Saturday, June 29, 2013

Greyden - 10 and 11 Months :)

Dearest Greyden,

I admit it.  Mommy fail.  Your older brother had WEEKLY posts for his first year of life.  You?  It's dwindled down to bi-monthly posts.  Poo on me.  But I figure, as long as I'm capturing all the goodies that I want to remember forever, like your first tooth and when you started playing peek a boo, then it's all good. :)

We'll start off with your 10-month picture (that was actually taken when you turned 10 months):


And we'll follow it up with your 11-month picture (taken today, one day late):


Here's the roundup!






1 week, 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months

And now the most exciting news...

YOU'RE CRAWLING!!

Praise the Lord! Earlier this week (Tuesday, I believe?), less than a week before turning 11 months, you figured it out.  No lie, my momma eyes filled up with happy tears when I saw you do it for the first time.  You actually started while at Grandma Eileen's house, and I got to see you do it when I picked you up after work that day.  You went from not crawling at all to crawling across the room and all over the place in one day.


But let me back up, since I haven't posted an update in two months.  The last I posted, in the beginning of May when you were 9 months old, you had just figured out how to roll over and were only occasionally pushing your belly up off the ground.   You continued to get better and better and started getting up on all fours in a crawling position, but only for short periods of time and never with any movement.  Around the time you turned 10 months old, you started pushing yourself backwards with your arms when on your belly, but you could not figure out how to go forward.  Just after turning 10 1/2 months, you figured out how to push yourself into a sitting position from your belly and also started scooting around the floor on your bottom.  Once you figured out how to do that, it wasn't long before you began to go forward over your legs from a sitting position, get into a crawling stance, then reach for things.  And then after a couple days of doing that, you started crawling all over the place. :)


As for the "upright" gross motor movement, you started "walking" while someone holds your hands just before you turned 10 months old, and it was (and still is) the cutest thing ever.  You look like you're doing a little jig, and you can't help but grin and squeak while you do it.  You're still not really pulling yourself up on anything, only if someone gives you their hands, but I at least see you making attempts to pull yourself up so I think you're on your way.  You also still don't walk at all along furniture.  But I know your day is coming. :)



When it comes to your personality, you love to be held but not cuddled.  You are a major momma's boy, which I love until you have fits every time I put you down (which has fortunately subsided in the last several days since you learned how to crawl).  You are incredibly happy-go-lucky, and I'm thinking that it's highly likely you're going to drive your melodramatic brother insane when you get older.


You are a very vocal little boy, constantly jabbering.  And you have this bizarre thing you do where you copy the words you hear around you and repeat them just once, perfectly.  I'm not the only one who has noticed - your daddy has heard you do it many times, as have many of our friends.  An example would be, I'll be chatting with your daddy and say something like, "I am really in the mood for a cookie" and all of a sudden from behind us we'll hear you say, "Cookie!"  Then we'll turn around in shock and try to get you to repeat it, but you won't.  You've done this so many times with so many words, and it's simply crazy!



There are other times when you repeat words and we know you're doing it on purpose and that you know what you're doing.  You like to say "Walk, walk, walk!" as we hold your hands and help you walk, and you copy "No, no, no!" and shake your head when I say it to you.  Sometimes you say "more" ("mah!") and sometimes you sign "more" (which is more often than not just you slapping your hands together sloppily).  You signed "all done" to me for the first time just after you turned 10 months old, but you haven't done it a whole lot since then.  You love hold your arms out and flip and flail your hands when you're excited, which is super cute.  And just yesterday (on your 11-month birthday) you started scrunching up your nose while jutting your chin up in the air if anyone scrunches their nose at you.  It's so darn cute!


You are SO MUCH more grabby than your brother ever was.  I can't even count the number of cups, plates, bowls, etc. that you've dumped right in front of me when I looked away for .2 seconds.  I pull items out of your mouth about 50 times per day...items that I (incorrectly) thought were out of reach.  You find itty bitty specks on the floor and pick them up in your little fingers and eat them as quickly as possible.  You open drawers in the bathroom.  You dump baskets left and right.  When in the check out lanes of stores, you pull items off the shelves and drop them all over the floor or stuff them in your mouth.  Then you grab my credit card out of my hand while I'm trying to pay and push the credit card machine buttons.  In the baby pool, instead of splashing in the water, you search for floating pieces of grass or mulch that you can catch and nibble on.  I have to watch you like a hawk.  And you did all this before you even crawled.  Now you're crawling, making it even worse, and four days after learning how to crawl you figured out how to open the cupboards.  Sigh.  Sometimes I think we may need to seran and bubble wrap the house.


You're still breastfeeding, and we have just one more month to go!  You've started somewhat weaning yourself, only wanting a small amount of milk when I offer it.  You still don't like to let me do anything while you're nursing, and there can't be any noises or people in the room or else you unlatch every two seconds to look around.  Fortunately you've now started drinking out of sippy cups, and sometimes you'll even hold one for yourself, which is nice.  You love, love, LOVE to eat.  You eat about six containers of baby food plus cereal each day, along with snacks (puffs or mum mum bars) and then bites of table food from our family meals.  You love green beans, peas, and black beans especially.  The other night you ate more black bean and corn quinoa than your brother did.  It was crazy!  And mum mum bars are pretty much your favorite food on earth.  You will eat mum mum bars all day long.  I carry them with me everywhere because they put you in a good mood no matter the circumstances.  Definitely life savers!


I don't have any updates on your growth, since we don't have a checkup between 9 and 12 months.  I have a feeling, however, that your growth has slowed down and that we're not going to see huge changes between the two checkups.  You're wearing mostly 9- and 12-month shirts, 12 month shorts, size 3 diapers, and size 3 shoes.  Still the opposite shape of your brother, carrying all your weight in your arms and legs while all of his went to his belly.  It's so fascinating to see the differences in you two!  Oh, also, your hair is changing to blonde! It gets lighter and lighter every day.  I just can't believe it, I was so sure you were going to be a brunette.  Your eyes are a dark hazel and can look any color from brown to blue depending on the lighting and what you're wearing.  I think you're a major cutie. :)



Well I think that's all for now.  Our next update will be - gasp - when you turn a year old!! I can't believe it!!

Love you little man!
Mommy

Friday, June 21, 2013

5 Years :)

Today marks five years of me being married to this handsome man.


We're celebrating later this summer with a week-long trip to the beach with several other couples who also got married in 2008.  It's our group 5-year anniversary trip. :)

And tonight Uncle Danny will be babysitting so Dave and I can go on one of the maybe three dates we get per year.  (Thanks Dan!)

I love you David Neil Snoke!  I know we have many exciting years ahead of us! :)

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Oh How I Miss It

Oh how I miss blogging. I really do. I miss the outlet, the documentation of life events, the community.

Life has simply caught up with me lately. We have been traveling a lot. When home, I've been trying to catch up on everything that didn't get done while we were traveling. We've had some difficult family events that have sucked my emotional energy. My two boys are keeping me on my toes. And honestly, there are times when I could be blogging, but instead I'd rather be taking them to the pool or playground or a friend's house. And in those moments I always choose the fun activity over blogging. I think that's what anyone would hope I would choose?

I've had some family members tell me lately that they miss my blogging. And I can understand this. Really, it's the only way that some of them keep up with the boys as they grow. And I hate to take that from them.

Anyway, I don't know what the point of all this is, other than to acknowledge that I know there's been a lapse in my blogging, that there's no purposeful reason for it, and that it's not preferred but it's unfortuantely falling low on the priority list right now.

Hopefully it can move up on the priority list sometime soon. :)

Love,
Kara