Teddy 8 months

This past month has been a blast with Teddy. His sweet personality is really shining through. He is a happy, friendly, ACTIVE baby.

Teddy is a crawling pro and now follows us from room to room in the apartment. He gets so excited when he crawls around a corner and spots us. He smiles, laughs and crawls at super speed toward us- simply adorable! He stands up on e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. I'm doing my best to encourage more crawling and discourage walking (Dr. V wants babies to crawl for 5 months and we do whatever that baby genius tells us!!!)

He slept for his first 12 hour stretch the other night and wow! It was glorious! We're back to sleeping about 10/11 a night and 3 naps a day so we'll take it! He is eating solid food like a champ and especially loves peanut butter and tortillas (of course! he's our child after all!) He loves bath time more than ever and is a blast to bathe. Teddy loves other babies and we're working on the whole "soft touches" thing because he is especially interested in touching others' eyeballs or pulling hair :)

Teddy is a sweet baby and is developing a funny sense of humor. He loves to rough house, be tickled and play peekaboo. He hit his mouth on a church pew this past week and cried so loud I had to take him out of the meeting (he was fine). Afterwards, multiple people in our ward came up to me and said "I heard Teddy crying and I didn't think he was capable of crying! I've never seen him sad!"

Happy 8 months to our dreamy Teddy Bear!

Teddy 7 months

This January has been somewhat of a blur with our first major case of household sickness. First Blake, then Teddy, then me, then Blake again. It's been a party at our house ;)

Teddy has been on the move this month! He is now a crawling pro and attempting to pull up to stand on everything. He is happiest when he's holding our hands, standing and bouncing up and down. He learned to sit up in his crib which has been wreaking havoc on his whole-sleeping-through-the-night-thing. (boo). Teddy now loves food- especially avocado, banana, oatmeal, and carrots. He loves singing and song time, especially when I show off my awesome Disney karaoke skills. Teddy loves rough housing with Blake including tickling and playing airplane. Teddy is a little charmer and flirts with all the Target and Trader Joes employees. He continues to be a happy, sweet baby who has our whole hearts.

Teddy's First Christmas!

Teddy's first Christmas was a magical one, made even better by the massive snow storm that hit Christmas eve. We woke up to lots of beautiful perfect snow, the biggest SLC storm in decades! Teddy got lots of fun presents (thanks everyone!) but he seemed to enjoy the wrapping paper and the $1 light up reindeer wand the most haha.

Teddy was spoiled with so much love and attention while in Utah. Everyone loved him, especially all the teenage cousins and Great Grandma Siddoway. Everyone took turns stealing him at all the family parties. Great Grandma would just chat with Teddy all day long as she puttered around the kitchen and he played in his exersaucer. "Now we're going to cut up our grapefruit but first we need a special knife." "Aren't you just the most perfect baby?" "What did your parents do to deserve you?" "Are you having fun?" It was adorable. Great Grandma gave him his very first teddy bear for Christmas! It's a vintage bear from a famous bear factory in Germany.

We had a full three weeks filled with playing with Elle, Livy, Winnie and Lisa during the day and partying with Grandma Barbara at night. Throw in lots of diet coke-filled errands and baking and there you have it!

A few highlights were seeing the temple lights with the Thatchers, Grandma and Amy. Teddy helped build gingerbread houses with his cousins, frost our traditional sugar cookies and make braided bread. We played in Teddy's first snow (he had mixed reactions)

Grandma did baby crossfit with Teddy every night and he learned to scoot on all fours, sit on his own better and do a downward dog. He is so active now!

Teddy 6 months

Teddy's 6th month was the best because we celebrated all month long in Utah! His first Christmas was so fun it deserves a separate post soon to come.

At 6 months, Teddy has now learned to get up on all fours and do this adorable rocking/scooting thing with his bum. Thanks to Grandma Barbara doing baby crossfit with him every night in Utah, he does this hilarious yoga downward dog move too. Usually it just results in him face-planting the floor but it is adorable nonetheless. He also loves to spin on his tummy like a dial on a clock to reach whatever he wants. He is getting really good at his pincer grasp and can swipe objects away from you at an alarming speed.

We started solid foods a few weeks ago and he was a little skeptical at first. Sweet potatoes and squash are apparently not his thing. We are following the Dr Jed VanDenBerghe (#myuncle #blesshim) method of eating so Teddy got to finally have fruit Christmas weekend. He LOVED applesauce and bananas. If he really likes something he will suck it off the spoon soooo fast. He also got little bity tastes of frosting, a dunford donut and some icecream because...#christmas.

My mom borrowed an exersaucer for us to use while in Utah and Teddy went nuts jumping in that thing for hours on end. He would have the most serious/calm expression on his face while his little feet were going nuts doing the river dance.

Teddy continues to be our little blue eyed angel baby. He took a sleeping hiatus in Utah, waking up every few hours during the night. We were sure we had ruined our perfect baby but he is back to sleeping through the night in Virginia #whew. He smiles at everyone and laughs easily when given attention. Grocery shopping with him now takes twice as long because he can sit in the cart so everyone can see him. We get stopped every few feet by grandmas, employees, children, and teenagers as he makes friends with everyone he spots. His sweet disposition and big blue eyes continue to melt everyones' hearts, most especially ours! We love love you Teddy Bear! Fastest and best 6 months of our lives!

2016 Year in Review

0:  hours of sleep during the night this summer (#thanksteddy), hours of commuting for Blake (lucky duck can now walk to work!)
1:  C-section, BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY BORN, Georgetown certificate program completed (Stefi), new apartment, new ward
2:  new church callings, new parents!!!
3:  diaper bags now used (I have a purse problem), new recipes discovered
4:  year anniversary celebrated, days trapped inside during epic blizzard, batches of baby food made so far, new disappointing episodes of Gilmore Girls watched :(
5:  new podcasts discovered, baby showers thrown in our honor (#spoiledbaby), holidays celebrated with Teddy
6:  visits from family members, average number of times strangers stop us in grocery store to fawn over Teddy
7:  airplane rides with Teddy, work trips for Blake
8:  meals Stefi has cooked (hoping some things change in 2017 :S )
9: new books read, babies born this year in our old ward, big work projects (Blake)
10+:  hours of labor (more like 30 but who's counting.....), baby gear items purchased, blow outs, Cafe Rio take outs, diapers changed, baths given, hours snuggling, kissing and holding baby 

Safe to say 2016 has been our best year yet!