11 Months!

Well, here we are, rapidly approaching Wes's first birthday!
The last month has been a very full one for Wes.

He is on the move and into everything! He is combining syllables to make little phrases and then he looks at you like we should totally understand what he's saying. He raises his hand up to point to things and to indicate what he sees or wants (not so much pointing, but what we call his "royal gesture"). We've yet to capture a photo of this gesture, but we'll keep trying. He loves his sippy cup, rather anyone's sippy cup! We have to watch when we're aound other little ones - he somehow manages to find everybody's sippy cup and give them all a try!

He has become a little bit of a picky eater these days. His favorites continue to be cheese and cheerios. I keep telling him, "Man cannot live on cheese and cheerios alone!" He has also developed this ability to scream out at the absolute top of his lungs without any warning -- this is our least favorite new trick, especially when in church or enclosed spaces like a restaurant.

He is still cruising around with the help of any object he can reach. He has gotten brave recently and will let go at times and stand alone for a couple of seconds, which usually proves only to give him battle wounds on his litte forehead as he goes crashing down.

He has cut two more teeth up top and now has 6 chompers to use!

Wes's favorite toys continue to be baseballs, basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, bouncy balls, and even the plastic McDonald's playground balls--ah, the simple joys of life. He will be entertained for very long periods of time with a ball and can spot a ball from a mile away at the park, in the grocery store, in someone's house and start reaching for it and saying, "uh" or "oooo".

This is a video clip of how I often find Wed passing the time. It cracks us up that he has figured out how to play ball with himself!



Here are some pics from the last month...

This is Wes's focused face. So sweet!

Wes no longer wants to play in the excersaucer, but rather underneath! Silly boy!

My new little helper has become very intruiged with the very exciting world that is the kitchen.

"Hey Mom, what's this? "

"I think I'll just give it a try!"


This is his "Look what I found" face...

This is his "Mommy just said No face."

Wes loves to stand and play at his activity cube. Maneuvering the little beads across the wires takes a lot of focus.

Look at that face!

"Who needs all these fancy toys? A stack of magazines is just as fun!"

One day while I was trying to pack for a trip, Wes found the food bag and dumped out the entire bag of cheerios! He was in heaven, but mommy had a quite a time cleaning them all up.


Wes also got his very first haircut! His hair had become a little unruly so we decided it was time. We took him to a little kids salon and he thought he was hot stuff getting to sit in the car like a big boy!

He was very good and let the nice lady even use clippers to trim up his little sideburns.


Still doing fine....

Decided this had gone on long enough!


I don't think he was a fan of all the gel the lady gooped in his hair!


But a balloon quickly made everything ok!.

Now there's that happy boy!


Mom, are you sure you like it? Well, once we got home, I discovered that I didn't care for the new cut. The top was still too long. So.....daddy set up shop on the patio and took a turn!

I was much happier with Daddy's work!
Daddy is the new offical barber in the house and the best news is that it's free!!

One of the biggest announcements of the month is that Gigi retired!! Yahoo! Now she can be a full time Gigi!! We had a big party at Bass Lake to celebrate and Wes got to explore the lake for the first time.




Wes has a fascination with Daddy's hat. Whenever Daddy has it on Wes constantly grabs on it and tugs and wants to pull it off and put it on, pull it off and put it on.


Happy Boy enjoying the outdoors at the lake!


Gigi and her 5 grandkids!
(Technically she has 6 now, but Baby Jed wasn't born yet when this photo was taken.)


For Father's Day weekend, we headed up to Nana's house.
What better way to bond with Daddy than to spend some time at the piano!



A little pianist on our hands?


For Father's Day Wes got Daddy his first Dad mug.
Don't all dads worth their weight have a "Dad mug" collection?


Look at the adoration in those little eyes!


Amber, Jeremy, Wes, Nana and Grandmama


First Father's Day! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful Daddy!

And, just last weekend Wes and I headed to Fresno for a family reunion. The photo just below is Grammy and about a third of her grandkids and great-grandkids.

While we were there we also had a big garage sale. The boys, Wes and his cousin Corbin, chilled with us in the garage so we could make some good deals.

Papa Ray came to entertain the boys. Wes is getting a kick out of him!

One thing about being in a house full of grandkids (all 5 of them were at Gigi and Papa's this particular weekend) is that it's easy for little ones to get into mischeif. The below 2 photos are of Wes after he came across a stray granola bar and decided he needed to try it!

Wes and Corbin are also becoming pretty good buddies. Corbin being 4 months older, is always showing Wes the ropes. Here he is teaching Wes how to eat some veggie chips. Look out, these two are going to be quite the duo as they grow up together!

What a full, rich month it has been for us!