365 days

Dear Boston,

Today you are one! That is so weird for me to say... That is 365 amazing days spent with you. And you decided to celebrate by taking your first step this week! You keep trying and before long you will be walking. Wow. Your daddy and I are so proud of you and all the things you are learning. You have been such a sweetheart from the beginning. We see you constantly observing things and taking it all in.

Recently, you have discovered opening and closing things. You love to open drawers, empty them, and do it all over again. That makes sense that your favorite books are the kind with flaps to open. In fact, you love any sort of game with searching and finding. 

Daddy and I always mention that it is nice when you go down for bed but we miss you when you are sleeping. I remember a year ago feeling so anxious to have you here with us, and we are so glad you are in our family. 

It is so much fun to play with you - and you always like to stay busy. You love walks in the stroller, but sadly it is getting too cold to keep doing that. We will have to find another way to get out each day, because I know how much you like seeing new places and things. In your year with us you have been to California, Texas, Idaho, Utah (park city, temple square, Zion's national park) and a short jaunt in New Mexico on our way to Texas. Every adventure has been better with you as a part of it. 

A few more things you love right now are:

-Other kids your age. You love playing with your cousins especially. You know when someone is your peer.

-Trying new foods. You have decided that you want to eat anything you see us eating so you crawl around begging for food if we haven't already given you something to try. I don't blame you - I get jealous when I see people eating something yummy too ;) 

- Jabbering. You love to make noises and hum and copy us. You recognize when there is a dog barking and you try to say 'dog' when you hear it. You also say things like 'mamama' and 'dadada'. You also learned how to blow through a whistle this week - just in time to blow out a candle I guess! :)

- you love going to bed early (and waking up super early) and you prefer to sleep in your bed. Any other place is just too interesting for sleep. 

- you love bath time. As soon as you hear me filling up the tub you come crawling as quickly as you can. In general you love going in the bathroom - whenever you see the door open you go for it.

- You are sneaky. If we try and steer you away from something, you will pretend to forget about it and when you think we aren't looking you just go right back to it. 

- you love socks - not wearing them, just holding them. You just love having one in each hand as you crawl around.

- anything fuzzy or hairy. You just love the feel (and especially taste) of hair or fuzz or string. I don't like it very much when I see you pulling dust and fuzz out from under the couch to eat it. But we made it this far! :)

- you love music. Every time you hear fun music you start smiling and bouncing up and down. You quickly understood what to do with daddy's drum set and the keyboard. 

- giving kisses, high fives, and waving. You give kisses all the time, high fives only when you are in the mood, and you wave to say hello and goodbye. It is so fun!

- remotes, noisy toys, and the like. You love things that have buttons and make noise. 

I could go on forever. I just love that I get to watch you grow. I am constantly thanking Heavenly Father for letting me be your mom. I think I learn just as much from you as you do from me. You have a strong spirit and it blesses our home. You have given daddy and I a new sense of perspective and what is most important in life - our family. Everything we do is because we want our family to grow and be strong - living a life of faith. We love you so much and look forward to many more years to come.

Love,

Mommy

Standing up on your own - your new favorite thing!

No doubt you are working on eating a hair right there. :) 

Standing! And fall(ing)

I realized I failed at blogging this summer. I had a couple of posts started but never finished them so now it seems silly to post a blog entitled "San Antonio first half" since we finished both halves now. We are back in Utah! San Antonio was amazing - a great summer of growing and learning for all 3 of us. I will change the name of my posts to something more like "San Antonio, we did go there but had too much fun that we forgot to document it for everyone to see so here is your belated update..." and eventually post it, but for now I will just write about our current events. :) (cue long post)...

Well, it is fall now! The nights are getting chilier (I guess that is a word) and school is in full swing. Chandler is finishing his masters of information systems (1.5 semesters to go!) and working part time for a company in the area. It was an answer to prayer that he found this job - which is a perfect fit for us. He can work from home most of the time and it is so nice to put some money back in the bank (especially after grad tuition). He works so hard. We really feel blessed and grateful. 

I am back to teaching dance a few nights a week to my wonderful students. They really grew and matured while I was gone and it is so fun to jump back in and try to keep the momentum going. I definitely missed teaching this summer and am glad to be back to it. 

I spend most of my time being mommy to our little Boss - who is not quite so little anymore! Boston is standing up now all the time! He has great balance and is very careful when climbing and crawling places. And he walks along holding the furniture sometimes. He still uses crawling as his go-to for getting around though. He explores EVERYTHING. I am so glad he wasn't this age in Texas because our place was so small and we would have gone crazy. Thankfully we have much more space now for him to roam. A few more fun things about Boss: he loves to watch Frozen (still), he loves trying new foods and wants to eat everything we eat (yay for getting a high chair finally), he is very good at turning pages in books, he understands how to give a high-five (as of yesterday!), he loves going on walks in the stroller, and he loves playing with other kids - especially his cousins.

Speaking of which, we have so much family near by now! We have learned a lot by living away from family but it is so nice to be close to some of them again. Family get-togethers have been so much fun. It has been several years since me and most of my siblings have lived so close so we are milking it for all it's worth. 

We are enjoying some good, and busy, times! 

And if you made it this far you deserve some pictures so here you go - a bunch of pictures from the last month!

Future musician?

Trying to find the toy under the cup!

Penelope!

It looks like they are having story time

Missing Janelle!

Sharing :)

He loves pushing this thing around!

Dear Boston

Happy 9 months little man! We love watching you grow and learn about the world around you. I can't believe it has already been 9 months. You should try not to grow up so fast!

You have really taken off recently. A week or so ago you figured out how to pull yourself up to stand. Now you are walking along the furniture! But you don't underestimate the speed you can get with crawling. You love it when we chase you across the room and then you chase us right back. It's a fun game for all of us. :) You scream and wave your hands around and start panting when you get excited - it is so adorable! And you have a such melodic laugh and giggle we can't help but tickle you.

You are full of adventure, but you also appreciate time in familiar surroundings. You love playing and having our full attention but don't complain when you are exploring something on your own. Before diving into anything you like to observe and assess the situation first. You are like your daddy in that way. It's like you are weighing all your options before you make a decision. That will help you make wise decisions when you are older. I love watching your deep brown eyes and tiny hands picking at something so tiny like a button or a piece of fuzz. You don't take the little things for granted. But if you hear a sudden noise or see something cool you get easily distracted from what you are doing. You are like me in that way - you have to know what is going on with everyone. :)

When you meet new people you can be shy at first, but then you flash your widest smile. The ladies in relief society at church love you - and you love to flirt with them :). You especially love kids your age - it's almost like you realize they are your peers learning the same things you are.

You love to read books with us. And lately you want to turn the pages by yourself. You want to be more independent in a lot of ways. You want to feed yourself, but you don't like many different foods. At least not yet. You have 7 teeth, so that will help when you become more interested in trying new foods. 

You have a lot of thick, light brown hair. I think you need your first hair cut, but I am holding off because it is just so cute and wavy on the ends. You are starting to lose some of your chub and look more grown up. Time is going too fast!

When you are tired you love to listen to mommy and daddy sing songs and hymns to you, and sometimes you try to hum along while you cuddle and suck your thumb. When you are in my arms you like to rest your head sometimes, but when daddy holds you it's like you want him to take you on an adventure. You try and face out right away to see everything. 

You love talking - and eventually we will know what you are saying. You can say mama and dada, but you don't seem to know exactly what they mean yet. But you know your name for sure and you turn and smile when you hear it. You are also a pro at clicking your tongue! You love to copy sounds and faces that we make - so we are trying our best to be good examples.

Your daddy and I pray for you every morning and night and throughout the day. We pray for you to be healthy and strong and safe. We pray that we can help you learn and reach your potential. We thank Heavenly Father for the spirit and joy you bring to out family. We love you so much!

Carnival of the animals

My students had their concert the last weekend in May. It was a great show. They performed in Carnival of the Animals and I had classes that were aviary and aquarium. I had three pieces of choreography in the show and I couldn't be more proud of how my students did. The parents that I talked to were impressed with the improvement their daughters have made - I am glad they can see that because I get to see it in action every day in class. All of my students really worked hard this year. I will be back to teach some of them in the fall, but I am teaching fewer classes and a group of the girls have moved up or are leaving so I will miss this specific group of girls. It is definitely bittersweet to see students move up because I feel like they are my own girls in a way. I love to see them progress and move up but I miss them when we don't spend nearly every day together anymore. I think I have said it before but I love being a teacher because it is so fulfilling. 

I had a group of girls perform for their first time on pointe and they did great! For being on pointe for a little less than a year, they did fantastically. They looked strong and did a lot better than I did the first performance that I wore pointe shoes! haha... Also, for one of the shows Boston and Chandler came to watch and Boston loved being in the audience and backstage. It was so much to take in and observe. The girls loved seeing him too of course :)

My cute girls surprised me with a gift at the last show - to say thank you and goodbye for the summer. They brought a tutu out on stage when all the teachers came out and put it around my waist (when I caught them making it they said it was for the studio director so it was definitely a surprise to find out it was for me). They also gave me a gift box with a beautiful dancer necklace inside. I got lots of hugs and a few tears after the show :) Show time is always so fun and I am grateful I have Chandler's support in what I do.

Now for the load of pictures!

Backstage

Warm up class

Pointe warm up

Mini company - aquarium. Sadly I didn't get any shots of them on stage.

Jr company/pointe class girls - aviary. We are missing a couple of girls. 

My dancers on stage:

Pointe class with level 2 dancers - and I am so proud of the girls who weren't on pointe yet but were fantastic understudies.

Jr. company aviary - full class

A few other dances from the show:

I have the best job ever!

Surprise!

For Mother's Day we decided to drive up to Idaho to visit Chandler's mom and surprise the whole family for a weekend getaway. We just told Chandler's dad we were coming and he snuck us in late at night on Friday. The next morning we came down to breakfast and surprised everyone. It was so fun to do something like that! We got it all on video here.

It is always good to see family, and Boston loves seeing and interacting with different people. We got to stay until Monday morning. Chandler was so wonderful and got me delicious truffles and a nice card for Mother's day. We also got to skype with Chandler's brother who is on his mission in Ohio since we were there. We wish we could have visited my mom too. :) 

The whole gang in Idaho! We are just missing Jonah - on his mission. 

My little family on Mother's Day :)

Boston with the guys

Cousin love