I love baths and I do tricks...

Anderson LOVES bath time! I think he could hang out in the tub for hours if I let him. Heres a cute video of him doing some "tricks" while taking a bath. He's been playing pat-a-cake for a couple of weeks now...its too cute. Everytime I sing pat-a-cake he starts clapping. He's got two toys in his hand here so I'll have to get a better video of him actually clapping. He's also been showing us how big his is by putting both arms up in the air...although he's been doing that for a while now and it's loosing steam. That's too easy now...I guess...

Anderson has also started saying a few words...his first words are "baba" (bottle) and a high pitched scream (meow)! We've also heard him say mama and dada but not consistently...doesn't he know who makes thoses "baba's"?? Where's the love? I'll try to get some video of him talking up soon.

Christmas fun...

We had a very merry Christmas this year. Suanne and Brett came out to Denver...we had a great time with them. We went out to eat a few times, hit the slopes (while Grandma Suanne stayed home and watched Anderson), had a wonderful dinner, went to Denver Zoo Lights, and opened lots of presents!! It was a blast.

Zoo Lights!!

More Zoo Lights!!

We had some friends over for our big Christmas Eve dinner. It was really yummy...we had ham, turkey and all the fixings! We cooked the turkey in the crock pot...it worked great and was very tender and juicy!

Anderson and Robin on Christmas Eve

From left to right: Uncle Brett, Baby Scarlett, Joy, JP, Brian, Grandma Suanne, Anderson, and Robin. Brad was taking the picture.

We opened presents on Christmas morning. It was pretty much the Anderson show!! He loved it! It was really fun to watch him open the presents and play with the new toys, books, puzzles, and such. Thank you to all for making this holiday season so special!

This is Anderson's cheesy smile. Now...when he sees us getting out the camera he smiles like this. Not sure how he learned this but it's pretty cute!

There's that smile again!

Anderson in all his Christmas glory!!

My First Steps!!

Anderson has started walking!! He's taken up to 12 steps at one time but I can't seem to get it onto video. Below is the best I could do for now...look for more walking videos soon!

Last Ladies Holiday Dinner...

I celebrated the holidays with some of my favorite ladies last weekend! All of the ladies from the the residency class get together each year for dinner and laughs...it's so sad that we'll all be at different corners of the country next year. I'll always treasure the time we had in Denver with all of our friends!

From left: Sara, me, Marcy, Lindsay, Claire, Joy, Jess, Alyson, Susan, and Gaby

From left: Me, Marcy, Lindsay, and Claire


Sara and me



Joy, Jess and Alyson


Brad and I will be in Seattle, Jess and Gabe will be in Boston, Nate and Lindsay will be in Las Vegas, Matt and Marcy will be in New Zealand, Zach and Emily will be in St. Louis, Claire and Jeremy will be in New York, Gaby will be in Denver, Joy and Andy will be ???, Alyson and Ben will be ???, and Susan will be ??? (hopefully in Denver!). Crazy!! I can't believe our time with all of you is coming to an end...so quickly...that went by way too fast (however, I know we are all happy the residency work hours are close to over).

All bundled up!!

We had some really cold weather and some snow a couple of weeks ago in Denver. Anderson got all bundled up to go for a walk with mom and dad...he swims in this jacket because it's so puffy! At least it keeps him warm!!

Into everything...

Anderson has been on the move and into everything!! It's fun to watch him explore just about anything he can get his little hands on. Everything goes in the mouth, gets pulled on, push on, climbed on...you get the idea. He's all boy!! Along with all of this exploring has come a few bumps, cuts, and bruises.

"What's for dinner mom??"

"Check out my two bottom teeth!! Now I have two top teeth also!"

Brad got this video last week...what a monkey!!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner at Zach and Emily's place on Thursday. They have a 3 week old baby, Henry...somehow they prepared a turkey and all of the fixings!! It was our last Thanksgiving with the DG family and it was great! Thanks Zach and Emily!

Robin and Anderson (9 1/2 months); Joy and Scarlett (3 months); Emily and Henry (3 weeks)

"Mommy...put me down! I need to go play and explore."

The Talley Family on Anderson's first Thanksgiving!!

Daddy and Anderson

Welcome Back Daddy

Just wanted to keep you updated on Anderson's poo problems. He definitely still has the loose stool and we have a doctor appointment tomorrow. Luckily, he is still drinking plenty of fluids...hopefully we're winning the dehydration battle.

Brad came back late last night and was ready to help me this morning with Anderson. Anderson welcomed daddy back by pooping right on his lap not once, not twice, but three different times today. I'm pretty used to dealing with bodily fluids because of my job and you would think Brad is too because of his job...however, you should have heard him scream when it happened. I had to laugh a little!!

Cleaning house...

It's been an interesting weekend. On Friday, Anderson started a bad case of serious butt pee (aka loose stool). Along with the loose stool came a horrible diaper rash. Poor guy has been miserable all weekend! At first, I was wiping him with wipes and just trying to be gentle...I quickly realized that this was making it worse. So...I moved to wiping him with a warm wash cloth. That worked ok till I used up every wash cloth in the entire house. So...I moved to running his little butt under water. However, it was obvious after the first try at this that I was not getting all of the poop off of him. So we moved to baths and hair drying the area after the bath. I think he's had more baths in the last three days than the previous nine months of his life. In addition to a bath about every 2 hours, I've been letting "hang free" when possible.

Of course, all of this has happened while Brad is away in Lamar doing some moonlighting...big surprise there. To say the least, I'm a little tired! Fortunately, I have the cutest and most lovable baby! He constantly makes me laugh and smile. How could you not smile...he finds so much joy from the simplest things. Below is where I found him earlier today...what a helper!! I'm happy to report that he didn't pee all over anything while in there...just all over the kitchen floor a few minutes later! Enjoy!!

Halloween Fun

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween. We had fun with Anderson!! He was the cutest giraffe (thanks Grandma Shorty for the the costume)! We took him around the block and then to a couple of friend's houses. Below are some pictures and videos of Anderson trick or treating on Halloween.

Carving Pumpkins

We (me, Grandma Shorty, and Grandpa Mark) carved some pumpkins in the afternoon on Halloween. Why so late...you ask. Oh, because every year the squirrels go crazy with the pumpkins and stock up for the winter. They completely hollow them out...it's gross. So...this year after feeding the squirrels two pumpkins already we decided not to carve any till Halloween so that we could put them out right before the trick or treater's came to collect some candy. They turned out pretty good! Anderson had a good time touching (and eating some seeds).

I don't like that...

I haven't posted much this month!! It's been busy...Brad is at the end of 22 days in a row of work. It's hard to hold down the fort and be effective at work when he's not around. So...my apologizes! Hopefully things will slow down a bit in November.

Anderson's taste buds are developing!! He used to eat anything that I put in front of him. However, I'm trying more textures and foods now...so, he has started spitting out what he doesn't want. It's so funny to watch his little tongue work the food around his mouth! My good friend, Shannon, said "just wait till he starts spraying it out". Does that really happen?!?!

Some funny videos...

Anderson has been cracking us up lately...check out these funny moments that fill our lives!!

Look what we found...

Anderson went down for his morning nap at 9am today...we heard him talking and talking and talking and the getting very excited. So...we decided to go check on him to see what was going on. This is how we found him...of course, with a huge smile on his face.

"Look at me...I'm standing up now!"

Is this really starting already?!?!?!? I thought we had at least a month or so left...now its definitely time to baby proof the house!

Our Little Rascal

Anderson is definitely showing his personality lately!! He LOVES to explore the house and now that he can crawl it has opened up a whole new world. He's so attentive to new objects and seems to prefer all of the adult toys (books, cell phones, remote controls) and animal toys over all of his brightly colored baby toys. We have hard woods upstairs so every morning I lay out this great (and brightly colored) mat along with several toys for Anderson to play with. Without fail, the first thing he does when I put him on the mat to play is crawl off of it and on to the hard woods to play with the books on the shelve or the large and very dangerous mirror that leaning against the wall. The behaviorist in me says...just put him back on the mat and with enough repetition he'll figure out that it is here he plays...however...it's not working!

He also has been playing around more that eating when its time for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He gives about half of the puffs to Bella and giggles as she licks his hands and face to get any left over rice cereal or half soaked puffs. He also bites down on the spoon when we are feeding him so that we can't pull it out. Then, starts smiling...too cute.

Anderson biting down on the spoon so that I can't get it out and thinking he's so smart!!

Anderson exploring the cat and dog toys...it's ok...it builds up his immune system!

What a funny guy!!

He's on the move...

Looking very dapper...

Anderson and I had a "lawn games"  (bocce ball and crocket) party to go to this weekend.  The attire was dresses/sun hats for ladies and slacks/jackets for gentlemen.  Anderson had this super cute jacket that I bought him a while back on the sale rack at Gymboree.  He looked fabulous!!  We had a great time too...thanks for the yummy food and drinks Hatten's and Tebb's!!  

At the party, Anderson tried some Gerber Graduates Lil Crunchies for the first time...what a funny face!  I gave them again to him today and he loved them.  I guess it just takes a bit to get used to a new taste.

Grass poop!?!?

Our neighbors, Peter and Judy, snapped these great photos of Anderson. Peter saw him sitting in the grass and said that he "had to get some pictures" of him. It's nice to have a professional photographer as a neighbor! Thanks Peter and Judy!

Anderson LOVES sitting in the grass. The other day when Brad and I were tossing the frisbee back and forth and Anderson was sitting in the grass Brad noticed that he had some grass in his hands. We didn't think much of it till Brad found grass in his poop yesterday!! So funny!! A little roughage doesn't hurt...does it?

Giggling...

Anderson has been so excited to play in his exersaucer. He really gets into it...pushing all of the buttons, jumping up and down, and giggling. When I came home from work today Brad showed me how he was loving one of the sounds on his exersaucer where kids are laughing. The sound comes out of the car...there are three sounds in a row. The third sound is kids laughing and everytime it got to this sound Anderson would start giggling too. Of course, I had to get it on video...

He's growing up...and sitting up...

Now that Anderson can sit up he has access to so much more.  We went to the park today with my friend, Renee, and her two kids, Reece (4) and Eva (2).  They are so sweet to Anderson.  He loves hanging out and watching them.  I put Anderson in the swing at the park.  I think he liked it.  He  was just chillin... He also loved sitting in the sand while I poured it over his legs and toes. 

   Anderson has been loving the blocks too!  He and Brad have a fun game they play...Anderson starts laughing when he knocks them over and Brad says "whoop" or something like that.  I tried to replicate it but wasn't getting quite the response that Brad gets.  Still  cute though.

Puffs

Anderson started eating puffs several days ago.  I don't think he's ever quite sure if he's got one into his mouth or not...so cute!  What in the world are puffs, you ask?  Don't worry...I didn't know until I bought and tried them a couple of days ago.  They appear to be cereal but surprisingly they melt away in your mouth.  Perfect for babies that have no teeth yet!  

It's crazy all the silly names for things (that of course you must have) for babies...bumbo, boppy, puffs, robeez, bjorn, nuks, and the list goes on.  It's a whole other world!!

Almost...

Anderson is very close to crawling!! Right now he's got the dive forward technique down...pretty exciting! Check it out...

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

As I said, it was blazing hot when we were in Seattle last week. They hit and surpassed several record high temps. My mom set up a little kiddy pool in her front yard for "Anderson" and shortly after getting there Anderson and Brad were relaxing in the pool.

Doesn't he look cool in his sunglasses!?!

RAMROD

This past weekend Brad rode in another long bike race called RAMROD (Ride Around Mt Rainier - One Day). The race started and ended in Enumclaw, WA and was 160 miles!! We flew into Seattle late on Wednesday night...Brad got about 4 hours of sleep and then, at 4:30am, my dad drove him to the race start and he started riding at 6:00am. He finished at around 6:15pm!! That's 12 hours of riding! Pretty amazing!! He said he felt great at the end of the race but that it was a long day...no kidding!!

This is his cheering section...Anderson, me, Suanne (Brad's mom), Grandma Tracy, and Tom (my dad). Oh...I forgot to mention that it was 97 degrees that day...HOT!!!

I snapped some cute pictures of Anderson while we were waiting...

Anderson and Great Grandma Tracy...she was visiting my family in Gig Habor and drove up with my dad to watch Brad finish the race. It was the first time Anderson had met her. Grandma Tracy has 23 great grandchildren!!!

Brad, after the race, with his good friend Matt Willis and Matt's friend Josh. The three of them rode most of the race together.

This is how Brad got his bike from Denver to Seattle...he had to rent a bike box. He removed both wheels, pedals, and handle bars.