Growing!

My little boy is not so little anymore!  He went to the doctor on Wednesday for his well check-up and we got proof that he was growing.  He also got two shots, which didn't seem to affect him too bad.  He was playing around as soon as we got home and crawled into his lego bin and didn't want to get out!  You might also see a red mark on the corner of his left eye.  He tripped again at daycare and got another owie:(

 

Bryant was pretty entertaining when I was trying to take these pictures last night.  He wouldn't smile or look at me and then as soon as the flash went off on my camera phone, he would turn and smile. 

 

Bryant's stats at his doctor's appointment were:

Weight: 27 lb 11 oz (88%)

Height: 35 1/4 inches (>99%)

Head Circumference: 50.5 cm (>99%)

 

He is now off the charts in height and head size and not only kept pace with Travis, but outgrew him by more than 1/2 an inch!  As the doctor said, Bryant is living up to his genetics:)

18 Months

Bryant is a year and a half old!  It seems like in the past week, he has really started using more words, but they don't always make sense.  He also knows more than I know he knows.  Last week at daycare they had animal week, so they learned the sign language and did activities around certain animals.  Monday was dogs, so he of course, loved that day.  Friday was fish and they actually have fish tanks at daycare, so he had a lot of fun with that too.  He said dog before, but now he says fish ("eeesh").  We mostly ask him about farm animals and noises and the other day, we asked him what an elephant says and he put his arm up by his chin and raised it and made an elephant type noise.  I had no idea he knew that one:)

 

Bryant has always loved giving Mocha treats.  In fact sometimes he'll cry when we only let him give Mocha one treat.  So, the other day, we thought we would teach him how to get Mocha to do tricks for treats.

Mocha, shake!

 

 

Bryant has also been big into trying on Trav's and my shoes.  The other day he was walking around with Trav's slippers on.  I went to take a picture and told Bryant to smile and this was the face I got.

 

We actually got a little bit of snow this week, although most of it melted by today, so we took advantage of the little bit of snow we had and went sledding around our neighborhood.  It is quite the process to get on all the snow gear

 

It was so nice outside, that we got to play outside for quite a while and even got to play on the fort!  Bryant loves the slide.  He went down on his butt the first couple times and then he decided going on his tummy was really fun!

 

We had so much fun - what a great way to celebrate my little boy turning 18 months old!

More Basketball!

The other night I told Bryant it was time for bed.  To avoid getting tired, he usually gets really hyper, then settles down. Here is part of his hyper moment which ends in me getting tackled:)

After Bryant's takedown, he quickly settled down and started cuddling.

I gotta say, I am already loving that Travis has more weekends off. There are so many more fun things for us to do as a family. Tonight we headed to Bozeman with Grandma and Grandpa to watch a mens basketball game. Similar to the Carroll game, Bryant was pretty overwhelmed for the first half. Then he really got into it. He loved looking at Champ the mascot (from far away) and watching the blimp that flies around the gym. Here he is pointing at something...

He got some popcorn too!

The game was really close and the crowd was really getting in to it. When the Cats scored, Bryant would clap. When the Cats played defense, Bryant would stomp his feet on the ground. At one point, a play did not go in the Cats favor and Bryant put his hands on his cheeks and said "Oh no". He had so much fun and we all enjoyed the entertainment (both of the game and watching Bryant) 

Football

Today when I picked Bryant up from daycare, they told me he was starting to get used to the new room. I was excited to hear that and then I heard their reasoning...he is starting to run up to other kids, push them, and run off pretending like it wasn't him. I think he is actually trying to play chase:)

That also reminds me of a story from when we were at my parent's house and Bryant pressed the button to turn on the dvd player. When asked if he did it, he pointed at the dog. Maybe he just likes to pretend he didn't do things!

Tonight he had fun watching the national championship football game and eating popcorn in his treat seat. We gave him the smaller bowl and he took our big bowl and dumped it all into his bowl. Silly boy:) This also reminded me of another favorite Bryant word..."wow"!

Happy New Year!

I am finally getting around to updating the blog and realizing that I have so much to say and don't have pictures for all of it.  First off, Bryant turned 17 months old on Christmas Eve and I did not take one picture.  We went to a Christmas pageant at one of the local churches and Bryant had a great time.  The kids dress up as shepards, angels, animals, kings, etc. and put on a little play.  We didn't think Bryant would dress up and go up on stage without us, so we just watched.  At the end, they took pictures of all the kids dressed up in their costumes and Bryant wandered up and stood in the pictures. 

At 17 months, I would say his motor skills are doing great and he is starting to get better about using words.  He loves to jump, kick and throw things (mostly balls), put together and take apart anything (mostly legos, blocks, and Mr. Potato Head), and screw and unscrew lids.  His words are no (his new favorite), Mocha, mama, dada, dog, outside, upstairs, downstairs, more, book, baby, ball, shoes, hat, bye, hi, bubble.  Most recently, I think he picked up saying "run, run, run" as he runs up and down the hallway. I may be missing a few, but those are the ones he says most frequently.

So then there was Christmas, which I actually did blog about, which brings us to the day after Christmas.  We hardly had any snow for Bryant to try out his new sled, so we took it down the icy driveway.  He wasn't too sure about it, but I think that was mostly due to the cold weather.

Oddly enough, I think he had the most fun in pulling the sled back up the hill, which I remember being my least favorite part!

Santa brought Bryant a remote control truck for Christmas and on Christmas day, he did not like it at all.  Now he is starting to realize that it is really fun!

That Saturday, my brother and his girls came up to play for a bit, and Grandma and Grandpa took us to the Carousel.  Bryant wasn't a big fan of riding the horse, but Zoey sure had fun.

Bryant and Reagan preferred riding on the bench

Bryant took one more trip around the Carousel on the bobcat.  You can grab rings as you go around and throw them in the baskets, so I grabbed a ring for him and he shared it with his friend, Evie, from daycare.  I was joking around that he already gave his first ring to a girl:)

On Sunday, Travis' good buddy Tim and his family stayed with us.  They have a 2 1/2 year old (Gage) and 9 month old (Ryder) little boys.  Bryant had so much fun trying to mimic everything that Gage did.  I wish I would have had my camera or video camera out.  They were dancing, playing trucks, and just being boys.  There was only one little disagreement when Bryant actually got jealous and wanted every toy that Gage was playing with.   We had so much fun and wish we could see them more!

Then it was time to ring in the new year.  We were pretty boring and didn't actually make it to midnight, but on New Years Day, we got great news.  Travis was offered a new job!  He will now have weekends off, so we can spend a lot more family time together!

Travis and I spoiled ourselves for our birthday and Christmas presents and bought a hot tub about a month ago.  We absolutely love it, but Bryant hadn't gotten an opportunity to play in it yet.  We turned down the temperature a bit the other day and Bryant got his first swim in the hot tub.  He loves to sit back and relax...

and kick!

On Saturday night, Bryant got to go to his first Carroll basketball game.  He was really overwhelmed at first and was glued to our laps.  After about 30 minutes of watching other kids dancing and playing, he started to get more brave.  It may have been the super pretzel with cheese too...Either way, I think fun was had by all whether watching the game (Trav and I) or watching other kids (Bryant).  Sorry for the long post, but I think I am all caught up now.  The Handl family has had quite the great start to 2014 and can't wait to see what else this year has in store for us!