Ten

A few days late, again, but the point is:  Grant is 10 months old!!!!!


He is growing up way too fast for my liking.  Lucky for me, he is still not crawling yet, but rolls and scoots on his bum to get around.  He would really like to be able to crawl or walk, and sometimes he gets really mad about it! He has now switched to drinking from a straw instead of his little sippy cups, which I think is great.  Supposedly, some of the sippy cups with the valves in them are no good if the child learns to do a tongue-thrust motion to stop the flow and it impairs their speech as they get older.  I'm so proud of him - it's as if I can actually see his hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity getting better every day.  It's so amazing!


He still only has his two little bottom teeth and they are not yet all the way in.  He has learned how to clap but still loves to wave his arms in a chicken-flap sort of way.  He still uses his Jolly Jumper and loves it.  He is close to waving good-bye when we wave to him (hopefully).  He is very interested in any type of sound, and loves looking at the trees out in the backyard when he is supposed to be eating.


Eating is still quite a chore, but the improvement is steady.  The good news is his communication is improving as to what he wants or doesn't want, but the bad news is that means that when he's done, he clears everything off his tray onto the floor.  If we are encouraging him to eat/drink something he doesn't want, he tries to insist on grabbing it so that he can throw it onto the floor.


Everything still goes right into his mouth.  I tried to show him how to color today, and he wasn't at all interested in the actual coloring, but, boy, did he want to eat the crayons!  They were probably the best thing he's ever seen.  The coloring project lasted less than ten minutes, but hey - I tried.


I am busy working on Grant's Christmas present, which is going to be a turtle sleeping bag.  It will definitely be extremely cute, although he will technically be too small for it for a while.  We might put it in his crib as a lower sheet to give him some insulation underneath his little body.  Speaking of which, we have a nice white crib which we bought used, but I accidentally got rid of the hardware to put it together with a bag of stuff for the Salvation Army - so he is STILL in his little Pack 'N Play, AND there is an unassembled crib in his room waiting!!!  Boo!


Back to Grant.  He's not really making any new noises, but he has outgrown size 3 shoes.  He is not outgrowing his clothes too quickly, actually.  Clothes that I started putting on him when they were a bit big we are getting lots of use out of!  He is still a very, very happy baby and continues to set a high standard for all our other children.  In fact, he even has a head cold right now so he's stuffed up and has a cough, and he is still bursting with happiness nearly all day.  He is such a good boy, and he acts even more well-behaved for babysitters than with me!


In other news, Trevor left this morning for Medicine Hat and won't be back until the 30th, including weekends!  It's going to feel like a long time until he's back.  To keep me company, he gave me my birthday/Christmas present very early - the new iPhone!  I LOVE IT!!!  And, as always, we squeezed Telus to give us a great plan - instead of the standard $50 plan, we were able to get 100 more minutes, unlimited Telus to Telus mobile calling (all my calls to and from Trevor are free!), unlimited incoming texts and 1000 sent texts, free evenings and weekends starting at six instead of nine, 500MB of data, and call display and voicemail at a discounted rate!  I am very happy with our plan - it's a jump from what we were paying before, but a lot better than the standard plan.


If you need a good cell phone plan, call me.  Our last plan was $17.30/mth, with 350 daytime minutes (I had to add 100 minutes for $10 when we moved here, and the $3 text plan), unlimited evenings and weekends starting at six, call display, and voicemail - it was a student plan, but they never confirmed we were students.  Let me help you get a good plan!  So many plans aren't on the various companies' websites, and you've got to have the inside scoop, so send me a message if you're renewing your plan!


That's all for now!  Grant and I have to be at the church tomorrow morning at 10, and I'm up way too late as it is!

Face

I can't even say in words how much I love my little man.  For some reason, he makes this face nearly every time I'm feeding him, but not at any other time.  He loves making it, and I love watching him make it.  It's a huge laugh for both of us.

Halloween

Here's the little monkey!

Also, here are our neighbors who live downstairs, Zac and Jacey.  They are really nice and so funny!

I made the cake pops I mentioned earlier - they were tough, and my stuff never turns out as well as Bakerella's.  She's GOOD. (And no, I'm not pregnant, just fat, and wearing a shirt that is now going to the Salvation Army).

Finally, our pumpkin.  All the credit goes to Trevor for his self-proclaimed high manual dexterity - aka amazing carving skills!

We didn't take Grant trick-or-treating, instead he went with us to a great party and was very well-behaved.  He stayed up very late, went to sleep in a spare bedroom, and was still happy when we woke him up to take him home.

Happy Halloween!

Vegas

At the very beginning of this month, from October 1st until the 10th, we drove to Utah for General Conference, stayed in Salt Lake for the weekend, left Sunday and drove all the way down to VEGAS!  It was a fabulously good time and we CRAMMED as many sights as possible into the four days we were there.

Grant was very well behaved on the drive down, although by the end of the first day when we checked into a hotel in Idaho Falls, he was ready to get out of the carseat!  Fortunately he was able to sleep at the hotel in his Pack 'N Play in spite of sleeping most of the day in the car.

Here he is in the hotel room in Idaho:

Then, here we are going to the Saturday Afternoon Session of General Conference!  The great couple we were staying with, Eli and April Jones, who Trevor knows from his mission in France, offered to take care of Grant so that we could attend our session!

Here is a view of the Salt Lake temple:

We made a stop in St. George to take some pictures of the beautiful St. George temple on our way to Vegas:

Finally....

VEGAS!!!!

We arrived Sunday night, and Monday we hit up the Luxor, Excalibur, and Mandalay Bay, as well as shopping at Town Square, where we bought Grant's halloween costume at Old Navy.

If you've ever seen Criss Angel, he has a show at the Luxor, and we've seen the episode where he's casually out among the crowd at the hotel, has a random girl sign this card as her own, then he throws the entire deck at the door and the autographed card gets stuck between the two pieces of glass that make up the door.  This is still a mystery to us how he did it, and Grant actually got very upset that he couldn't touch the card from either side!

At the Excalibur, Trevor got to meet his favorite cartoon (after He-Man, of course)

Here is a view of the inside of Excalibur

And here we are at Mandalay Bay.  We shot a funny video of me throwing Grant up in the air and catching him, which you can watch in High Def here.

Tuesday we spent most of the day in a timeshare presentation, waiting to get our free meal vouchers and tickets to Shark Reef and the Bodies exhibit.  Then we headed over the far north end of the Strip and had lunch in the Stratosphere!

After that, I needed to relax by my aunt and uncle's pool.  We stayed at their house for the week and it was great!  They fed us VERY well and we loved their company.  We need to visit again soon!

And, of course, they got to meet Grant!  Here is Uncle Mark hanging out with Grant at breakfast.

Wednesday we spent all day going to the Hoover Dam.  It was amazing, and at least as impressive is the huge bridge they are building way up high above the dam.  It's incredible.

Thursday was our last day there!  We wanted to fit in as much as possible.  We went to the Bellagio, where they have a great indoor atrium, extremely elaborate check-in desk, and beautiful casino.

Quick drive-by of Paris:

Quick stop in Rome for me:

And Grant:

Amazing French cafe in Caesars Palace, where we ate a Croque-Monsieur (yum!):

The pool view of Caesars Palace!  We weren't actually supposed to be out there, but we didn't know where the doors we were going out of led...

Finally, after many hours of searching, found Elvis!  He was shopping in the mall at Caesars Palace.

Thursday continued:  Shark Reef!

Trevor petting a sting ray

Lionfish:

Great pictures that I took of the jelly fish.  See now why we bought the camera?  Once I took these pictures, I realized it was worth every penny.

Thursday evening, we went to the buffet at the MGM Grand with Megan, Mark, and their houseguest Mike, and ate ALL we could.  It was very good.  Then Trevor, Grant and I raced off to see the Bodies exhibit back at the Luxor.  I LOVED it.  We couldn't take pictures, but it was absolutely fascinating, and extremely well done and respectful, as the lighting was done just right, there was nothing flashy, and I'm sure that everyone who leaves that exhibit can't help but marvel at the wonder of the human body!

Hopefully we'll be back before too long!

Thanks again Meg and Mark!  We miss you already!