March Update

Bryant was so excited for Saint Patrick's Day.  Each kid built a trap at school, but none of them caught the leprechaun, so next year, he wants to build a lot of traps.  I woke him up that morning and told him that the leprechaun left him something and before he would come out of his room he was insistent that I answer his question - "Does he do that at everyone's house?"  He was super excited to see that the leprechaun left him pancakes, although he looks pretty nervous about it in the picture.

Garrett was also excited for pancakes!

And as he transitions to the bigger room, he gets to go outside to play.  So we dug out Bryant's baby shoes and Garrett gave them a try.

Stylin' little dude!

You can't tell with his coat on, but Bryant had to make sure he was dressed in green from head to toe

Garrett's gotten hit with a couple colds and two new teeth lately so we've been getting lots of slobbery snuggles.

Bryant goes on spurts where he sleeps all night in his bed, so to celebrate, I said I would get him ice cream.  He was insistent that I take him to the Frozen Moose where he gets to put on all his own toppings...marshmallows, cherries, chocolate chips, brownie bites, fruity pebbles, and more!

For my last ski lesson, we took Bryant up to the ski hill so he could have the opportunity to go this year too.

He was doing good on the tow rope with Travis, so he decided he wanted to go on the big ski lift.  They let us borrow the leash and when I showed Bryant the picture he commented that "I was like the horse, right?"  

He did really well and could even ski by himself on the parts that weren't as steep.

My brother and girls were in town for a visit and we were able to do a belated birthday for Garrett.  The boys always love playing with their cousins!

After a late night cousin playing, the boys got all snuggled up in our bed the next morning.  Bryant does get mad at Garrett occasionally, but for the most part, he is always looking out for his brother.  If he gets cookies or stickers at school, he always asks for some for his brother and he always wants to make him art projects.  

We met up with the cousins for some lunch.  I wanted to get a picture of the cousins and this is the reality of trying to get 4 active kids together for a picture...

This were the best of the best...

And some only had 3 of the 4

Quick pictures with Grandma and Grandpa and pretty much everyone is looking at the camera and smiling!

Garrett is BUSY...I wonder what goes through his head sometimes...

We have a newer donut place in town and I think Bryant has a new favorite breakfast place now.

There was a home show in town and the boys got balloons.  Garrett was like a dog chasing his tail with that balloon!

Bob the Builder was there...Garrett, who has no fear, gave him high five.  Bryant, on the other hand, waved in fear from about 10 feet away.

February Update

Poor second child...I'm so far behind on uploading his stats.  I had a fair amount of pictures to upload, so here's some highlights from the past month:

You would think that I would have gotten a picture of Garrett at his doctor's appointment, but no...I did get one of Bryant's crazy hat hair though.

So here are the growth charts...there's a gap on Trav's line because he didn't have stats from 12 months, but as you can see, Garrett is bigger and taller than Bryant was at that age.  At 12 months, he was:

30 3/4 inches long (83%)

25 lbs 13 ozs (96%)

49 1/4 cm (99%)

Travis and I took advantage of a kidless afternoon and went skiing.  My boys got me 3 lessons, so this was the first.  I did okay and Travis and I are still on good terms even with him taking me down a hill called X-Revenge, where I wiped out and got passed by a little 4 year old...

We took in a lot of Carroll basketball games toward the end of the season.  Garrett figured out that he loves popcorn!

We've been playing the Monopoly game at Albertsons/Safeway stores and have gotten a couple free donuts out of the deal.  Bryant loves to go grocery shopping with me now!

I forgot how messy 1 year olds are when they eat...I don't remember if Bryant went through this phase and I'm sure this will too pass, but oh what a mess.  He eats a lot, but also throws a lot, and spits out a lot.  It's a good thing he's cute:)

We were dog-sitting for a couple weeks and Bryant really wanted BeeDee to sleep in his room.  She would start in there, but would always end up in our room.  He was so sad the first night when he woke up and she didn't stay with him.  One night we couldn't find BeeDee and she had gone and laid down with him after he was asleep.  He had no idea so I had to take a picture for him to see.

More of our donut winnings

"Watching" cat/griz basketball at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We had an Outdoor Sports show in Helena where they had an act that they were doing with live bears.  Bryant was so excited for the show, but a little disappointed in how quickly it was over.

Bryant still likes to help out in the kitchen and he got a bit messy with the lasagna.

It was Dr. Seuss' birthday the other week, so they do crazy things each day at school.  One day was crazy hat day.  We've had this hat for probably 3 years and Bryant never wanted to wear it...until he wore it to school for crazy hat day and his friends thought it was so funny.  Now he wears it to school at least once a week.

Comfy Garrett?

When we watch a lot of basketball, we play a lot of basketball.  I'm betting Bryant puts in at least 30 minutes of shooting in a day.  Bryant still loves knowing the mascots of the different teams and he really likes their pre-game rituals.  So for Carroll, he wants to make sure we are their for their light show where they announce the players.  The other day, he announced Garrett...it went something like this:

"And now, a 6'6" junior from California...Garrett Emma"  Which is funny because Bryant's favorite player  is Ryan Imhoff from Carroll who is a 6'6" junior from California...

Between growth spurts and just being active, Bryant goes through pants so fast.  He already put holes in the knees of 3 pairs of pants that he got for Christmas.  So we went to go get more and had fun trying on hats too.  I think this is comparable to the fancy red carpet events where the magazines compare "who wore the dress (or in this case, hat) better:

Both pretty cute in my opinion!

We had a bit of warm-ish weather and Bryant had gotten a new baseball bat from Cuba, so we had to go outside and try some baseball too.  I'm going to have to stop recording videos and trying to pitch at the same time.  He's going to take my head off one of these days.  

We headed to the Museum of the Rockies for their new Crocs exhibit.

Garrett LOVED it - I think he feels like he can have so much more fun and freedom now that he is walking.

I love Bryant's reaction to the giant T-rex

They have a kids play area at the Museum too, but we rarely spend very much time in there because Bryant is usually shy and there are normally a lot of kids.  When Garrett got in there and started walking around, Bryant started playing too.

So torn...so messy, yet so cute!

Everyone got a pretty good giggle at the spaghetti stuck on his face:)

The other day, Bryant thought of an idea to push a couch cushion under his basketball hoop so he could jump up and dunk it (like his favorite Carroll players that can dunk - Ryan Imhoff and Matt Wyman).  Somewhere in the past couple weeks, we also went to Belgrade to watch Trav's old stomping grounds in a challenge basketball game.  On the drive there, Bryant was asking about mascots and his usual questions.  Then Travis sang the fight song for him "We're purple and gold, Whitehall High..."  Bryant, completely innocent, sings "We're purple and white and we're high"  Travis and I got quite the giggle.

I don't know why they have teething rings - this kid prefers to chew on nerf darts.

We started a chart for Bryant so he can earn stickers for doing different chores.  Is it just me or does he look so grown up here?

Maybe it's his new carpenter pants like daddy or that he got a cool Ninja Turtle belt too.

We also went to Exploration Works in town because they had a little experiment with play dough and electricity.  And I think it was Garrett's first time there where he could really play if he wanted.

Our little daredevil was not liking the slide at all.

Bryant liked acting in front of the green screen

There was a Made in Montana show in Helena this past weekend and one of my old volleyball teammates makes pottery, so we picked up a hot chocolate mug for Bryant.

And he's posing with Dad's new coffee cup.

We were trying to clean up all the toys we had the other night and the boys were having a lot of fun.  I just love Garrett's giggles!

He's still got his little 6 tooth grin:)

For fun we were doing Snapchat too...here's my boys sporting their mustaches!

Ha!

So, I timed this post pretty well because Garrett is now 13 months!  He walks everywhere now and is getting pretty quick.  He uses his signs pretty well and tries to use some words too.  He signs more, please, all done, gentle, and milk and likes to say mama, dada, diggy (Bryant's nickname), he tries to say gog gog for dog and also says cracker.  He wants to do everything his brother does.  He tries to quack like a duck and has the cutest wave to say hello or goodbye.  We usually get surprised by a new word or sign every day.  The other day, I was heating up his milk and he looked out the window and saw a dog, so he said gog gog and did the sign for gentle (he knows how to sign it, but that doesn't mean he is gentle).  He is fun loving most of the time, but he also likes to throw everything, bite, and hit.  Eating out is getting to be more of a challenge because he wants to always be on the go (and he makes such a big mess).  The baby phase seems long gone and the toddler phase is swinging in.  At the end of the month, he's going to be transitioning into the next room at daycare, which for him is probably appropriately named as he will move to the Frog room.