Family Reunion

We recently were able to attend the first annual Layton family reunion. With 5 kids 2 and under, it was quite the experience! I think all the kids shall have lots of fun together once they get a little older and begin to learn to interact more.

I got to go early and have some fun time with the girls, kids, and Nana and Papa. It was such fun for me to get to know my sisters-in-law better. I can't wait for future reunions!

It was fun for Peter to get to meet his cousins and aunts and uncles. Although a little shy and standoffish, by the end of the week, he warmed up considerably. Here are some pictures documenting some of the events:

 

All 5 grandkids at once. This is at the Des Moines zoo. It was fun, but I think Peter will enjoy zoos a little more when he's a little older. I thin it was a lot of fun for the older grandkids especially.

 

Oddly, they have a dinosaur exhibit at the zoo. I wasn't aware that zoos had dinosaur exhibits. The dinosaurs even moved a bit.

 

The lovely and sweet Cali Layton with little Ariana and Peter. Ariana is a little over 1 month older than Peter. I know they'll be great friends. Ariana is a little sweetheart! She started to walk at the family reunion, and it was so fun to see her toddling around.

 

A rare view of the three oldest children holding hands. This is Meadow, Reuben, and little Cozy. So sweet!

 

Peter didn't really know what to make of the animals in the petting zoo.

 

A crazy coi pond. I couldn't believe all the fish in there!

 

Some fun at a mall play area. I wish we had places as nice as this in Germantown. All the grandkids had lots of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

The youngest 4 grandkids all in grocery carts at Costco. Gotta love those huge carts.

 

And finally the Iowa State Fair. You've never been to a fair until you've been to this one. Pretty amazing! They had a really fun little place for all the kids to practice farming. Peter was a little too young for all of this, but he had fun riding on Daddy's shoulders and wearing his hat.

 

The older kids got to ride in fun little tractor cars. This is Lauren and Jason's sweet little family.

 

 

Cozanne won a first place blue ribbon for her awesome dollhouse that she submitted for the fair. It was pretty awesome! Congratulations, Nana! Ray also won a first place blue ribbon for a carving of Moses with a walking stick. I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of this, nor did I even get to see it! I've heard it was quite impressive though. Hopefully I'll get to see a picture soon. Congrats, Papa!

 

Peter smiling at his aunt Lauren. He and his auntie got along famously.

So sad I didn't get pictures of Jordan, Anna, Papa, or me. Oh well. We'll try again next year!

Happy Birthday Peter!

 

One year?! Where did the time go? What a good year it's been. Chris and I have been blessed with such a sweet, mellow, curious, smart little boy. We are so happy to have him in our family and can't wait to see him continue to grow. We love you, Peter!

 

One of his birthday presents. A little too advanced for him at this stage, but hopefully he'll pick up on it in a little while.

 

Peter's first experience in a bubble bath. He loved it.

 

 

Peter loves time with his daddy. And Daddy loves time with Peter, especially when he gets to play with Peter's new birthday toys at the same time! :)

 

Peter has been talking and talking more and more all the time. He says so many things, it's hard to keep track. Although he is still fond of babbling and jabbering nonsensical sounds. He does it constantly when we're at home and he's happy.

One of Peter's favorite things to do is to read books. I just love this about him, as one of Chris's and my favorite things to do together is read books together. I can't wait for the time when I can introduce him to Harry Potter.

This past month, Peter has started to walk just holding on with one hand, though tentatively. He's still pretty nervous about this whole bipedal thing. Perhaps he'll be walking by 13 months, but I'm not holding my breath for it!

Peter is slowly getting used to eating our food, but he still has a hard time with vegetables. He prefers them in puree form. But thankfully he isn't allergic to peanut butter, because it's so much easier than cooking something for him or pureeing something for him. I'm liking this new stage of eating.

I have a video of Peter demolishing his birthday cupcake that I'll try to post soon. It's kind of funny, and it was amusing to see that he didn't like to have chocolate cake and frosting all over his hands. He's not quite as fastidious with not being sticky as his mother is, but it's there.

11 months

 

11 month old Peter is still chubby and happy. This month brought two more teeth (finally!) totalling four. He also started to talk. By the end of the month, he was saying ball (first word other than mama and dada), teeth, Ewww!, mama, dada, hello (for some reason, he bypassed "hi"), bath, up (his first fully formed word), and two more I can't remember at this time. :( Should have blogged sooner!

 

Behold the device that Chris placed under Peter's feet to stop him from pounding his heels on the chair. We have a VERY particular neighbor who is not used to the poor sound insulation in these apartments. She has come up on numerous occasions and asked us to please stop making so much noise. One time, Chris dropped a pot once. Another time, Peter threw his toys on the floor. And another time, I was walking too loudly as I was trying to quickly bring groceries in from the car because Peter was occupied in his exersaucer play thing. The most recent time, Peter was pounding his heels on his chair. sigh. Poor kid does it all the time because he's happy, but I guess that is off limits. There have been more visits, but I can't remember what they were for. We also have to deal with noise from our neighbors upstairs, but I haven't complained yet. I sorta figure that's part of living in old apartment.

 

I love this picture! Mostly because it shows how amazingly chubby and rolley polley he is! But also because it reminds me of all the times that Peter likes to run away from me after I clean him up from particularly messy diapers. This particular event led to him peeing on the floor because I got the camera instead of making him sit still for a diaper. I guess that's what I get.

 

Our family's first trip to the National Mall. Peter actually wore his hat long enough for me to take this picture, but only just that long. His head is so big that I can't bring the straps together to velcro. So the hat comes off instead.

 

Tribute to Julia Child. There's a Kitchen Aid in there, and I had to wonder if she ever used a Kitchen Aid mixer... Anyway, this is the only picture we managed to take during our trip, for whatever reason. Too much to see to think about pictures, I guess. Peter was remarkably patient throughout the whole thing. He very much enjoys looking at his surroundings, especially when they're new to him.

 

Peter is busy cruising around on furniture these days, but he hasn't wanted to take any steps independent of both hands on furniture. Someday...

Peter and Daddy

No one can get Peter to laugh like his daddy. I love seeing them play together. So cute!

Crawling baby

This is the first day that Peter started to crawl, and I think this was the third time that he crawled. Now he's crawling like a pro and getting into everything! It's a very exciting and different new phase.

10 months

 

Good grief, where does the time go? I can't believe my baby boy is almost a year old! Just a couple more months to go.
First, I neglected to mention that Peter got his first two teeth at 8 months. Although it has been two months, he has not gotten any more teeth, so he's just got two on the bottom. He's had a couple instances with rough nights where it seemed like he was teething (like this week when he was awake twice in the night for a total of 4 hours!), but still, no teeth.
Peter is now a pro at clapping and frequently does it whenever he wants to elicit a smile from us, or from strangers. He has started learning to wave finally, but doesn't always remember to raise his arm. Mostly, he just opens and closes his hand.
He still hasn't addressed Chris or me as Dada and Mama, but I suppose that will come eventually. However, if he wakes up crying in his crib, he will often cry, "mamamama". Whether or not that's to get me to come get him, I'm not sure. He does sometimes mimic sounds, but no words yet.

 

For some reason, Peter is very excited in this picture. He likes to flap his arms quickly and squint his eyes when he's very excited. He's nothing if not enthusiastic.

 

Well, he's STILL not crawling, but he does manage to get around, nonetheless. He will turn and back up and roll. But for some reason he can't figure out how to crawl forward.

 

Peter was sick with a high fever recently. It worried me to see him so listless and to see him sleep so much! It's scary when it's your first kid to get sick for the first time. Anyway, right before I took him to the doctor, his fever finally broke. Still not sure what he had, because he had no other symptoms. I got sick a week later with a low grade fever and a persistent sore throat, but I'm not sure if we had the same thing.
The picture above is Peter on the second day, and feeling a little bit better but not totally well.

 

This is the day that Peter started pulling himself up to standing. We decided we needed to drop his crib down. He was enjoying peeking out at us through the bars. He has also recently started to sit up (finally!) on his own. So, another good reason to drop the crib.

 

Peter's habit of crawling backwards often results in his backing up underneath things. He frequently gets stuck under his dresser or chairs. Kinda funny, when he's still in good humor and not yet frustrated by his immobility.

 

I just love his smile in this picture. He's a happy boy at mealtimes. I believe this particular mealtime was grilled cheese with pureed veggies on the side. He still does not have interest in veggies in the finger food form. Hopefully with time he'll get the hang of it.

 

Peter backed up under a chair again.

 

...and again.

In other news, I got to go visit my parents this past month. It was a very short visit, but a good one. I decided not to bring Peter because of the whole pumping thing. And Chris didn't have very much time off to take care of Peter, so it was just over the weekend. It was very, very strange to be without my son for two whole days! I missed my guys, but I must say, I did get some good rest! No waking baby at 5:00 in the morning!

Chris recently started a rotation with Health and Human Services for 6 months. He has been working with the Office of Personnel Management for some time now, and has been enjoying the work and doing very well there. Hopefully he will enjoy his time with HHS. It is a little harder because they have a later schedule, so Chris gets home a little later. And Chris won't be able to work from home on Wednesdays as he has done with OPM. Oh well, it'll only be for six months.

9 months take two

Unfortunately, my first blog post on Peter reaching 9 months was mysteriously deleted, as if it never existed. So, I'll try it again.


Peter is still as chubby as ever, as you can see. He's not crawling, and therefore, not burning off any of the extra calories that he's consuming. :) Oh well. I think his chub suits him. He is starting to eat finger foods, although unless I feed them to him, he usually just plays with them, for some reason. Occasionally a piece of food will make it to his mouth, but only on rare occasions. I find this ironic, because he puts every things else in his mouth with which he comes into contact. Oh well. His favorite food at the moment is pasta with red sauce.


Peter exhibiting his joy of putting everything in his mouth. As this is our DVD remote, this particular joy didn't last very long.

Peter's 9 month appointment went pretty well. Only one shot, so that was great! He is in the 75th percentile across the board again. He weighs in at a whopping 22 lbs. At this point, we have given up his infant carrier because he's just SO heavy! And since he's now crawling or walking, we get to carry him around everywhere we go.

Peter's motor skills (aside from his good pincer grasp) is a little slow. He doesn't seem interested in becoming mobile in the slightest. He doesn't roll around, although I suspect this is because all his attention is focused on being upset about being on his back and belly. He rolls onto his side all the time, and even sleeps on his side lately, but that's about all the mobility he's got. If we put him on his belly and put a toy in front of him, he crawls backwards, which of course is very frustrating for him. If we just put him on the floor without any toys, he'll crawl in a circle. But, never forward. So, he continues to protest being on his belly. Being on his back is about equally repugnant to him. And since I'm a softie, I usually pick him up before he gets too frustrated. So, I suppose I'm to blame for his lack of mobility.

Peter has recently started to figure out clapping. He doesn't really make noise, but he brings his hands together in a repetive fashion. He particularly likes to clap when I am congratulating him on eating his vegetables. In fact, lately it seems if I don't congratulate him enough, he'll start to clap to get me going. Funny boy!

He has started to get over his stranger anxiety. I think we're raising a bit of a ham, because he is starting to give people big smiles again whenever we go out.

Sleeping is going much better, at long last! I was beginning to get worried that Peter would always be a short napper, but I guess that's not the case. He usually sleeps for about 2-3 hours a day, and usually wakes up only once a night (and sometimes not at all!). I am trying to wean him off his night bottle, because you only have to look at him to realize that he probably doesn't need the extra milk. I've been giving him smaller and smaller bottles, and I've got him down to 2 ounces at this point. But, he seems to like to play when he gets up. After I put him back down in his crib, he'll happily talk to himself for another half hour before falling asleep. Oh well.


Peter's fat little feet, with my long finger toes. I used to hate feet until I had Peter. His feet are just cute to me for some reason. I love how his toes don't even come over the pad of his feet--his feet are just so thick! Not sure how he's gonna walk on those things! :)


New haircut. This boy has inherited his father's hair. He has coarse hair that grows REALLY fast. This is his third haircut so far, and he's only 9 months. If I don't keep it short, it fluffs up in all directions, especially when his hair is newly washed and dried.


Peter with his new bunny. A gift from Chris's Aunt Margy. He loves it!