Standing Tall

Derek's newest accomplishment - standing up in the middle of the floor.

He has never attempted to stand up, but tonight as I was cleaning up dinner, Elliott said Derek is standing up and falling back down. I was doubtful, but as I watched, this is what I saw (beware loud screeching ahead)...

He finally got the hang of it. Once he got up and stood there for a good 30 seconds. Of course the video was processing so I couldn't get a picture, but here's a great one from another successful attempt. I absolutely LOVE the face!

Go, Derek, go!

He's finally making some progress. Hooray!

Elliott Update

I've been a bit behind on getting this update out. Elliott has had an exciting month. He loves school. He started playing soccer. He has a lot of fun, even if he doesn't usually get anywhere near the ball. He has a good coach and teammates. Their team is the Green Goblins. It's fun to see him play and have a good time. Elliott finally got a new bike too. It was time to get him a "real" bike with training wheels. He loves to ride it. A friend of mine was selling it, so it was a good deal too. Finally, last Saturday Elliott lost his first tooth. We were at the Wymount Opening Social. He was eating a cookie and felt something hard, so he took it out of his mouth. He thought it was just a sprinkle from his cookie. I glanced at it and realized it was his tooth. He thought that was pretty cool. And since he was eating something, we didn't have to deal with any blood. It was nice all around. It's funny to see him smile without the tooth because the new one is already as big as the other teeth in his mouth, just a bit further back. He was very excited for the tooth fairy to come. Elliott LOVES to play the Game of LIFE. We play it almost every day. He is really good at being the banker too. He can calculate anything - 2 paydays minus something he has to pay, etc. He's pretty amazing. It's fun to watch him learn and grow.

Derek Update

Derek is 15 months old (ok, almost 16 now)! He still weighs less than 20 pounds. He's not walking or talking yet, but he's got the cutest personality. He figured out how to climb slides and now cannot be stopped. I have to keep a close eye on him anytime we go to a park. He has no fear. He'll climb up any slide, no matter its size! His other favorite things are reading and animals. So, he can usually be found looking at books with animals and making animal sounds. I can distinguish his animal sounds, but many of them do sound alike. It's pretty cute when he does them. What a sweet boy!

This is where he can usually be found (or more often in the living room corner surrounded by books). I love it!

Derek LOVES playing outside, especially in the dirt. He found this great truck at the park. He loves to play with it.

Chillin' at Elliott's soccer game.

I was sweeping the other day. When I put the broom down for a minute, he was all over it. He sat there pushing it back and forth for several minutes.

Slide time. (The first slide he climbed.)

End of Summer Adventures - Day 2

Now for our second day of fun. We headed out a little later in the morning. We stopped at the Clark Planetarium to get tickets to a couple shows in the afternoon. Then we headed to the Lion House Pantry for lunch. We all had some tasty food, including their delicious rolls and dessert. I saw all those desserts sitting there and just couldn't pass them up. The best part was that it was all included in our passes. It was fun to be able to eat there. It was delicious and a nice place to eat. It was especially nice to have a filling lunch to take us through the rest of the day.

After lunch, we headed back to the planetarium to look around. They have a Foucault Pendulum, telescopes, and displays about the planets. Derek's favorite was where he could crawl around and explore the moon and Mars. He was all over those rocks. It was pretty cool. Our special tickets allowed us to see 2 shows at the planetarium. One was 3D. Elliott chose the Dinosaur show. I was surprised at how well he did with the 3D glasses. He took them off whenever there were dinosaurs (he didn't want them to get too close), but he wore them when they were talking about the land or other things. Derek didn't appreciate the glasses. He did pretty well during the show. We also saw a show about Saturn in the Dome Theater. The screen is shaped like a dome, so it's mainly in front of you, but the picture actually extends above. Derek didn't last through that show. I took him to climb on the rocks some more.

When we were finished at the planetarium, we went to The Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. The aquarium is in a building that used to be a KMart or a grocery store or something. It's pretty odd looking from the outside (for an aquarium). It was a decent aquarium, nothing too fancy, but enough to keep our interest for the little while we spent there. (I think we were in and out in less than an hour.) They had a pool with stingrays that you could pet. Elliott stuck his hand in the water but wasn't about to touch one. They had an octopus, lots of jellyfish, eels, rays, a few sharks, and lots of other fish and other creatures. Derek was happy to get out of the stroller and push it around for awhile.

We had another fun-filled day. I'm so glad we were able to spend those 2 days together. As Brent said, we crammed 6 months of family time into 2 days. Sadly, that's probably about right. We didn't have a whole lot of time together over the summer and school started for Brent today, so he'll be busy for the next 8 months (busy might be an understatement). I'll take what I can get. It was great to be able to do so many things. I calculated how much we would have spent if we paid full price for everything we did. It would have been $163! Every attraction costs so much by itself. What a nice savings we had. We had a great end to our summer.

The Big Day

Today was Elliott's first day of Kindergarten. The day finally came! He was so excited. Derek and I walked him to school. It takes just over 15 minutes to walk, so it's some decent exercise at least while it's not too cold. It's a little cool in the morning, thus the jacket. I made him take it off and leave it with me once we got to school. He had a great first day. He had lots to say about it when he got home.

Dakota (friend from church) and Elliott are in the same class. There are 2 other kids he knows in his class as well.

Elliott sat down at his desk and just started smiling. I didn't even have to ask.

I'm so glad this time has finally come. Elliott really needs some structure away from home. I think we were all starting to go crazy. He is getting so big. I'm excited for him to learn new things and make new friends.

End of Summer Adventures - Day 1

Today was officially our last day of summer. Elliott starts Kindergarten tomorrow! We decided to see how many activities we could cram into 2 days. Thanks to Cheryl-Lynn for telling us about the Salt Lake City Connect pass deal - 2 days for the price of 1. With the pass, we could go to basically any venue that's worth going to. So, for less than $60 for all of us, we were able to do a ton and we had a great time! Yesterday we started out at This is the Place Heritage Park. Then we went across the street to the Hogle Zoo. Since we had a little extra time in the late afternoon, we stopped at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point.

I finally figured out how to make collages to put in my blog - yay! I'm excited. Of course it makes some of the pictures a little small. You should be able to click on it to see it bigger. (I realize you can't really see who's on the ponies.)

At This is the Place, we were able to walk around the Pioneer Village. Elliott got to experience some chores - doing laundry with a washboard and beating a rug. He also got to use a woodworker's tool. Elliott and Derek got to ride the ponies. Derek wasn't too sure about it when I stuck him on the pony, but he did pretty good. He held on to the saddle for a few seconds here and there (instead of the death grip he had on me). He even pet the pony when he was finished. Elliott did great. The ponies were kinda lame - they didn't want to go anywhere - but the boys still had fun.

There was a collection of play houses the boys had fun exploring. The wooden train was the biggest hit.

We rode the big train a couple times to get where we wanted to go. Derek enjoyed having free reign of the caboose. There was a mini train that circled around a pond too. That was also fun.

We saw lots of animals at the zoo. It was fun to show Derek in real life some of the animals he loves looking at in books. Elliott got to be taller than a giraffe. The lion drinking fountains were pretty cool.

Elliott was super excited to go back to the Dinosaur Museum. I had my camera this time. Hooray.

We had a fun filled day. Day 2 still to come...

The Mysterious Tooth

Last Sunday as we were sitting, oh so reverently, in Sacrament Meeting, I looked over at Elliott and noticed something in his mouth. I looked closer and realized it was a tooth - just hanging out like it belongs there behind his front bottom teeth. Normally teeth come in under the baby teeth, but not in this kid's mouth. Too bad he inherited my terrible mouth. He'll probably have teeth growing all over the place with no rhyme or reason, like I did. After discovering this new tooth, I checked the baby tooth and it was at least a little bit loose. It's even looser now, so that's good. After church, Elliott exclaimed, "That means I have 21 teeth!" Pretty cool. Even funnier was afterwards when the kid sitting behind us came up to me and told me he has 20 teeth. What I think is kinda strange is that Elliott never mentioned feeling it before. It's not like it's small. It's fully up out of the gums. Crazy stuff. Elliott is pretty excited to lose his first tooth and have the Tooth Fairy come.