't a difficult choice, but he felt good getting in to two schools. Then he got wait listed at UNLV and rejected from  Midwestern. So after months of studying, stress from the DAT, 12 applications, 4 interviews and 2 acceptances later, we are going to dental school in Kentucky. wahoo! 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving weekend has been so fun so far. I love having Tanner home over the break! Thanksgiving morning we ran a 10K (little over 6 miles) called the Turkey Trot. It was hard but fun we ran an average of 11 minute miles but we never stopped running. By the end we felt so good but our knees were killing us because the whole thing was on pavement. 
Dinner was so good. We were in Arizona and spent thanksgiving with Tanner's family at his Aunt and Uncles house with cousins and grandparents.  It is still so warm out here that we ate dinner outside and it was so nice. The food was very good and it was great to see everybody. 
Tanner's Uncle Scott just got a new puppy that was so cute and totally interested in Blake (and visa versa Blake kept watching the puppy). He just jumped up on tanners lap and started licking blake on the cheek! It was so funny we hurried and took a picture. 

Sitting up!

For the past couple of weeks Blake has been trying to sit up by himself and he is doing pretty well. He is still very unstable, so we have to sit right next to him and catch him because he tips over a lot. Its fun because he is also more active and toys keep him entertained for longer periods of time so now he can sit up and play with them. He is also very curious or teething because everything he touches frantically goes into his mouth and gets chewed. Even my face! He will get a death grip on the hair on both sides of my head and pull it toward him with his mouth open. In about two seconds Im covered in drool. I just tell myself he's not trying to eat me, but he's just giving me loves and kisses because he loves his mom so much!

Is this my baby!

Yup, i have a blond hair, blue eye baby! For now at least. Tanner has blond hair and bright blue eyes, but i thought dark hair and dark eyes were dominant so i didn't get my hopes up. His hair is falling out and coming in blond and his eyes are still dark blue. I would love for them to stay blue but they are so dark I think they will eventually turn brown, but everyone else in the house thinks they will stay blue. In one of our old wards the bishops little girl had bright blue eyes until she was two years old then they all of a sudden turned brown! It so crazy how baby's eyes change colors, but I've never heard them changing colors that late. Blake is so cute that it wouldn't matter if he had blue, brown, green, even purple (well maybe not purple) eyes, he is still the cutest baby ever and I love him so much! 

Giggles

Ever since Blake was born he has been ticklish everywhere. He laughs the whole time I'm tickling him, until he sees the camera. Whenever we want to take a picture or record him we have to hide the camera.

 . 

Bouncy Bouncy Baby

We recently put blake in the jumping chair...

... and Im guessing he thinks its pretty fun. Whenever we hold him so he is standing on our lap he jumps so we thought it would be a good idea to pull this chair out. Now he can jump all he wants and mom and dads arms don't get tired. He loves to jump in it, but i thinks he likes chewing on it just as much!

Halloween Night

Halloween night we went to a ward halloween party and they had chili and fry bread. It was so yummy! Tanner and I went as farmers and Blake was our pumpkin we harvested! Tanner was farmer Joe, I was Mary Lou, and Blake was our prize pumpkin we picked from the pumpkin patch. 

The night before Halloween we decided to make a scary dinner! so we made witch hair with mummy guts (green spagetti with italian sausage), french bread with orange and purple butter, and a scary spider cupcake. 

Halloween

Here are some Halloween pictures of Blake in his costume. A lady in the ward is a photographer and was offering to anyone in the ward to take halloween pics and make a CD for only $10. She is so nice and did such a good job. Blake was very good and patient while she took the pics. 

Blake was a pumpkin this year! His cousin Brighton also got her pictures taken and so we did some of them together. Blake's cute hat kept falling over his eyes. Everyone calls Brighton "B" so she was a bumble bee. 

Smiles! I made Tanner come with us to help find her house, and luckily i did because Tanner is so good at making Blake smile. We kept putting his hat on top of his little ears to help keep it up so we could see his cute eyes. I thought it was adorable how his little ears flopped over to keep his hat up. 



The last three are my favorite! I love my little pumpkin!

feet

Blake found his feet today! It was so cute to watch him play with and try to eat them! He also started eating rice cereal about a week and a half ago and is still getting use to it. I feel like he has gotten bigger the past week because of the cereal, but Im sure one week wouldn't make a big difference. 

pumpkin patch

We also went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. Unfortunately, It was cold and he was still sad from his shots.  So he stayed in his carseat and stroller most of the time to stay warm and we didn't get very many pictures. We went with Tanner's family except for tanner and his dad, they were at work. There was tons of pumpkins, a train ride on a tractor, animals, garden, and go carts. Here is a picture of Blake with the geese and pigs...

4 month checkup

Blake went to the doctor for his four month check up yesterday. He weighs 13lbs 8oz and is 24 1/2 inches tall. He is about the 25% for both. They gave him 3 shots and 1 oral vaccine and he was so sad. It affected him for the rest of the day so i had to keep giving him baby tylenol and that helped a lot. He still slept pretty good though the night and has been good today as long as he has medicine. 

Trip to Utah

Blake and I flew to Utah this weekend to visit. It was Blake's first time on an airplane and he did so good. The fights were pretty empty so we got a row all to ourselves both times. It was so much fun to see family and friends especially since some of my friends have never met Blake. My mom was so excited to see him that she held him every second she could and my dad was glad he wasn't sick so he could hold him too. Everyone was so surprised at how big he has gotten even just in the past week since we saw them in Disneyland.

1st Airplane Ride.

During our visit we were able to visit our good friends Gina, Tyson and Aiden. Blake is only 6 weeks older then Aiden so it is fun for Gina to see what Aiden will be doing soon and for me to remember when blake was that little. Blake and Aiden were totally amazed and enthralled with each other. Almost the whole time we were there they just stared at each other, it was so cute. Every once in a while they would smile at each other. When Aiden got the hick-ups blake laughed and thought it was so funny. 

Gina is holding Blake and Im holding Aiden. 

Unexpectedly, Tanner was also able to go up to Utah this weekend for the BYU vs. TCU game. His mom and sister decided to drive up a couple weeks ago so Laura could visit some mission friends and so at the last second Tanner decided to jump in at the last second and come back to Utah for BYU's homecoming weekend. It was weird for both of us to be back and not in school, and so beautiful in the fall weather. It was good to have Tanner there so he could visit family and friends with us.  

Disneyland

We just went to disneyland this past week for 4 days and it was so much fun! Tanner's family went for a family vacation so everyone was there. Everything is decorated for halloween so cute. We got there tuesday afternoon and went to disneyland Wednesday morning all day. Then we went back thursday morning around 10am and left at 10pm! it was a long day. We started at disneyland and then went to California Adventure for their halloween party. In October every Thursday night they have a halloween party and you have to buy a special ticket to get in so its not as crowded, and thats nice. The lines are shorter plus they have trick or treat lines and sooo much candy! or if you didn't want candy you can get sliced apples or baby carrots. it was so fun and totally wore Blake out! the whole time we were there he went to bed at 9pm to 7am and would wake up once for a quick snack:) Normally he sleeps through the night 11pm to 7am and has been doing that for the past 2 weeks (11pm is pretty late but its better then having him up all night, a full 8hrs of sleep is beautiful). Then friday we went back to both Disney and California Adventure. It was nice because my family was there also for their October break so I got to see them for a little while on friday. Then we left saturday morning and we were all worn out! Here are some pic's i took while we were there...

First day we were there it was rainy but nice because it wasn't to cold or too hot.
Yup I have a thumb sucker! Blake prefers sucking his thumb or hand over his pacifier. 

They have so many decorations set up so we took a family picture in front of the mickey mouse pumpkin. It was kind of hot on thursday so we took his costume off when we were done with the picture. Tanner's mom bought everyone matching shirts for thursday because we took a big family picture also and she's going to use that as a christmas card. I think she should do a "nightmare before christmas" theme like the movie since that was the Disneyland theme this year. 
Blake as Jack Sparrow! 
Here are some more decorations...
This was in California Adventure for the Halloween party. Everything had huge candy corns all over it. 
Blake is a pumpkin this year for Halloween and Tanner and I are going to be farmers since we harvested him:) We don't have our costume on because everyone is still wearing their halloween disney shirts except for Blake and Brighton. 

Sometimes Halloween can be scary!

Friday was a chill day and so blake was quite relaxed. 

Blake was giving me puppy dog eyes on the way home because he didn't want to leave disneyland. 

Couch Potato

Blake thinks the TV is so interesting. I think he likes the lights and colors. We borrowed some of Kara's Baby Einstein movies for him to watch and he loved it. Here he is just staring at the movie. During this part in the movie its showing a purple  glue or syrup being poured into a bowl and the color contrast and movement gets Blake's attention. 

laughs

Here are some cute little laughs! Tanner is so good at playing with him! These are just little laughs but when you get him when he's well fed and not sleepy he laughs so hard and its hilarious. 

playing

Blake loves to play with his toys and he us getting so much bigger. He will hold on to his toys and look at them. He also loves to look at his hands and will suck his thumb sometimes. 

finished with interviews!

Tanner finished his last two interviews this week. On tuesday he went to USC and on Thursday he went to UNLV. He flew out in the morning and flew back in the evening for both trips. He said it was hard and made him tired. When he flew in thursday evening it was only 20 minutes before his younger sister Laura flew in from her mission in Armenia. It was great timing for both of them! Laura had a very successful and exciting mission but is happy to be home! Tanner said both interviews went good and has thing he likes and dislikes about both school,but his number one is still Louisville! 

Swimming in September

We tried to take Blake swimming one last time last week, but its getting too cold. We put his feet in the water and he got very upset, and thats rare for Blake. So he decided to just lay out and catch some rays before the cold winter set in. Just kidding, we went swimming in the evening so the sun was already down. Normally swimming in the evening isn't a problem down here in Arizona, but it is finally starting to cool off.

Tanner and I played some pool basketball and the pool warmed up a bit. Its fun when he jumps from the side of the pool to dunk it.

We are pretty sure this will be the last swim till next year and it was a good way to end. 

Fun Weekend

This weekend was so exciting! Blake did two great things... he laughed for the first time and then rolled over for the first time! The first time he laughed I was playing with him on Thursday and it was like a little giggle, but it was so little I wasn't sure. The next day Tanner was playing with him and he did it again but louder and longer. We were so excited and it was so cute! The first time he rolled over was also on Friday, and I think he was just so mad to do belly time that he just pushed himself over. although, it was a long process. First one shoulder went down, then he slowly made it to his side, and made it all the way over by kicking his feet till his hips followed. When I put him back on his belly to do it again he only made it about half way before getting frustrated and tired. I haven't been able to get a video of either yet, but he is doing better with belly time and I did get a video of that!

Toys

So Blake has two toys that he loves. The first is his...

... bouncy chair! It has lights, music, moving animals and little toys that hang down. A couple weeks ago we put him in with the toys turned on and he thought it was the greatest thing. He stares at it forever while smiling and trying to talk to it. He just started trying to touch the little toys that hang down. I tried to get a video of him playing in but when i tried to upload it, it wasn't working and i accidently deleted it and now he's slowly loosing interest. Every time i pull out the camera he stops playing with the toys and stares at the camera. I think his scared of the flash, but i got a video of his second favorite toy. Not quite as much enthusiasm in this video but he still loves his...

... Mobile! Its just three little stuffed bears the turn in circles, but he loves it! When he wakes up from his naps he will just be staring and talking to them. So i turned it on and let him watch the bears for a minute before picking him up. 

Good Times

 

Blake and Tanner have so much fun together! Here Tanner is playing superman with Blake again and its so cute how his little legs curl up when he's in the air. He looks like he's really trying to fly. (sorry i didn't realize it would show up so dark)

 Blake turned 12 weeks this friday and is always up for a good time! he smiles and coo's all the time but we haven't heard a laugh yet. I'm sure it will come soon because sometimes he gets so excited it looks like he's going to explode with laughter!!!

I love this picture! Blake loves his daddy and Im sure he will miss him when he goes out of town again in October. Tanner got 2 more interviews from dental schools. The first is in LA, California at USC on October 6 and the second is in Las Vegas, Nevada at UNLV on October 8. We are so excited and hope he will get accepted a begin school in fall 2010.  

Superman

Blake loves when Tanner comes home because he plays with him. In the picture they are playing superman! Blake smiles and they both have so much fun together. 

Belly time

Blake is trying so hard and is doing so much better with belly time! He is starting to hold himself up really well but not for very long. When we talk to Blake he tries to talk back. He always makes little cooing noises and soft sounds and if he's having a conversation with you. Its so cute!

A house divided...

Well this was an exciting weekend. BYU vs. OU, and their biggest fans living under the same roof. Tanners older brother, Christian, is a huge OU football fan and Tanner is an equally big BYU fan. So when they played each other on Saturday it was quite the event. The house was decorated, flags were hung, and colors were worn. Even competitive cookies were made. 

We made Blake a new BYU shirt, since he's still too little for his other one, and Brighton was wearing her OU shirt. 

We decorated the house with flags and balloons...

... and even made team spirit cookies!

To our enjoyment BYU WON!!! It was such a good game.

Here are some pics Blake and I took to send to tanner when he was out of town...

When Tanner got home he said Blake has gained a lot of weight and looks more rounded. Even Tanners family has been mentioning it the past few days. It must be all those cookies I'm eating! :)

Blake and I made a video to say hi to tanner while he is out of town. Blake is so fun and such a good little boy. I always have the monitor on when he is taking a nap so i can walk around the house and hear him if he wakes up. Sometimes i will go in the room to check on him anyway or to put something away and he will be lying in his crib wide awake just looking around. He is just so mellow and happy and we are so blessed to have him. 

Tanner's 24th Birthday

This past Sunday, August 30, was Tanner's birthday, and he turned 24. We celebrated Sunday evening with his family and Monday evening with his friends. When his friends came over we had a barbecue and went swimming, which ended early because of a lightning storm. Monday night was great because it was the first time blake slept 8 hours straight. Unfortunately he hasn't done it again. 

Tanner had his first interview at a dental school on Tuesday. He was invited to Midwestern dental school for a tour and interview. It lasted from 8:30am to 2:30pm and Tanner interviewed at 9:30am. He said it went well and the interviewer even complimented on his good answers! He really enjoyed the time he was there and hopefully will hear back soon. 

Tanner leaves tomorrow for Louisville for another interview and tour on Friday. He is excited and looking forward to visit the campus. 

Dimples

Yup, its official, blake has my dimples! He has been smiling since he was born, but he started smiling at people when they played with him a few weeks ago. Thats when we really started to notice them. So far the one on the right is deeper and the one on the left is taking a little longer to form, but definitely there. He is so cute and at such a fun age.  He loves when you play with him and talk to him. It makes him so excited that he kicks his feet and moves his arms with a huge smile on his face. I think he is getting ready to laugh soon.  He is making cute little noises especially when he is very content and happy. He also loves when I sing songs to him. It calms him down and he just stares at me. We mostly sing primary songs and he seems to like those :) 

swimming

It has been very hot since we have been here in Arizona so we have taken Blake swimming a few times. It makes him a little bit nervous, but he doesn't like bath time very much either. The pool water is so warm that after we gets in he relaxes and just hangs out.