Finally, a tooth!



Cute little bottom teeth!  The one on your right came through first, on July 2nd or 3rd.  The one next to it came through right around your birthday.

Aunt Kavita got you your first toothbrush and infant toothpaste for your birthday. You went so unusually long without any teeth that we haven't had to worry about that stuff until now! You LOVE brushing your teeth which is great, although I'm sure that mango-apple-banana toothpaste doesn't hurt either!

12 month update

You are such a fun little playpal at this age!  We have so much fun together and we are Best Buds.  Some things about you at 12 months:

• You can crawl everywhere now.  On grass, on the kitchen floor, with things in your hands - nothing stops you!  You can move from back to belly to crawling to sitting with ease.  We have to be very careful now opening doors or even just walking around preparing dinner and such because you are fast and quiet and we have stumbled over you many times on accident!
• You have started to pull yourself up on furniture and people.  You can pull yourself to standing in your crib and will look at the closed bedroom door and call for us in the mornings.
• You have a second bottom tooth breaking through!
• You love to crawl over to your stroller and push it back and forth, when it's in the house.
• You have become much more interested in feeding yourself.  This has made mealtimes much messier, as we've started to give you a lot more table food cut up for you to eat with your fingers.
• We've decided you're probably right-handed.  You used to use both hands equally, but recently you have favored the right hand.  Now when we "play ball" we'll roll the ball to you and even if it goes to your left side, you'll pick it up with your left hand and then transfer it to your right to throw back.
• You're interested in loading/filling containers.  You adore the dump truck Daddy got you a while back, and will try to fill the dump tray with various things.  Or if we have any other container you'll put a couple things in it then look in and take them back out.
• You are trying to mimic us more than ever, both sounds and actions.  It's funny watching the kind of things you try to copy sometimes.
• You're pretty much just a bottle boy now!  We only nurse a little bit first thing in the mornings, and even then it's just mainly a comfort/antibody nursing, you still take almost a full bottle right after.
• When you sit in your high chair or on your little scooter or grocery cart or anywhere else possible, you like to tuck your feet up in front of you rather than leave them dangling.
• You have started to sign "all done"!  You've only done it a couple times but you get so excited when you do it.  You do it by opening and closing both fists over and over.  So cute!
• You have become a lot more questioning lately, as much as you can be without saying words.  But many, many times throughout the day you will turn to us with questioning eyes and make a sound like "ehhh?" or if you have your binky in, "mmm?"  It's a little trill that raises up at the end.
• You have a VERY mischevious smile!  When you get an idea in your head, we'll see you start to charge crawl toward it and grin sneakily.  That's when we know we need to keep a close eye on what you have in mind!

1st Birthday Party

For Bennett's birthday, the guests were invited with these cards I made (they have candles tied on)

Then on party day, guests were greeted by these monster hosts.

Bennett wore a monster shirt I made that said "I'm this many" with a googly-eye monster holding up one claw. 

Dinner was chinese-themed.  Just sounded good, no relation to monsters.  Although note the monster hiding in the fruit salad!

I found this monster themed tableware six months ago and LOVED it.  I bought it immediately with a future little boy party in mind!  And see the monster hiding the forks and spoons?

I didn't want to do a big cake, so I made little monster cupcakes instead.  They were so fun to make!

This is the Happy Birthday banner I made.  It's not monster themed, but I wanted to make one that was gender and age neutral that we could put up every time someone in our family has a birthday.

Bennett looked a little bewildered by the whole opening presents thing and couldn't understand why we kept taking his toys away so that he could open the next one.

Then came the traditional baby-in-frosting time!  It actually was pretty boring because Bennett doesn't like to get his mouth dirty. . .just his fingers.  But that works too, we let him smoosh up his cupcake.  Hardly any made it to his mouth.

After we washed Bennett up we put him in his Lil' Monster jammies and let him play with his balloons before bed.

Thanks to everyone who helped make Bennett's first party special!  (including his NY relatives who sent awesome presents that he loves!)

Bed Head!

You hair is long enough to have some major bedhead!

Sad faces

Lest you think that you're ALWAYS a smiley baby, here's some proof that you do cry!

Although once I pulled the camera out you tried to recover and do your cheese faces!  Maybe I should pull the camera out when you throw tantrums more often!

A funny nap story

I sometimes go in to your room while you're napping, to grab items I've forgotten, or to adjust your blankets, or clip your nails, or whatever.  As long as I'm fast and quiet I can usually get in and out with no problems.  This day, however, I accidentally woke you up from your nap early when I went into your room.  When you started to stir in your crib I dropped to the floor (like I often do) and froze, waiting for you to fall back asleep.  Instead the rustling continued, until suddenly I heard "abubba?"  I looked up from my crouching position to see. . .that I had been spotted!

 This was one of the first times you had pulled yourself to standing in your crib so I wasn't expecting it, since you had never been able to see me over the crib bumper before.  So obviously naptime for that day was over!  Lesson learned - don't go into your room now unless absolutely necessary!

Photos recreated with help from Daddy

4th of July

Daddy had the 4th of July off of work so we had a family pool day!  We went to our Spanish Fork outdoor pool.  Daddy had never been swimming with you before so you two had so much fun splashing around together!

After swimming you were so hungry!  You were climbing all over Mommy trying to get our soft pretzel so I gave you a piece and you double-fisted it until it was gone!