11 Months

 This kid is almost 1!  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by.  Spencer's life these days consists mostly of crawling and walking.  He walks everywhere he can, and crawls if it seems too far.  He particularly likes to walk while touching walls, couches, toys, people, whatever he can reach.  He can walk on his own, but he's still a bit timid about it at times.  He's getting more and more daring though and he's already decided walking is way better than crawling.

 The next thing he does all day is climb.  He's not so good at getting up on things yet, but that's not going to last long. He climbs all over me and Bill, his toys, the love sac, up from that onto his dad's desk, etc.  He's learned that he's supposed to go backwards to get off things, though the finer point of actually looking where he is going hasn't occurred to him yet. :)

And of course he loves to put things in his mouth.  We recently discovered he has molars coming in, though it's super early, so he's trying to chew on everything in sight.  My shoulder is a particular favorite, though not for me.  He took a big bite out of the foam roller a minute ago. 

Spencer dearly loves putting things in cups and pulling them back out.  Big cups, little cups, it doesn't matter.  Our laundry hamper is just a big cup to him.  He pulls out as many clothes as he can reach and then puts them all back in.  It's pretty funny to watch.  At least he puts them back! 

He loves to throw things on the floor when he's eating.  Crackers are meant to be thrown, right?  I wouldn't say he's the best eater I know.  It seems like he immediately spits out most things before we coax him to taste it for real.  Half the time it seems like he's surprised when he does like it.  I'd love to know what nearly 1-year olds will actually eat, as I spend a lot of time trying to figure that out every day.

Spencer's really starting to develop a sense of humor.  He's so fun to interact with these days.  He loves to laugh, and he thinks pretty much everything we do is funny.  It's quite gratifying.  What a fun little guy he is!

Family Christmas Letter

This has been such a great year.  As I look back I can't believe how many things we have packed in.

Spencer made his grand entrance on my birthday in January.  I can't believe it's been less than a year since he was born.  He's filled up our world in so many ways.  These days he's learning to walk, exploring everything in sight, and generally enjoying life.  He's a happy toddler most of the time.  He loves everyone, but particularly Mom and Dad and Grandma Jones.  He has the best smiles and laughs and we love him to pieces.

Bill has spent the year going to school, continuing his studies in civil engineering at BYU.  He conquered two of the infamous 300-level math classes this summer and is generally enjoying his program.  It keeps him incredibly busy, along with working as a TA for one of his professors.  He graduates next December, so we are looking into grad programs and are happily anticipating finishing school.  Bill is working with the scouts in our ward as the Scout Committee Chair and is currently helping to plan a Klondike Derby for them in January.  Bring on camping in the snow!

 I also went to school for the first part of the year, finishing my graduate degree in Public Administration at BYU in April.  That was quite the feat with a 3-month old baby along for the ride.  Spencer came to a lot of classes with me and generally charmed everyone who met him.  I worked throughout the summer for my department and was pleased to be hired on as staff for the Fall semester to help a professor out with one of his executive MPA classes.  Mostly though I am a stay-at-home-mom and love every minute of it.  It's delightful to have so much control over my time and the ability to slow things down a bit. Though that time appears to be ending as I was just called as the Young Women's President in my ward and I imagine life will get a little crazy now.  I'm so excited for the new calling though.  I've been in Young Womens for a year already and this new calling will be fantastic.

 We're still trying to go hiking and do some of the other things we enjoyed before Spencer entered the scene.  It's a little different with a baby, but it turns out that with a bit of planning we can still do a lot of outdoorsy things.  Spencer adores being outside, so that works in our favor.

 Here's to another great year.  We love you all and hope life is treating you well too.

Family Photos

My SIL Miriam is a fantastic photographer and she took a few pictures for us while we were at Thanksgiving.  We may or may not be giving them to a few people for Christmas, so I'll only share the ones we didn't pick, because we got a few really awesome ones to pick from, but here's some of the ones on the way to getting those. :)

Look at their eyes.  Exactly the same shape.  I've never noticed that before.

Hey Daddy, it's time to go play!

I have no idea what's with the leg...

Let's blow this one up big and put it on the wall!

Slouching.  And Spencer is looking a little crazy. Oh, and my necklace is backwards. I didn't realize that until about 10 shots later. :)

Nice, but we got better ones!

The smiles are getting a bit weird.

Oh dang, closed eyes!

Spencer's far off look is pretty amazing here.

Let's just say Spence and I were fighting over whether we were taking more pictures.

Again, dang that slouching.  It's cute otherwise.

Spencer was so done.  He was trying so hard to get down off my lap.  But this is the only one where he's remotely smiling.  Ah well.  You can't have it all. 

 

An Idyllic Day

I babysat my downstairs neighbor's two girls this morning for a few hours.  It was fun.  And crazy. And hectic.  I didn't get a single thing done until they left.  It made me seriously wonder how it's possible to do anything with more than one child.  Ready or not, here we come here soon enough. (No, that's not an announcement. :)  ) We had a good time though.  Then it was time for Spencer's nap and I cuddled with him for a bit reading a book beforehand and it was such a huge change from the chaos of the morning.  It was just delightful.  In the evening Spencer woke up from another nap just when Bill came home tonight, so we cuddled up on the couch and read the latest REI Christmas magazine ad while Spencer played with my hair and my eyelashes and the Christmas tree next to us all before noticing Bill.  Then he got all excited and tried to grab Bill's glasses like he does nearly every time he sees him.  It was totally normal and yet so idyllic.  It reminded me of why I enjoy being a mom so much. 

Spencer snacked on some Apple Jacks while Bill made dinner and I practiced some songs I'm playing for our Young Womens in Excellence on Sunday.  He apparently prefers the green ones, as he ate every single on of them before touching the orange ones.  I felt immensely proud of this for some reason.  My 10-month old can tell the difference between colors already and has a preference.  Oh, and he's not color blind.  Why this fills me with pride I have no idea, but it does and I'm happy about it. :)

I love how such simple things bring me so much pleasure.  I've had lots of years to do lots of things and my life has been exceptionally busy in past times.  It still is, but I have enough time now to enjoy the little things and that is just great.  Here's to more moments to remember how great life really is.

Donut Falls

The day before Thanksgiving we decided it was high time we went on a winter hike.  Well, Bill decided several days earlier and I followed along because after all, that is a great idea.  We almost didn't go because we were trying to get all of our stuff school and work stuff done and it took longer than expected, but thank goodness we did because this was a fun one!  It's called Donut Falls and it is in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  It's not very long.  It was a bit over an hour round trip, but that was good for us since it was rather chilly and we're trying to get Spencer used to hiking in small steps instead of going all out.  Supposedly in the summertime this waterfall comes right out of the center of a rock, thus the name, but it was covered with snow when we went so we didn't get to see that.  It was still really pretty and a fun little hike.

 This is how Spencer was pretty much the entire time until he fell asleep.  He just looked around and grinned.  He knows how to appreciate nature. :)

  At the Falls.  Notice Bill's mustache.  I'd say it's a pretty good speciman for No Shave November.

 The Falls that didn't look like Falls.

Cutting Down a Christmas Tree

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we headed down to Ephraim with some friends and then up into the mountains to find ourselves a Christmas tree.  We had a great time! I liked what my friend said on her blog about vetting Christmas traditions.  We definitely try different things each year to see if we want to make it a continuing tradition.  This one has definitely made it onto the list! 

Our day involved quite a bit of sliding all over super snowy roads in a huge truck, tramping through snow for over an hour to find the perfect tree, which we did indeed find, and generally having a great time with our friends and their family.

Spencer loved it.  He thinks being carried around in the hiking backpack is one of the best things ever.  And who wouldn't like wearing a barbalute suit?  Can anyone guess that quite obscure movie and/or reference?

So here it is.  The perfect tree.  You can all give up because this is it and we've already got it. :)

10 Months

 My little guy is a heart throb.  That's all I have to say. :)  Well not really.  I can and will say lots of other things.  He did not like being put in the boots.  This is the best picture of the lot.

So let's see, what has Spencer been up to lately?  He finally learned to crawl on all fours instead of army crawling during Thanksgiving.  It's just in time to learn how to walk, which he is also doing right now.

Lately if I'm not paying enough attention to me he'll grab my face and turn it to his and then put his face really close to mine.  Then it's like he's not sure what to do so he let's go and heads off to play.  He also plays really well on his own still, but he comes and finds me every once in a while to get a hug.  He loses it whenever I leave the room.  Not always, but anytime he's tired or hungry mostly.

He likes his dad now.  For a while he wasn't so sure, but now he thinks Bill is the best.  He likes most people these days.  He'll smile and talk to anyone who notices him.  He loved being in a big group at Thanksgiving with tons of people to play with him.

He's a big fan of eating anything I'm eating, though he's kind of snooty about it if he doesn't see me eat it first.  He'll totally turn away from so many good foods sometimes.  What a goof.  Aside from Kix, he pretty much doesn't know the meaning of feeding himself.  He'd much rather sweep everything off his tray. Apparently that is much more fun.

Probably my favorite thing about Spencer is he thinks the world is just a delightful place.  He is always smiling and laughing at everything.  It totally makes my day.

This is the best video we have of Spencer walking so far, which isn't saying much since it looks more like he's falling.  But he really can take several steps at a time without just falling forward.  Sometime we'll actually get it recorded. 

Catch Up Days

28. I'm grateful for my comfy bed.  I'm currently laying in it blogging and the memory foam topper is just heavenly.

29. I'm grateful that Spencer is learning to walk.  Call me crazy but I'm excited for him to come running after me instead of crying because I'm going too fast.

30. And lastly, I'm grateful for things that make me stretch.  I've got some new things coming down the pipe that are pushing me and though it's a bit scary, I'm excited for the growth.