Promised pictures and updates!

So I have hit the ground running with my blogging adventures! Not. :( After a couple weeks I realized I wasn't blogging more often and I had made a poorly worded new years resolution. I never said how often I was going to blog. I am going to blog every week. Probably on Sunday because it will be my weekly journal for the week, and Sunday blogging (journaling) is considered a Sabbath appropriate activity! Check! So updates... Grant is walking! He is so little (tenth percentile)! But walking like a pro. He was never even scared and we barely encouraged it! So my little boy has reached all the "first year" milestones that a mother could have hoped for. I thought since Grant is a boy of course, he was going to be behind like most boys with their development. I thought he would be walking by maybe 14 months of age. But no he took his first steps at 10 months and walking well at 11 months and of course still fine tuning turning around. His latest jokester move is to walk to someone with excitement and then at half way he will slyly turn around and laugh about what he just did... getting the parent's hopes up. Oh my.. he may be a clown someday. He has such a sense of humor already!

Grant also has his 5th tooth and is teething the 6th, both on the top. He is sleeping 10-12 hours per night with out waking for a feeding (in the last 5 days that is) and takes 1.5 to 3 hours naps! Boy does mom love him now!!! Of course I love him unconditionally but with a baby like that... even the baby haters would love him! Grant is also learning his body parts. He knows eyes (closes eyes and points at his own), ears (flicks them with his fingers back and forth), and belly. He knows Grant by patting himself in the chest. He knows mole because Aunt Meg has a mole. So I don't know if he knows  her name. Sometimes he said Mole or mamole....... who knows. Anyway, he also knows the words: Rock, bird, dog (mmmf), horse (nneee pbts), sheep (aaaa), truck.. at this point the list goes on. Well here are a BUNCH of pictures for updating since December and probably a few more to come from ones I haven't uploaded to my computer. Enjoy!

Our 7- Layer bean dip. It was good!

Went to a casino christmas light show.. this is a picture with out flash to get the full lighting effect!

Same place.. but with flash. Quite a difference don't you think!?

Grant's first Christmas! And first Stocking!

First Present.. he is well unwrapping.. but the rest I opened.

Megan just home Taiwan... hence the peace sign. A popular thing to do while posing.

My little Beethovan.

New anti-skidders! (the shoes, too big but will be great when they fit)

The fam together.

Christmas dinner!

The lovely couple.

Meg and Mom.



More pics to come!
 Thanks for stopping by!

2011 Resolutions

I can't remember what my new years resolution was for last so I guess that means I didn't keep it up...hmmm. The year before that though I resolved to floss my teeth and I did all year long! Yay for good hygiene and healthy chompers! Or pearly whites I guess! Soooo this year I am going to resolve to:

1. Blog on a more frequent basis for those people who actually like the updates I have.

2. Continue to floss (its so annoying when I'm tired and want to sleep sooner).

3. Continue to exercise at least a half hour 3x a week.

4. and finally, study my scriptures everyday.

Hope it all works out! Good luck to the rest of you who make resolutions! Happy New Year!

PS pictures to come!

2010 Recap

So it has been a great year!! I will tell you the top 10 things in no particular order (but actually chronologically) because I don't care to put that much thought into the idea:

1. Grant Ryan Stotts was born Feb. 18, 2010 and blessed our lives as most babies do.

2. I managed to finish college and graduate with my BA with honors, I might add while taking care of a newborn!

3. We bought a beautiful huge desktop mac computer.

4. We moved to Las Vegas so that Perry could student teach in Henderson, NV.

5. Perry got a guitar amplifier and an effects pedal.

6. Grant started to take his first steps.

7. Perry graduated with honors also with his BA as well!

8. Perry applied for graduate school with a great GPA and did well on the GRE and very well on the praxis.

9. We went to AZ for the first time as a family for Christmas.

10. Finally, Perry and I started a work out program called from Couch to 5k, which is exactly what it sounds like. And we have stuck with it for over a month so far!

We are so excited for 2011!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

So we celebrated Christmas yesterday since my sister Megan came home from Taiwan on Christmas Eve. It was so exciting to see her after the time she was gone. Now she will be getting ready for her mission which seems like hard work when you only have a month and a half (Feb 16). But she is focused and will definitely get it done! I think I just have the perspective of being a mother and if I was to try to do everything she needs to it would take me a lot longer. Good thing she isn't a mother just yet!

So Christmas took two shifts to knock it out of the way! We took forever grouping so we opened our stockings and then it was Grant's nap time and Megan was dealing with jet lag so she napped also. Of course my dad also decided to nap. So then we started back up mid-afternoon. It took us til 6:60 pm to finish up! So the highlights were that I got a sewing machine! Also Perry did really well shopping for me. I got a new bangle watch, very cute and very cheap (you can't tell that its cheap though). He also got me some nomad puddle rain boots with Paisleys and a bunch of different massagers (bath, behind the back and neck, and my mom got me a food massager and a full back massager! Clearance at wal-mart!). I also got chopsticks from Megan and the list goes on!

Overall the family had a good time together! As for New Years I have not been into staying up ever since I met Perry. I just don't seem to have the stamina. Especially with a little one now. However, Grant was gracious enough to wake me up a half hour before and nursed til right before the New Year so we celebrated with a kiss and watched the ball already dropped!

So this year will be exciting and my next post will be about 2010 recap and 2011 resolutions.

9 months, Greats, and Callings

So Grant is officially a nine month old baby! Boy he is getting so big! He feels like a chunker but I guess doesn't necessarily look it. However his appetite is really growing. I love spending time with him and being his momma. He is cruising along the furniture, banging his head on accident while trying death defying feats, and is crawling like a maniac! So that is definitely exciting! You can't really stop keeping an eye on him. He will always be doing something dangerous. I have been contemplating buying him a baby helmet meant specifically for bumping their head on furniture and what not. 

Oh and he also, as I mentioned before, has 4 teeth now. So the two on top are his newest additions. They are a lot longer now, than what this picture shows. I believe he is teething yet again right now. Ah such is life as a mom.

Also Grant met his first set of Great Grandparents on the Yancey side. They love him to pieces and he definitely, like always, put his charmer hat on. It was fun seeing how my Grandparents played with him and enjoyed his personality just as we do!

Also....drum roll please!!....Perry and I got callings... (for those who aren't LDS, a calling is basically a volunteer church assignment but the Bishop of the church will ask if we are willing to do the assignment, and hence we are "called" to do something)... I am the new Den Leader (Mother) to the Bear Cub Scouts and Perry is the new Cub Scout Master! This will be so fun! I am excited to meet the boys and learn along side them the different merits they are trying to reach. This is unlike any other calling I have ever had and it will be a blast! I am so excited!

Happy Late Halloween!

So sorry that I haven't blogged in a while. Grant enjoyed his first Halloween. We were "Lions, and Tigers, and Bears! Oh my!" theme. I was the lion, with my sister's infamous lion costume, Perry was a bear, and Grant was an adorable lion. Boy though! ?It was hard to put his make up on! He would move around and push my hands away! But the whole experience was a lot of fun. We had the trunk or treat thing at church a couple nights before Halloween and of course everyone was gushing about how cute he was. Then on Halloween we trick or treated. Grant sat in the wagon as we pulled him to about 15 houses. Then when we approached the door I held him and sometimes the person would give him the candy into his bag or they would let him grab the candy him selves. At first Grant wasn't sure what we were doing going house to house but then I think he embraced the holiday and stopped looking so confused and chilaxed. He especially enjoyed some chocolate that I didn't know he had punctured a certain candy and was get the chocolatey goodness from the inside. We also gave him some teddy grahams since he deserved some sweets on his first Halloween. It was fun. He went to bed late and I got some great pictures from the whole thing.

Trunk or Treat. I dressed dad up to be a safari/jungle hunter guy!

Perry and I carving pumpkins. I'm pretty sure I will do this as long as I live! So fun!

Grandparents with the baby.

Cutie.

In the wagon, on our way to trick or treat!

After trick or treating with his candy of choice and pumpkin.

What fun!

Grant mutilated this Milk Duds box and got a little taste of Chocolate.

His (his parents) new candy stash! (Yes!)

Lounging with the coveted chocolate piece in his mouth.

The end.

Other small updates include Grant cruising more and testing his balance with out holding on to anything while standing. He cut his fourth located on top and it currently teething another. I guess I'm not exempt from sleepless nights sometimes. Grant woke every hour. It must have hurt the poor guy! Oh and I love putting Grant in his new (new to me) winter/fall attire!

More Milestones.

So Grant has been teething a little lately, being fussy when I put him down at night even when he was completely out when I put him down and completely out after I pick him up! Very cute and cuddly. He isn't a cuddle bug anymore but he was cuddly. Reminded me of when he was a newborn. Anyway so this morning he cut his top left tooth! So that makes is a total of 3 teeth now. So I'm assuming he is still teething because generally the top two and bottom two come in as a set. I'm not too worried. It had been driving me a little nuts not having my normally good sleeping baby, but I'm count myself lucky only getting up 3-4 times in a 10-12 hour period to care for him.

Second, the other day, after a nap, I went to go get Grant from his crib and he was standing up! I think he couldn't figure out how to get down and that is why his cry was kind of a panicky one. I was so happy and didn't realize how upset he was until I brought him out. Now if he isn't quite sleepy when I put him down or whenever he wakes up he is always cruising around his crib. Last night was really funny because I put him down for a nap and he was cruising (video monitor, I could watch him) and he put his left arm crossing his right arm to try to grab the rungs on the back of the crib and and face planted it into the mattress. It was hilarious! Especially since it didn't seem to phase him. Not one peep came out of him when he fell. He just tried again. That's my boy!