New Crib!

Last night was Ian's first night in his new digs. I was sure he would appreciate the incredible comfort that a real mattress offers and would silently drift off into the deepest, most satisfying (and longest) night sleep ever. Instead, Scott tells me he shook the railing for 20 minutes and pushed all his binkies out through the slats. And he woke up a good hour before he normally does this morning. Apparently extreme comfort takes some getting used to.

When I was finally ready to order the crib online, I was overjoyed to see that it was 15% off. Then I was depressed to realize the crib had sold out earlier that day. Thankfully, one crib was available in one store, and it happened to be only 10 minutes away. And they put it on hold for me. Whew!


Here are some shots of Scott setting up the crib. For whatever reason, I feel like these events must be documented.

Voting

Today we early voted. It was an interesting experience to use the electronic ballots. Even after a brief orientation on how to do it, I wasn't entirely confident that I could properly cast my ballot. But turns out it isn't so difficult.

It was interesting to have several candidates for local offices meet us in the parking lot and attempt to sway our vote. They were all pleasant, but it made me a little uncomfortable. Especially when the guy who took our photo asked us who we had voted for.

I was disappointed that the Texas primary and caucus were so late in the race. (yes, they do both. Texas must always be unique.) And therefore it was too late for my vote to do my candidate of choice any good. Still, it felt good to do our civic duty.

Thanks for stopping by!

This blog is now open by invitation only. Thanks for making the effort to log in (and for some of you, to create a Gmail account) so that you could view this blog. We appreciate your support and we are delighted to share news from the Larson family with you.

Hope to see you again soon.

Scott, Les & Ian

No More

Just wanted you to know I will no longer be making Ian's baby food. No more frantically boiling and pureeing green beans while Ian is impatiently banging his hands on his high chair tray. No more slicing yellow squash while Ian releases screams from the pit of his growling stomach. No more scrubbing the blender by hand because I ran out of pureed veggies before we ran the dishwasher.

But I am a little sad about it. Something about doing it all was fun to me. Not the screaming, and certainly not washing those tricky little blender blades. I think it was the 'organic' feel of it all. The feeling that I knew exactly what was going into Ian's body, and knowing that it was pure and wholesome, from foods that I had handpicked (from our local grocery).

And originally I thought making baby food would be an economical way to make sure Ian was getting healthy foods. Turns out that most foods are more expensive when you buy them fresh or frozen and make your own food out of them. Even more expensive than if you were to buy those cute little tubs of Gerber pureed foods. And that's not even accounting for my very precious time put into it. But I kept it up simply because I thought it was fun to make his food. But it stopped being fun last week, so now I am putting the blender back on the shelf. No more homemade baby food. And you know what? Ian likes the Gerber stuff better anyway. And we might actually save some money now.

Valentines Day

Our friends Brandon and Jenn watched Ian while Scott and I went out to celebrate Valentines Day last Friday. Once again, I was reminded how glorious it is to go out sans baby. We tried a new restaurant, and then made very good use of a gift card my sister and her husband gave us over Christmas. My new favorite ice cream is chocolate cake batter with graham cracker crumbs in it. So good.

Scott knows just how to help me celebrate Valentines Day -- really good chocolate! I think this was my introduction to the best chocolate in the world, and I hope to become very familiar with it in the future. I loved every single piece of it.

And for Scott, I surprised him by starting our wedding scrapbook! Turns out I really enjoy scrapbooking. And it also turns out I love our wedding pictures. A little cropping goes a long way, doesn't it? I have about half the pictures done, and will post photos of the pages for your enjoyment. I am pretty proud of the results.

And just in time for Love Day, our amaryllis bloomed. We got a total of three large flowers and it was fun to see the first one open on Valentines morning.

Ian also had a great day: He got an adorable Valentine from his grandma and grandpa Larson. He carried it all the way back from the mailbox and didn't want to let it go. Thanks for sending it grandma and grandpa!

Ian imitates more words every day. Most of the time, he only manages to repeat the tone and inflection of what you said, and usually with the same amount of syllables, but not so much the actual word. But on Tuesday he began saying 'cracker' with great regularity. And it actually sounds like cracker! To reinforce the word and it's meaning, I fetch a graham cracker every time he says it. It has made for A LOT of trips to the pantry. I love hearing him communicate. And check out those teeth! He currently has 7 teeth: four on top, three on bottom.

Naughty Naughty

Here is photo evidence of Ian's mischief. Thankfully, he hadn't fallen into the vacant space yet, because that is always especially traumatic for him. The blue bottom isn't solid, and has a network of bars underneath it, which becomes a tar pit for little Ian, where he flops around until rescued. While I was taking pictures, Ian was willing to demonstrate how he does it -- I thought he had been slipping his little fingers under the end and prying it up. He actually just yanks on the middle of the sheet and the end flips up. I think we can prevent this by just removing the sheet.... hope it works.

Another solution is to buy Ian a real crib, with a real mattress. This crib is my current favorite and is the only one I have liked consistently. I like that it has really simple lines and is Espresso color (though the picture looks blackish). It is convertible, but that doesn't matter to me. It has great reviews online, but I would love to hear from anyone else who has it. Or anyone who has opinions on this type of crib. What did you look for in crib? What do you love and hate about your own? I figure if we wait nearly a year to purchase a crib, we had better get it right. And that kind of pressure has made this process take months longer.

10 Months!

21 lbs. 9 oz., 50%

Our once rolly-polly baby went in for his weight check today, and thankfully he finally broke the elusive 20 lbs. mark! He weighed in at 21 lbs. 9 oz., which is up about 2 lbs. in the last month. He is now comfortably within the 5oth percentile, instead of the lower 25th percentile. Our pediatrician said that even in the 50th percentile, Ian is built like a line-backer, with broad shoulders and a thick chest. He tried to make Ian promise he would never play for University of Texas. I told him not to worry, that Ian was already a Cougar.

I feel great satisfaction in Ian's weight gain as I have spent the majority of my time during the last month preparing for the big weigh-in. I could often be found preparing baby food and feeding baby food and wiping off Ian's messy self. And Ian has spent most of his waking moments in his high chair this last month. But it has paid off. Whew!

Ian has been sick this week, and has been a very pathetic sight. The first day of the 'cold from heck', Ian wanted to snuggle and be held all day long. Pitiful as it was, I enjoyed snuggling with my normally unsnuggly boy. In the days after that he was mostly ornery, runny nosed, feverish, and didn't have much of an appetite. His fever has been gone for several days now, and he seems to be doing much better. Scott is also feeling much better this week. The Larsons are well on their way back to perfect health.

Ian currently loves pulling himself up on anything and everything, he walks along furniture, he waves bye-bye (including to his beloved bunny, who has to stay in bed when I get Ian out), he claps, throws balls to dad, has 5 teeth, throws his sippy cup and everything else off his tray, likes swings but doesn't like slides, throws his bunny and binkie overboard when he is supposed to be napping, and then cries for them to come back, and to my great frustration, he folds back his bed mattress and then gets stuck amongst the bars, which is not at all conducive to sleep. I will have to produce pictures of this last one -- it is a sad sight to be seen.

Ian is very healthy, is happy as ever, and is such a joy to Scott and I. We love being Ian's parents.

When Ian started to get over his cold, we walked to the park for some fresh air. He really enjoyed swinging, but mostly just wanted to be home in bed. Notice he is only slightly smiling in these pictures? We'll give it another try again soon.

Gorgeous Weather & Stuff

Just thought you all might want to know that it is 10:15 p.m., a perfect 60 degrees F and we have a slight breeze blowing in through our windows. Our windows are open! In February! The past several days have been just like this --- 70 degrees, a little breezy, and not at all humid. I have decided that February is a good enough reason for anyone to move to Houston. Oh! It is so glorious! I love the fresh, pleasant smell that enters through an open window on a night like this, and permeate the entire house. This is heavenly.

So, everyone, no more visitors in July. February is the new summer break 'round here.

And because I know grandparents and great-grandparents would leave here disappointed if they didn't get to see Ian, here are a few older shots that I forgot about. They were all taken in early January.

Here, Ian decided he was done eating, popped in his binkie, and then absentmindedly kept shoveling cheerios toward his mouth.

Some of Ian's friends came over to play and brought over loads of fun toys. Best of all was this basket, which Ian sat in for no less than 30 minutes, reading, playing, lounging.

"What's the big deal? Can't I get a minutes peace to read my board book, Ma?"

Ewww. Soggy, sloppy wheat biscuits.

Super Bowl

Rudolph's son

One's mouth must be full while climbing

Scott and Ian celebrating Super Bowl Monday. Though Scott looks handsome as ever here, he is running a high fever and feels practically dead. Thankfully I persuaded him to call in sick, which is no easy task. As you can see, the game had a nail-biting finish.

Touchdown!

Locking Blog

On February 15 we will lock our blog to all but those who have been invited to view it. It is mostly because of this, but also just the general creepiness of any stranger viewing our cute little son. We don't want to miss anyone when we send out the blog 'invitations' via email on Feb. 15, so leave a comment on this post or send us an email if you think we don't know you visit us here. Or if you don't think we have your most current email address. Thanks for stopping by!