9 Months

If I waited a week, I could just do a 10-months-old post, but I finally got around to taking some pictures of Ryan so I figured I would go ahead and post them. Some of Ryan’s highlights at 9 months:

* Learned to clap (he doesn’t doesn’t always do it in context, but he’s pretty cute anyway)

* Pulls himself up to everything and walks along. It’s surprising how hard it is to make dinner when he crawls into the kitchen and pulls himself up holding onto my legs so I can’t walk anywhere without him falling over)

* Has started to babble – the only distinct sound we’ve been able to make out is something like Da or Ada. He does say “dadadadadada” but I don’t think he is saying dada on purpose. 

* Likes to pick up little things and hold them in his fist. Sometimes he will put them in his mouth, and sometimes just likes to hold them in his hand for a while as he crawls around.

He is generally a pretty happy baby – he smiles and laughs easily, and we love having him in our family! (sorry about all the pictures…I had a hard time choosing. And I wanted to take some of him standing, but he was sitting on the kitchen table :)

 

January

It has been kind of nice to have the busy-ness of the holidays over and to have some time to clean (although don’t look at my house right now…), re-organize, and decorate a little the past month. I finally spent a week dedicated to potty-training (tried to stay home as much as possible) and it was a success! I’ll spare you the details, but with relatively few accidents, Bennett is doing great. We haven’t done anything too exciting – several BYU basketball games and a volleyball game, and mostly just hanging out when we’re all home. Here are random pictures throughout the month.
It has been an unusually warm January, so Bennett was able to take advantage of the warm-ish weather and try out his new trike. He loves it! Here he is riding around the driveway & sidewalk – riding with no hands like Curious George in the Curious George Rides a Bike book, and stashing doggy and doggy’s blanket in the trunk.

One of the many “pitzgures” Bennett took. Whenever I get out the camera these days, he either wants to be in the picture (if I’m taking one of Ryan) or he wants to take pictures.

Ryan playing with the plastic plates & bowls while I made dinner (and Bennett wanting to be in the shot) 

We did finally get a few snow days. By the time we got outside, a lot of it had melted but Bennett had fun and we did manage to make a mini snowman.

    

Break

After we got back to Utah, it was nice to still have almost a week before Nate had to start school again. We enjoyed spending a few days / evenings with Nate’s family, getting our house a little more organized. decorated, and cleaned (thanks mostly to Nate), finishing my CPE so I can keep up my CPA license (oh wait, did I say enjoyed? Because I don’t think that applies to CPE!), going bowling (we actually had about 8 malfunctions during our game – I don’t even remember them all – including giving up and switching lanes TWICE so they gave us coupons for a free game), going miniature golfing, celebrating New Year’s (see pics below) and managed to squeeze in lots of naps & relaxing time. It was great. Hard to have Nate go back to school, but at the same time it didn’t feel like the break had gone by so fast like it usually does.

helping in the yard at Nate’s parents’ house – they had a huge windstorm a few weeks ago that knocked down several trees – including two huge ones in the backyard (you can see the stump of one of the trees next to Connor in the last picture)

    

the boys with their Christmas presents – and one of Ryan in his reindeer hat

New Year’s Eve – never very exciting. We went to the BYU basketball game, then came home and watched a movie. We at least turned it off to watch the ball drop and have a midnight glass of Sparkling Cider.

Day After Christmas

The Monday after Christmas was mostly spent relaxing and just enjoying being together before we all headed home. Dave & Liz were the first to leave that night, but we did get a game of tennis in before they left. It was freezing cold, but still really fun. Especially since Nate and I won :) We managed to get in a couple big group shots of us all together too.

Bennett playing with a balloon, and Kallie riding around on Bennett’s trike (you can see the shopping cart tied to the back)

    

for some reason, our “#1” fingers look kind of strange in both of these pictures…not sure why

Christmas Day

I loved having Christmas on a Sunday this year. It was nice to take a break from present-opening and spend some time hearing great talks and beautiful music focused on Christ and on His birth. With Church, the number of people we had opening presents, and because Dave and Liz weren’t able to join us until later in the afternoon (Liz had to work Christmas Eve night so they drove up as soon as she got off work Christmas morning), the present-opening stretched throughout the day. We began the morning by looking at what Santa had brought us in our stockings and the kids’ presents, then we enjoyed a delicious traditional (for the Morris Family) breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate.  After church, we set out our traditional lunch – yummy snacks and appetizers to eat all afternoon.  We opened a few more of the presents from us to our kids, then had a short nap while we waited for Dave and Liz to arrive.  Once they did, we finished opening our presents and had fun sharing with each other what we got.  It was a fun and relaxing day, and we had fun being together and celebrating. Here is the photo documentation of our day:

Our little family’s corner with gifts and stockings from Santa:

Checking out the gifts Santa brought: Bennett setting up his train track, Ryan with his little basketball hoop (he had to be a little protective because James liked to come visit and steal it :)

 

Ryan modeling the new frog hat from his stocking, and checking out his Puffs

Nate trying out the head-tickler from his stocking on Ryan. This may be Nate’s favorite present this year, although probably the cheapest too. Ryan wasn’t quite sure what to think of it.

Bennett’s new Lightning McQueen slippers and opening his new trike (which he calls his “bicycle”). He rode it around the house the rest of the time we were there, and liked to fill up the trunk with toys. He even took my mom’s play shopping cart, filled it with toys, and held onto it with one hand pulling it behind him.

   

Ryan modeling his new PJs and checking out his “scooty tent” (which Bennett has tried to take over as his own), and helping me open a present.

Bennett and James taking a break from all the excitement, and Bennett posing for the camera.

 

And finally – Stacey’s group shots of the families all dressed up for church (apparently Nate didn’t get the red tie memo…)