The Stotts Family

Monday, February 7, 2011

Emailed readers...

If you receive my blogs through email click on the link at the bottom that says " The Stotts' Family" to go to the blog and view the videos I post as well.
Thanks!

Sorry for the day late post but I have been doing things of greater importance. Well I guess blogging/journalling is pretty important but..... FAMILY is of most importance. My sister Amber and her two children came to visit. They are mainly visiting to see my sister Megan before she leaves on her mission to the New York New York North mission on February 16. She will be preaching and teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to those people who speak Mandarin Chinese! That's right Megan will be learning Chinese! How crazy is that! Soo anyway... in other news, my sister Amber recently got a brand new baby girl born on January 20. She is so little and so adorable. I love to hold her and bottle feed her. BUT unfortunately I am coming down with like the same exact sickness I had before and I REALLY don't want to get her sick! So I have to wait to really hold her until I have no more symptoms. I just really hope I don't get the full blown illness. I will be pushing fluids and vitamins, garlic pills, and echinacea like crazy! And getting the most sleep possible of course!
So my updates include the following things.. I don't know if I have mentioned before.. I'm sure I have but I will mention it again because it is just so crazy to me. Grant is just walking like a maniac. He walks everywhere! It is just crazy to me. Amber came on Saturday. Before she came I wanted to make something with my new sewing machine for her new baby Hailey. I figured the best present would be burp cloths because her first kids she got when they were older and didn't need a burp cloth much. So I went to wal-mart, didn't find any good flannel. I went to Joanns and discovered the world of Remnants. They were 50 percent off and there were just enough girly ones that were flannel to get a good deal on what I needed. I discovered I don't enjoy the cutting the fabric but sewing is fun. I sewed over 20 double sided cloths. The stitching is inside out and then I stitched it again on the outside with decorative stitches. I made them into a burp cloth cake, kind of like diaper cakes but sillier looking.

The cousins really are having fun playing with each other.

Precious Hailey.

First Grand daughter.

More play.

I thought this view was kind of fun.

And more play.

And more and more play! I think they like each other.

The following paragraph might be too much info.... read on if you dare. Grant had a major blow out while napping. That explains the very short nap due to a dirty diaper and not pooping all day yesterday. So he pooped and it got in his mouth because it was so messy. He HAD to take a bath! Amber is taking our bedroom for the next couple weeks because she has more kids and she needs the space so she was napping in our bedroom and I didn't have any extra clothes so it was diaper time! He doesn't get much diaper time and when he does he discovers his tummy! Oh! And trey wanted to be just like Grant basically all weekend so he also wanted to be just in a diaper.

Belly Belly!

Grant figures out how to stand up with out using a wall or other taller object! Yay and on camera!

Grant figures out how to scoot backwards lol.

Self explanatory.

Playing with Trey.

Teeth brushing.

Brushing hair.

So that is all. We will continue to have fun as a family. I'm sure I will have lots to report later. Peace out!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Week of the park.. among other things

Now I can see how tough it might be to think of updates with only one weeks worth of events. Granted, babies do develop at a rapid rate, things have slowed a bit as Grant has accomplished the walking milestone. He is doing well.. I like to chase him and say, "I'm going to get you!" and then I tickle him once he is caught and I just started playing the game while he walks instead of crawls. So its fun and I can see him walk faster than he normally would. This week we went to the park a lot. The weather was so nice! Like 60-70 degrees and just really nice. The only downside was the time we went. The first day we went in the morning before his nap. There were a lot of other moms with young children at the park too. Grant met a girl and she was huge compared to him and only 3 months older. She walked circles around him and touched his nose and he was just all goo goo eyes. He followed her as well as he could and then just enjoyed watching her run around. The next day we went after his nap and all of these high school and middle schoolers were there and it was crowded and profanity was everywhere.. very annoying to say the least. Then we went on Saturday and it was less crowded with mix of all ages. We love walking to the park. We should do a picnic next time its warm. Perks other than the obvious is that Grant loves to be outside. He is always happy outside. So the park is the perfect way for me to relax and enjoy him. Another place I discovered we like to go is the library! The libraries almost always have a children's section like 3 years and younger allowed in and there are age appropriate toys and books. Also Grant gets to interact with kids near his age and he learns how to be social. Its like a play date with out the appointment. I really like it! I think it will be a weekly activity, when I'm out of ideas of what to do with him I will just go to the library. There a few in town so I can choose which to go to. Also I learned that there are mommy n' me classes at the local rec center so I should check those out too.. I would love to do a class like that with Grant. Sounds like a blast! Here are some pics and videos of the week:

By the way, I decided to be more active in adding family home videos to the blog so now you can see I take lots of videos.

This video was actually taken at Great Grandma and Grandpa's home in AZ.

So cute all bundled up.

Not too crazy about the spaghetti.

Watch out.. this video makes me motion sick.

Not sure what he was laughing at exactly.

We went go-carting because when the family went last time I was preggo and not allowed to go. It was a lot of fun!

You can see his eye color pretty well in this photo.

Enjoying the park.

Learning to cuddle.

Grant decided to wear a pacifier that outing.. weird, since he never knew how earlier in his babyhood.

Grant really likes to eat rocks so this was a pretty good solution to that.

Climbing up so I could go down the slide with Grant.

Yes we went hot tubbing, but with a lower temperature of course for the baby's sake.

Love it!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

A little more about AZ and mini updates.

So as of Wednesday or so Grant has started to comb/brush his hair. He is so funny when he copies us. So when we brush his hair he tries to also and says "Ba!" For brush. I love that he is learning so fast and can probably understand quite a bit of what we say to him. He also is becoming more helpful in cleaning up. Part of his bedtime routine is bath time and when bath time is over he has learned to "put the toys in the basket" to clean all of his toys and then he tries to pull the plug to drain the water. What a smarty pants! Something that is really hard about parenting I have discovered is trying not to laugh while diciplining the child. Grant will do something and we have started saying "Ah ah!" meaning no and he will cry or get frustrated and sometimes he will try to bite your finger or the coffee table or end tables. Of course that usually hurts him because he will bonk his tooth on it and it won't feel good. Or he will say "Ah!" really loud while playing like he is practicing his expression of anger. Soo funny! I must get it on camera but I don't think it is nice to laugh at him. After all it isn't the most validating thing to do.. so I try to keep a straight face or turn away when laughing but then give him sympathy and love after the discipline. I do the validation mainly so he knows its okay to be mad and angry. No emotion is a bad emotion. Anyway.... off my soap box of child development knowledge. Something cute Grant has also started to do is whenever he cuddles against a blanket or pillow we say "Awe, so cute" or "Awe, so nice" and then he gets excited about it and does it like 10 more time and giggles kind of during it. He is so funny! Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to Arizona during Christmas as well as some fun videos to watch of random moments during the day.

Grant loves his books! Seriously... I hope he continues to love books!

Chomping on his sweater while pushing the lion toy.

He also loves stacking his rings! Kept him busy most of the car ride to AZ and back.

Christmas dinner... like my second time having ham for that holiday! Soooo good! Oh and Grandpa is taking the picture.

Pushing his other new favorite toy... the shopping cart! He loves Elmo's googily eyes. He makes a "G" sound whenever he sees him.

Grant calling his girlfriend the operator.

I will upload three more videos in the coming days.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Grant does his own laundry!

One morning Grant woke up and said, "Mom I think I'm old enough to do my own laundry." And this is what transpired...

And it actually is his laundry.

Baby interaction

This is a video of Grant playing with his second cousin Andilynn. I think he hit her bow and pulled the hair a little and that is why she started crying! As you can see Grant loves other babies!!!!!!!.... A little too much! Oh and PS this is when we were visiting family in Arizona City, AZ.

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!