Dallin is Growing Up
He is acquiring new skills every week. The two things he loves to do most is grunt and smile.
(yellow clothes on Oct 2)
One week after Grandma and Grandpa Davidson left, Dallin was sitting up perfectly on his own for 10+ minutes at a time. It only took him 1.5 weeks to learn!
(sitting with toy on Oct 4)
Dallin had been reaching for our food and really excited about our meal times, so we let him have his first taste of human food. We gave him fresh avocado. He loved lapping it up from my finger. Also during this time, I let him take tastes of our soups and sauces from our meals. I tried spoon feeding him fresh avocado, but he couldn't get it off the spoon or to the back of his mouth, so we decided to hold off on the baby food for a couple more weeks.
(first try of avocado on Oct 3)
We are trying to get him involved in meal time as much as possible.
(sitting at dinner on Oct 11)
And he is constantly eating his fingers- no surprise. But during this time, he took a preference to his pointer and middle finger.
Dallin is getting borred with some of his baby toys, so we got out some more "mature ones."
(playing with alligator on Oct 4)
We brought out the snail, too. He LOVES it.
(playing with snail on Oct 8)
We made a change with the bed situation for Dallin. Since we moved here, Dallin was either sleeping in the swing in our room or in bed with me. (Yes, I know that breaks "rules," but that's what worked for us). Then in Oct, we moved the swing into Tanner's room and set up Dallin's crib in our room. Tanner likes having Dallin swing in his room. It's one more step toward getting both boys to sleep in the same room! (Not sure how long that will take since right now, everyone ends up in our bed by the morning anyway!)
Also at this point in Oct, Dallin became more intrigued with his feet. Look at those toes spreading open wide to grab things!
Here are some shots from a photo shoot I did with Dallin when he was 4 months and 3 weeks.
Tanner is Growing Up
(smiling on Oct 4)
As time goes on, he is taking more and more interest in playing with Dallin and less interest in hurting him.
(buddies on floor Oct 4)
(tickling and giggling on bed, Oct 10)
Tanner uses our camera a lot to take his own pictures. He's actually pretty good at it, and he usually treats the camera with care. Here is a shot he took while we were watching our church General Conference.
We watched all four sessions of conference at our house. I was so impressed with Tanner. He sat through several talks during the morning sessions, just watching and listening. He also quietly did puzzles, ate food and took some pictures. (Also note that we had the youth girls over for a waffle breakfast during Sat morning session and our new member friend for Sun morning).
Tanner loves helping in the kitchen. He always wants to help make something. We invented this recipe that we call Graham Cracker Mud Pie. He uses his hammer to mash the graham crackers for crust. We mix butter and sugar with the crumbs. Then, we mix yogurt with fresh fruit and pour on top. Eat immediately. It's so simple- a lot like making a mud pie in the garden- and it's SO yummy!
Tanner is getting more independent. He likes to comb his own hair, put on deoderant (which ends up on his neck or arms. he doesn't know how to get in his armpits!). Most of all, he likes to brush his teeth all by himself. We have to make sure to supervise or else stuff like this happens.
(toothpaste mess Oct 5)
SarahLynn is Growing Up, Too!
I turned 30 on October 14. I am so excited to be 30!! I think it is a great time to be alive, to have had so many awesome experiences in my life thus far, and so many wonderful people influencing me along the way. There is lots to be grateful for. I know there are tons more wonderful things to come, too. I wrote "life" on this cake in my favorite color to remind us that turning 30 is a celebration of life and all the good things God has blessed me with. Jeremy made fun of me and said it looks like something on a person's funeral cake, like they lived a good life. Well, he might be right, but I don't care!
For my birthday, I did two things. The first was that I babysat one of Tanner's friends so that his mom could go on a field trip with her daughter. We had lots of fun doing music time, games, and food art. The food art was the funnest; we made graham cracker people!
Tanner's creation
My creation
My other birthday project was to collect shoes and shoe boxes for a non-profit called Sudanese Women and Orphan Care Association. A lady from church who is a refugee from Sudan started the non-profit herself. I managed to collect 17 pairs of shoes in a two day period! It was really fun surprising her with them!
Below, we put 30 candles on the cake to see how bright it is. The cake is already eaten a little because we ate some the day before with the Taylor family.
Jeremy is Growing Up,
but he is still six days younger than SarahLynn
Jeremy turned 30 on October 20. He wasn't as excited to turn 30 as I was, but getting the drum set helped. About four years ago, I told Jeremy that since he is always tapping cool patterns on the table and steering wheel and desk, I would get him a drum set for his 30th birthday. We stuck to my word, and had it delivered to our house a few days before. Just as I anticipated, Jeremy is a complete natural on the drums. He fiddled around for 30 minutes, then I came to listen. In that amount of time, he figured out how to play like a rock star!
Tanner and I made Jeremy this four tiered cake. It wasn't the best looking thing, but it was made with love and it had peanut butter filling.
For Jeremy's birthday gift, he tried to contact his friend in CA from the Big Brother Big Sister program. It was really sad for the two of them to say good-bye when we moved. Jeremy really misses him and is trying to stay in touch with him. David, if you're reading this, give Jeremy a call or say hi to him on facebook!
So there you have it! That's how each one of us is getting a little older.
