Hello Crew: 11 Months Old

Age:

11 months!

How the heck is he almost a year old! I didn't think this would be sad or hard for me but the more I think about it the more emotional I get. ahh I just can't believe he is getting so big and we have almost made it a year!

Stats:

About 19.5 pounds. 

Favorites:

• Observing EVERYTHING around him. He is always checking out what is around him. Trying to figure out where sounds are coming from. He stares people down if they try to interact with him. Then people always say he is very inquisitive, which he is, very much so. 
• Starting to scream and use his voice a lot more. It is really fun to see his personality really start to come out. 

• Climbing on anything he can. We had our Christmas tree box out for a few days and he was obssesed with climbing on top of it and then reaching to whatever he could, like a chair next to it, his jumping toy. I would be standing next to him making sure to catch him if he was to fall but he was being so brave. In his bedroom I have my sewing stuff and he climbed up on some boxes then pulled himself up to the table and was grabbing things off the table. He isn't even walking yet and he is making me really nervous. 

• On January 8th he learned to clap. I was trying to teach him that morning and he wasn't really into it. After his morning nap we were laying in bed and I turned on Baby Einstein on my phone. He was watching it for a while and then all of a sudden he started clapping while the music was playing! We were shocked. It was adorable! Slowly over the next few days he would do it when we cheered for him or when he heard music. Lately he has been doing it more and more. A lot of times it is when something exciting is happening, like a football game on TV or loud music.

• Loves getting into the cupboards. He figured out he can get into the pots and pans cupboard and loves to pull things out. He even climbs into the cupboard if he can get his footing right. He also gets into the dish towels and pot holders drawer. He LOVES when we open the refrigerator or when we open the dishwasher. He wants to climb into both of them. 
• We have a Swifer like thing to pick up dirt and hair and every time I get it out Crew crawls straight to it. He loves trying to push it around. I'm teaching him to clean young. haha
• When we open the car door to get him out of his carseat we are ALWAYS greeted with the biggest smile. It is one of my favorite things. I love how excited and happy he is to see us. 

Least Favorite:

• He hates when we don't let him play with all the cords. He looooooves any kind of cord he can get his hands on. When I take them away from him he gets really mad at me so I try to distract him with something else.

Sleep:

no comment....haha (insert cringe emoji) 

Eat:

Eating a lot lately. Loving whatever we give him. He is not a huge fan of weird textures like a piece of banana, although he likes the flavor of banana, and also eggs. But we have been giving him a lot more types of food and he seems to really enjoy most of them. Some days he will eat a lot and others only a little. I'm sure it has to do with how he feels or teething.

Play:

• He loves to run away from us. He will start crawling away from me, usually towards something he isn't supposed to get, like Zoii's food or water, and I will say something like "Crew, what are you doing" and he will look at me, smile, get really excited and then start crawling really fast towards it. A lot of times I will start chasing him and he thinks it is hilarious. He is such a fun kid. 

Crew's first BYU Men's Volleyball Game

• Recently he has started clicking his tongue. He has only done it a few times and it is really quick. We just randomly hear it and then try and get him to do it again but he never does. 
• He has these moments where he gets really excited to see and grab Zoii. He grabs onto her and gets really happy and makes these cooing noises. Its adorable and hilarious. 

During Crew's 11th month...

• This month we got to celebrate Crew's first Christmas! For the first time we got to play Santa and I am so excited about it! I am so excited that we now have a child to celebrate the holidays with. It really does make the holiday more fun and magical. I'm so excited to watch him experience the joy of the Christmas season and to start our own family traditions. On Christmas morning Crew woke up early so it was just me and him wondering the house for a little while and it was kinda nice to start the morning quite and really thinking about why this day is so special. Crew really had no idea what was going on but he loved his new toy to stand with and all of the boxes from everyones presents. There were so many fun things for him to play with, toys and not, he was busy all day long. 

• After Christmas we traveled to Park City to spend the week with the Sorensen family. Crew loved having his cousin Ryder to play with. A lot of the time he would just follow him around and always wanted to do what he was doing. We took him out in the snow for about five minutes. It was so cold outside! But he did love getting pulled around on a little sled we got. We did it inside and outside and he thought it was a blast! We spent the days relaxing and/or skiing. It is beautiful up there. 

• Crew has officially lived in two years and he isn't even one yet. ha yay. Crew enjoyed the new year by sleeping and then waking up an hour later to eat. We are excited for the New Year and excited to celebrate Crew's 1st birthday soon! 

Love you so much little baby boy who won't be a baby for much longer. ah.
love,alex&andrew

Hello Crew: 10 months old

Age:

10 Months! 

My cute little family. haha

Stats:

At 9 1/2 months he was... 

18.5 lbs

and 

28.5 inches long

He loved the ornaments


My little babies

Favorites:

• Loves getting our shoes. Especially the ones with laces and pulling them around the living room. 
• Putting anything he can get ahold of in his mouth. Like when he finds my hair brush he loves chewing on the end of it. Or the bumpers we put on the TV stand. He just rips them off and chews on them. 
• Loves chasing the vacuum. He can't be sitting on the ground when we are vacuuming or he tries to catch it. 
• Also loves to grab the toilet paper. He loves pulling it, and pulling it and pulling it. oh boy. 

First Thanksgiving. My little Turkey! 

Least Favorites:

• Learning to sleep on his own. We tried sleep training during nap time. And no. It was horrible. Screwed up our days. and nights. and now I am just going to go with the flow because it works.
• Doesn't like to be held for too long. At church he sits on our laps for the first hour and then usually needs a nap. But because we are somewhere new Crew wants to explore and see everything. He loves just crawling around a room or down the halls. He gets so excited and loves watching people walk by, especially if its a child. 
• Teething. It's horrible. He was teething over Thanksgiving so he was super needy, slobbery, clingy, and so on. You can definitely tell when a tooth is about to push through.

Sleep:

If it ever gets better I will let you know... haha

He did learn to fall asleep at night without nursing. I really thought that was going to help the whole sleep situation, especially the naps but so far it hasn't done much. He naps twice a day. One nap is usually two hours long and the other is around 45 minutes to an hour. Lately I have been just laying down to sleep with him or I sit and hold him and read a book, watching videos on YouTube, or just look around on social media. Some days I enjoy that time a lot and other days I want to get more done. I try to really enjoy that time with my little guy. He is growing way to fast and is just adorable and I know this time is really special! 

Eat:

He has moments where he eats SO good. He will eat a whole container of baby food in one sitting one night and then the next he will only eat a few bites. It is so random! There is no rhyme or reason to anything this kid does.. at least none that we have been able to figure out. 

Loves chewing on the spoon

Sharing food

Play:

• Loves to roll balls around the apartment and chase after them.
• Always walking around holding onto things. He goes from holding the coffee table to holding his toy to holding the couch to holding the TV stand. He loves standing and walking around things.

Really enjoying eating the bowl

Smilly boo

During Crew's 10th month....

• We enjoyed Crew's first Thanksgiving in St George with the Sorensen's. It was a fun and relaxing time. Like I said above Crew was teething so it was a little rough. On Thanksgiving day he was great and hung out with Andrew and his dad in the morning while I helped make  food. Then he took a nice long nap...actually through dinner. It was a nice day just enjoying good food and good family. 
• We celebrated Andrew's birthday at home making waffles. Then that week we went to Marilee's house (Andrew's birth mom) and Crew got to meet her kids and husband. He got to climb up stairs for the first time and he loved it. He was obssesed with going up the stairs. The kids loved to get him to follow them up. It was his first time trying to climb the stairs and he was a natural. 

Celebrating dads birthday

• Crew met Santa Clause when we went to the Riverwoods for dinner one night. He wasn't a huge fan of that. Getting handed to a stranger probably wasn't the best for him. It was cute before the crying started. 
• On December 19 we went to the BYU bowl game. It was such a crazy game! Emotionally exhausting really. HA but it was a lot of fun. Crew did wonderful. He played on our laps the first half of the game and then I put him in the carrier with his head phones on and walked around for a little bit and he fell asleep. He then slept the rest of the game. It was amazing. Especially because we were screaming a few times and jumping up and down. 

Overall it was a great month for Crew and for us. I love spending the holidays with my beautiful family. I love having a little baby boy to spend the holidays with. He makes things so wonderful and magical. We are so blessed to have him in our life. 

What a wonderful life. 

love,alex&andrew

Hello Crew: 9 months old

Age:

9 months old! 

Stats:

on 12/7/15, at 9 1/2 months he is.. 

28.5 inches long

and 18.5 pounds

Favorites:

• Loves standing more than sitting. He is always pulling up on things. 
• Loves the FaceTime ring and seeing himself in the phone. He always gets so happy and smily.
• Loves climbing all over me and pulling at anything I have, like my hair, hand, glasses, you name it. If I have something in my hand that he wants he does anything to get it. He pulls and pulls and reaches and reaches. 

Least Favorites:

• Hates being separated from mom. It's adorable and yet so exhausting. Is that bad to say? we are working through major separation anxiety.. and when you have been with someone all the time for your whole life and then they try to leave for a little while, I can see why that would be terrifying. 
• Doesn't like when you walk away from him.. he gets mad and usually crawls after you. If he is distracted with something else he is fine but if not he is like a little shadow. 

Sleep:

Exhausting. You would think three times the charm for sleep training but it doesn't seem to be so. We are taking a different approach now and we will see how it goes. wish us lots and lots of luck because apparently we need it. 

He stands up in his crib now. Luckily he doesn't do it too much at night but it was a shocker when he first did it. 

Eat:

• He is a snacker. Always hungry. always wanting to eat. never really eats enough that he is satisfied for long periods of time. Does great eating baby food for about five minutes and then he is over it and wants to get down. Still no bottle or sippy cup. Which makes me wonder what will happen when nursing ends..maybe by then we will just go straight to a cup. HA 
• He has gotten really good at picking things up with his pointer finger and thumb. So good that if any little thing is on the ground it goes straight to his mouth. and half the time I can't even see it when I am standing so it makes that fun. I have gotten better at keeping the floors extra clean...kinda.
• Gets really mad when we have food and we don't give him any. He starts making noise indicating that he wants some. 

Play:

He is officially, official crawling. He even knows to duck his head to get under something. 

Always on the move. finding new things.

He loves watching other kids. They are fascinating to him. I think we just need to make friends so that he has other kids to play with. 

We went to a Christmas fair with my sister Kjerstin and her daughter Haizlee. They were loving Crew and Crew loved playing with them. 

During Crew's 9 months...

He took his first trip to Kansas. It was quite the adventure getting out there. We had a connecting flight going through Dallas and the same weekend there was a hurricane going through Texas. The night before we were supposed to leave I got a call at 3:30am saying that the flight was cancelled and I am rescheduled to fly out on Sunday morning instead. I woke up to feed Crew so I ended up waking Andrew up and saying we weren't going to be able to go in the morning (He was headed to Idaho so after he dropped me off he was going to go straight there). I also texted my parents and told them the flight was cancelled. The problem with it changing a whole day is that I was going specifically that day to go to the ward Halloween party and then the next day was Nathan's Allegro concert. A few hours later I wake up to my parents calling saying they may have found a new flight. Although this one would only give me 29 minutes in my layover, now in Denver. So it was either take this flight and potentially miss my connecting flight and get stuck in Denver for the night or wait until Sunday to get to Kansas. I decided to take the risk and schedule the new flight. The other crazy thing is that when I got the confirmation it said the actual flight cost $5 and then there was $30 in fees...they were REALLY cheap flights.. cheapest we have ever seen. 

Crew got his own seat on one of the flights home. SO NICE! 

After we made the decision to go we had to rush out the door so that I could get to the airport in time. However once through security I learned that the fight was delayed a little, so I had plenty of time. Crew was doing great through all of this. He loves people watching. We left about 30 mins late and got to Denver right when my other flight was supposed to be leaving. I had to wait for the stroller and carseat so I was sure I had missed the connecting flight. I quickly speed walked to the gate. The gate was closed and it was completely empty except for two people working on the computer. I asked if there was any way the flight to Kansas was still there. They said well the gate is closed but we are still trying to get the paper work to go through so we will let you board!!! 

I was shaking at this point from the adrenaline. And kept saying thank you, thank you, you are amazing. I was shocked. They never open the door once it has been closed and they did for me!! 

I was really amazed that I had made it to Kansas at the time I planned. It was a miracle!

The week was awesome. I loved going to Nathan's concert. I was in Allegro all through high school and this was the first time I was able to sit in the audience and watch/listen. It was beautiful. I love music and am so glad it has been a large part of my life. 

Crew and I loved hanging out with my mom and dad and brothers, Nathan and Aaron. We had a fun time relaxing, shopping, and eating really good food that I miss and have to have every time I go home. It was nice having just hang out time with my family. Nothing really planned but just seeing how everyday went.

We were there while the Royals played in the World Series. It was really fun to watch the games with my family. They were so excited and it was fun to see everyone around town get so excited. I have never seen my mom get so into any sport. It was hilarious. 

It was Crew's first Halloween. Although he had no idea what was going on, he was adorable in all his costumes. He dressed as a skeleton all day and a puppy for the ward Halloween party and then a few pictures Halloween night. He then went to bed early and we passed out candy and watched the Royals game.

My mom, Crew and I went fabric shopping in Lawrence one day. It is such a cute town with some fun fabric stores. We could have spent hours in them if Crew hadn't gotten a little grumpy. We got some great ideas for future projects though. Then we went to lunch at a hamburger place and had the BEST onion rings of our lives. Yes, they were that gooood. and they were huge.. yum. 

Crew loved crawling around the house, chasing chester, and playing with all of grandmas toys. He got so much love, although he was afraid of everyone, especially when mom left the room. He definitely warmed up to everyone though. 

It was a wonderful trip. Luckily the trip home was much less eventful than the trip there. 

It was a busy and fun 9 month. 

We have so much love for this little boy! 

love, alex&andrew

BYU Homecoming 2015

On October 9 & 10 we celebrated BYU Homecoming. I had really wanted to go to the BYU Spectacular, which is dancing and music, this year they had David Archuleta as special guest, but I was nervous about taking Crew because his bedtime is between 8-8:30. Andrew got him some headphones for the football games so I figured that if he wore those and if he got really fussy we could walk around with him. Two days before the event I got on and got tickets. They had a disclaimer saying these seats were to the side of the stage so it would be hard to see but you could still see the big screen. That was perfect to me because I really just wanted to hear David and Vocal point (BYU's acapella group) sing.

Well night of the event we are going to our seats and yes they are on the side but it is the second row from the stage on the side. We kept thinking well maybe we are in the wrong seats, but sure enough they were the right ones! It was awesome! Since it was the side of the stage they also had no one sitting next to us so Crew had a little more room to wiggle around and even got to sit in his own chair. Crew did great the first half of the show. He loved watching all the dancing and the lights change colors. Then he started to get a little fussy because he was sleepy so I just walked up the steps to the top and stood in the dark door way and rocked him. Because he had his head phones on and the lights were dimmed he fell right to sleep. I was then able to just take a seat and rock him while watching the rest of the show! It was perfect! Those headphones were amazing because Crew can't fall asleep with any noise. He is really picky like that. If he hears anything he wakes right up. But even when the crowd went crazy for David and for Vocal Point he slept through it.

It was an amazing performance. As we were leaving I told Andrew that I want to come to this every year. We can do this show and the football game! A perfect combination for us. I loved when David and Vocal Point sang "Nearer my God to Thee." (here is a version of Vocal Point and BYU men's choir singing it. It is a really good version too) It was absolutely STUNNING! Ever since having Crew I have been a tad more sensitive and it made me tear up. It brought such an amazing spirit into the Marriott Center. It warmed me with an overwhelming sense of peace. I just love Davids voice and whenever he sings gospel songs it really makes me feel closer to God. I love it. I'm already looking forward to next year.. as long as we are in this state at least.

The next day, on Saturday, we went to the football game. It was the first game that was early enough for Crew to be able to come and not mess with his bed time too much. It started at 5:30 so I dropped Andrew off a little early to get seats and then Crew and I came right at kick off. Again the headphones were amazing!! The first quarter the sun was right in our faces so I stood behind the stands in the shade, which I actually enjoyed more too, and we watched the big screen. Second quarter we were able to watch the game then during half time I tried to find somewhere to feed him that was a little more private. I was SHOCKED to find that one of the bathrooms actually had a place for moms to go. They had a couple changing tables and chairs to feed in. It was perfect. There were a lot of moms in there feeding, comforting, and changing babies. Thank you BYU for being so considerate!

Afterwards I was able to walk around with Crew in the carrier and with the head phones on and he fell asleep. FOR THE REST OF THE GAME! I'm telling you it was awesome and I'm a major believer in those head phones. I'm so glad it went well. It was a great game. BYU won so it was perfect!! Overall it was just an awesome weekend and I thought I would finally blog about a specific event! Love stuff like this. We are so happy to be here in Provo and be able to attend so many awesome events. I love showing Crew all the wonderful things in this world!

love, alex&andrew