1sts

We had a fun week of firsts this past week.  Starting with Brigham's first trip to the fair (a family favorite) as well as our first Weird Al concert (surprisingly very entertaining and fun).

First haircut.  We are so grateful for our friend that knew exactly how to keep him occupied with kitchen utensils to distract him from what she was doing.

Most importantly, we celebrated Brigham's 1st Birthday!  He enjoyed looking at cards from grandparents and great grandparents.

He loved all the Mickey Mouse decorations that grandma got for him.

Loved the presents.

And especially loved the cake. 

I can't believe it has already been a year since he was born.  He is such a happy, loving boy and he is constantly making everyone around him laugh and smile.  He is such a joy to have in our home and we feel so blessed to be his parents.

Survival and Accomplishment

Looks like we have survived the latest double ear infection requiring two rounds of antibiotics and a virus that gave Brigham a sore throat, high fevers, and a weird rash all over his body.  I'm becoming quite familiar with the pediatricians office with three visits in four weeks.  And Brigham is becoming quite accustomed to his syringe full of antibiotics morning and night.  After lots of naps, cuddling, whining, waking up in the night, and watching Winnie-the-Pooh, he finally seems to be getting back to his normal happy self. I had to share this cute picture of my brother taking care of the babies while my mom and I snuck away for an hour.  I was worried Brigham would give him a hard time because he had been so clingy and whiney with his sickness, but this is what we came home too.

Aside from surviving a virus and infection, I managed to finish a photobook with highlights from the first 12 years of my life.  This project has been on my list for quite a few years now, so it feels so great to finally have it done!  My brother has an awesome scanner that can scan photos at high quality and fast speeds.  It made this project so much easier.  Especially since my sister-in-law actually scanned most of them for me.  He is willing to rent it out if anyone is interested in a big photo project like this in the future.  These are a few of my favorites from the project.

 I just love the many rolls you can see in this picture.

Love how incredibly young my dad looks in this picture.  I'm not sure exactly how old he is (24?) but to me he looks like he is about 17.

 Love my cute sister and our matching nautical knit jumpsuits that we wore all over Nauvoo.

My very first trip to Disneyland!  Don't I look so happy?  I have pictures with all sorts of characters from this trip and it reminded me how nice it was when the characters just roamed the park and you could walk up to them and take pictures.  No waiting in long lines behind people getting autographs, only to get to the front of the line and have the worker tell you that Mickey needs a break and will be replaced by some other less desirable character.  But I suppose they didn't have fastpasses then, so I will take the fastpass improvement over the character photo opportunities.

I love these photos with grandparents and cousins.

 I also really like this one of me and Caleb.  Maybe because he looks like such a giant baby and his head is almost as big as mine.

Somehow my mom talked me into dressing like Abraham Lincoln for our 5th grade state fair.  I remember feeling ridiculous as a child (just like I felt ridiculous when she made me dress in a sheet and chains like Jacob Marley from the Christmas Carol to give my 4th grade book report).  But now I think it is pretty funny, and realize that my teachers probably appreciated our creativity.

This book project made me think a lot about the "less is more" idea when it comes to photos.  There are plenty of things I wish I had more pictures of from when I was little, but because I have less photos the good ones I do have seem to mean a lot more to me.  I'm extremely grateful for digital cameras and how easy it is to take lots of photos, but I've also been inspired to delete more and only keep the best so that I don't become completely overwhelmed with mass amounts of pictures.

Life Lately

After a very busy June and first half of July, our summer slowed down quite a bit.  We've been enjoying lots of time at home, mostly doing our normal daily routine.  Here is a bit of what that has consisted of.

Brigham has become an awesome sleeper!  Especially when he has a few pacifiers.  He prefers one in his mouth and one for each hand.  We originally had extras in there so when he threw one out during the night we wouldn't have to go searching for it and could just get another one off the side railing.  Then he figured this out and before actually laying down to go to sleep he would crawl to each railing and pull off any of the pacifiers that were there so he could hold them while sleeping.

 He has found some interesting positions to sleep in and if you look carefully you can see four pacifiers in this one.

 We've tried lots of new foods lately.  His favorites are cheese, grapes, blueberries, and watermelon.  He appears to be able to eat as many of these things as we will let him.  Still not too sure about all the vegetables and meats, but we are working on it.

 Brigham loves making music and listening to music.  He has started flapping or waving his arms when certain songs come on that he enjoys.  He looks like he is trying to conduct his own choir.

 He has discovered the kitchen cupboards and drawers and likes to help "organize" them.

 He enjoys chewing on the furniture, especially while he is watching Mickey Mouse,

 He loves books.  He gets super excited when it is time to read stories.  I will hold out two books for him to choose between and he just giggles and stares at the two of them like there is no way he could actually choose between such great options.  Now he can flip through board books on his own so he will go to his shelf of books in the living room and pull them out one at a time and look through them.

He also really enjoys his new swimming pool that doubles as a ball pit when we are inside.

 We took him to his first baseball game.  I think he was a little afraid of the mascot.

 We also took him to his first football game.  I'm pretty sure he loved it.

 Brigham has really been loving his newest cousins.  He loves to go and watch baby Aidyn as soon as she comes over.  He is actually really gentle with her and will lean over and stare at her or touch with a finger.  He loves to be held with her so he can sit right next to her.  Of course, when I tried to take a picture of this he saw the camera and started cheesing it for the picture, so it isn't quite the sentimental moment it was before, but what can I say?  The kid loves the camera.

 He also loves cousin Milo and crawls up to him to give him kisses (or sometimes he might be trying to steal his pacifier).

There's a little glimpse into our life lately.  We sure are grateful for our happy little boy.  We have so much fun with him and can't believe how fast he is learning and growing.