Budding Artist

Tristan has always jammed out to music, but now he's starting to pick up some more moves. He makes me laugh every time. I tried to get it on video but as you can see, I got about 5 seconds of dancing and then he got distracted by something else.


He also loves books! We've had to fashion a gate across the opening to our "library" or he will pull all the books off the shelves that he can reach. Sometimes he stacks them up over by my desk, or brings them to me and runs back for more. Other times he just scatters them and occasionally rips out pages. As you can see on the video, he's also pretty good at sign language... especially doggy. Technically, to sign dog, you pat your leg but he does it where ever on his body; but we know what he means. He won't talk verbally still but he's learning signs all the time so we do have communication and that's really what matters. :)

A couple weeks ago, Tristan was very interested in me writing with a pen and kept trying to grab it and do the same thing. So I grabbed a crayon and gave it to him to see what he would do. After a little encouragement (me drawing on the paper) he started "drawing" on his own. He tried again tonight and was very proud, he kept bringing his paper over to show me. I guess it's time to clear some room on the fridge for his artwork!
Tristan's first masterpiece.
Coloring in the basement while I work.
Showing you how it's done.
I'm one proud mama! :D

Some funny videos

Playing with one of my nephews' Christmas presents. Make sure to watch until the end when I ask him to say "Go JAZZ". He's so funny and does the same thing every time!

Tristan just realized today that the ball pit is not heavy at all as you can see in this video!

CHRISTMAS

We had a great Christmas this year. It was definitely more fun since Tristan is older and gets excited about things.
Tristan and Santa... he was not real happy about being left alone with him.

Tristan with some of his loot from Santa on Christmas morning (don't mind the date, our camera is apparently a day behind)

Giving Daddy his present from him (FIFA '10)

Looking at all his new books

The slide was a definite hit! He was so excited when we brought him downstairs and showed him. The ball pit was a present from his Nanna and Bestefar (my mom and dad). We only have one part of it in the family room because it is so big. The other tunnel and tents are in his playroom.

Woops! Head-first!

He kept peeking inside and then looking at me and pointing to the balls inside. It took a little coaxing but he finally went in and now he thinks it's so fun to crawl inside and peek out of the holes.

Faith of a Child

Just a cute story I thought I would share about Tristan. Yesterday in church he was of course trying to escape and could not be pacified into sitting still in Sacrament meeting. So I took him out in to the hall to run around. We walked around the building a few times and stopped in one of the foyers where there are couches and chairs. Hanging over one of the couches is a beautiful painting of Jesus Christ. I pointed the picture out to Tristan and he got the biggest smile on his face that I've ever seen. He kept pointing to the picture until I walked over and set him on the couch underneath the painting. Normally I have to tell him to be soft or not to touch but he reached up so carefully and softly touched the painting and smiled again. I asked him if that was Jesus and he looked right at me and nodded. He was so loving and tender towards the picture, it brought tears to my eyes. Seeing the look on his face, that he knew who that man in the painting was, strengthened my testimony. Oh to know what a young child knows!

A New Anticipation

I don't know about you but I loved Christmas as a kid. My parents were fantastic at letting/helping us believe in the magic (aka: Santa) for as long as possible; I was 13 before I knew the truth :(. One year when we woke up Christmas morning my dad "discovered" something on the roof of our house. The family room to our house had been added on to the house at some point long before our family moved in and there was a great fireplace in that room. Because it was an addition, our bedroom windows led right out onto the roof so we could easily see it all the way down to the chimney. So one year (I may have been 11, not entirely sure) when we woke up my dad told us to look out our window. And what did we see? Tracks.... Sleigh tracks, reindeer hoofprints and Santa's footprints leading to the chimney and back to the sleigh tracks. There was even a round print where his bag had been set down by the chimney. To this day, my dad claims it was Santa, no matter how much I beg and plead for him to tell me how he did it. It couldn't have been an easy feat since it was winter in South Dakota so there was about a foot of snow on the roof. We always had piles of presents from Santa as well as a tree loaded with presents. My dad's presents were always entertaining: a crisp, fifty-dollar bill stuck into a toilet paper roll and wrapped up and one year he wrapped up a piece of 2x4 wood. The wood went to beds that he had made my sister and I but they weren't put together yet. My dad is quite handy and has made several presents over the years, including the scooter he made for Tristan (and his cousin) last year. See? Isn't it great?! And now that Tristan is big enough, he loves it!

Over the years, as I got older and no longer lived at home, Christmas became less about the magic and more like just another day. It was still a nice day to be with family but I didn't have the excitement for it like I did as a child. But now that we have Tristan the anticipation has returned but in a totally different way. Rather than being excited about what I'm going to get, I'm excited about what he's going to get and how much I KNOW he's going to LOVE it! The kid is a little monkey so we bought him a Lil Tikes play set that has a "climbing wall" (really just a rounded ladder with hand holds), a slide, a basketball hoop and a hole for throwing a football and another for kicking a soccer ball. We also got him some books which he loves; I even made him his own alphabet book with pictures of him and his favorite people/things. Even though he's only one, I can't wait to see how excited he'll be on Christmas morning when he sees his playset. Though I miss the anticipation of a child for Christmas, I think this new anticipation and seeing Christmas through my son's eyes is even better!

Another Nice Day... Another Outside Excursion

Since it was 75 degrees today and I didn't have my English class in the afternoon, I decided it would be fun to take Tristan to the park and let Chad work on his homework in a quiet house. So I called up my friend Mery from our ward and asked if she wanted to meet me at the park with her daughter Nova and of course she said yes. Nova is just a month older than Tristan and they get to see a lot of each other because Mery and I are in activity days together.

Riding the bouncy horse. He kept running over to play on it but wasn't quite sure what to do when I actually put him on it.

Nova's turn

A hazard of the playground... woodchips! He kept trying to eat them!

Mery and Nova sharing their snacks with Tristan. They both love the cheese-puffs.

Talking to Nova in the swing next to him.

Nova is going to be a big sister in March to a little brother. Mery keeps trying to get me to try for another. Haha not yet! Notice Nova's foot, she kept crossing her leg in the swing and refused to put it through the hole. Such a funny little girl! Also, look at how much longer Tristan's legs are compared to her... and she's a month older!
Out of the swings and right back to the horse

First Trip to the Zoo

It has been so nice this week here in Utah so we decided to take advantage and go to the zoo. We don't have the greatest zoo, it's really small and still have a lot of small enclosures for the animals. But it was still fun for an afternoon excursion. They have so many new babies; twin tiger cubs, colobus monkey, giraffe and their pride, Zuri the elephant. Tristan enjoyed seeing all the animals and I loved seeing all the babies! :D
Statue of the gorilla the zoo had for years.

Riding the tigers

One of the adorable twin tiger cubs

Baby giraffe and his mama

Tristan making friends with the penguins. They came running up to the fence as soon as he leaned over.

Me and Tristan in front of the giant elephant that makes noise and music

Not so sure about sitting on this thing! The Godfather shirt was a b-day present from his uncle Eddie and Aunt Gio (LOVE our friends!). He also got a Rocky shirt from Ryan and Janelle.

Outside the Elephant Habitat. If you look close, you can see the baby in the background.

Zuri the elephant and her mama

Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday to Tristan!

I can't believe I have a one year old! This past year has been indescribable! It is truly amazing to think that just one year ago I had this tiny little boy that I had waited so long to hold. He's not so tiny now! At his one year check up he was in the 95th percentile for height at 31 1/4 inches (he's grown a full 10 inches since he was born). He's walking everywhere now, climbing on anything and getting into everything!

Since his birthday is Halloween I, of course, decided to have a costume party. The whole family were pirates.

Since we were pirates, I went with a pirate theme for the invites, pinata and cake. The invites were so much work but so worth it! Message in a bottle, I made all the "maps", filled the bottle with sand and mixed in jewels.I don't have pictures of the cake yet since my camera decided to die after one picture! We have a lot of video that I won't bore you with but fortunately, Ryan was there with his handy camera and he took pictures for me. THANK YOU RYAN!!!

I sent the kids on a treasure hunt around the house and front yard to find their goody bags filled with gold coin candy, ring pops, glow sticks and other treats. They all seemed to have a blast doing it! I also made a face cut-out poster that people could take pictures in. Here's the end of the treasure hunt... the dead pirate guarding his treasure. I made the Treasure Chest too. (Yes, I know I was a little out of control)The poster... I wish I'd done it on plywood instead of cardboard because it turned out so cute!

Our house was full to the brim with friends and family. We ate cake (which is a story in itself that I will share later when I have the photos), sugar cookies, opened LOTS of presents, broke open the pirate flag pinata and had a lot of fun. All in all, it was exhausting but so worth all the work! Fun but I'm not doing this again until he's five!

Tristan and all his loot. He loves all his new toys, especially the lion from his Aunt Jen, Uncle Brandon and cousins, Matthew and Tyler. When I brought it into the room his face lit up and his mouth opened as wide as can be! He kept going over and just patting it. So cute!

Mmmm Cake! His Pirate Hat Cake w/Green Frosting (another fiasco) as you can see he made a mess but only after I prompted him by pushing his hands into the cake. He was eating so daintly before I "helped".

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME AND I HOPE YOU HAD FUN!

PUMPKINS

There is a great little pumpkin patch just down the road from us but Chad and I have never been until this year. We figured, since we have a Halloween baby, we should probably decorate. So we decorated the house and went and bought a bunch of pumpkins today.

Halloween Costume

In case you don't remember, Tristan was born on Halloween and because of that, he was dressed up in the nursery at the hospital before they brought him into me. He was a pirate then so we decided it would be a good costume for his 1st birthday as well. And look how adorable he is!!!!

Arrrggghhhhh Matey!

He looks so sad... but I LOVE this picture!

Tristan with his cousins, Matthew and Tyler

Happy Little Pirate!