We let Mr. D do his own thing for a bit and we caught a couple of his sisters… oh my, are their parents going to have their hands full in another 10 years or what?!Nothing better than belly laughs with your sister…Finally, Mr. D decided he was ready for his close up but he would only agree to the terms of the shoot if he got to use his own props… Thanks for letting me document this period in your lives! It was a pleasure!

This is what happened when I tried to get Jamie and Leo to stand together for just ONE picture. Leo wasn’t having it! This is his death glare to Tania because she promised him that there wouldn’t be any posed pictures! Haha! Sorry Leo, that was my bad!

Leo is playing football for the first time this year and I think that this picture lives up to his team name, The Chargers! I would be intimidated by you Leo if I was your opponent!

Tania has always told me what a girly girl Jamie can be because she loves clothes and anything fashion, but these go to show that girly girls can be tough too! Check out those legendary tie-dyed purple socks!! Did I mention that Tania was the coolest mom around?

Dave and Griffin came along to the session with me and Griffin was sure to give Leo a high five for all of his modeling efforts!

Thank you Jamie and Leo for letting us hang out with you for the afternoon and thank you especially for always being so good to Griffin! He is lucky to have both of you in his life and I know that he adores you both! Tania, all I can say is you rock and we are very thankful that we found someone that we could trust with the most important person in our lives. I hope you know how much you are appreciated and admired!

When the three and under crowd was given the whistle, off he went with determination. If the picture below on the left could have a caption, it would be “Prepare yourselves little plastic Easter eggs! You are about to be hunted by the Griffinator!!”

After a few eggs, Griffin aborted the hunt for more fun endeavors…….

(I know that the last picture is unfocused, but I don’t care because he just looks so happy!! And besides…. it is my blog and I can post unfocused pictures if I want to!)  :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Maybe Griffin’s hunting experience will be a bit more joyous next year! Haha!

Once again, I am a day late and a dollar short! I missed your 17 month birthday but I gave myself the excuse that it was in February, and technically, there isn’t a 30th day of February. You turned 18 months old yesterday. Holy-COW! You are a year and a half old already! Where has the time gone?! You change by leaps and bounds everyday that it is beginning to be hard to keep track of everything that changes within the month. First, you have absolutely NO patience and you have become the king of the temper tantrum and do it with dramatic flair! You must get that from me! You hate the word “No”, and if you receive it, you typically throw your head back, slamming it into the ground that it is a wonder that you do not give yourself concussions on a daily basis, and you seem to be able to unhinge your bottom jaw from the rest of your face and are able to jut your jaw and your bottom lip far out into the world and then scream the most whiney, annoying, sound that any human is capable of making. It is quite becoming. Ummmm… yeah.

On a far more positive note, you are starting to say more words now. In addition to Dada, Ma, and thank you, we have added baby and dog to your vocabulary. You have also started to say “Uh-Oh!” all of the time when you drop something or fall down, but really it is more like an “Ah!…….Oh!” (with a long dramatic pause in between syllables). It is SO cute! When you went to the doctor this morning, your doctor said that we needed to start keeping an eye on your language development, but hopefully you will start talking more when you are ready. Who has time for learning to talk when you have been developing your amazing dance moves!! You have the most rhythm of any toddler I have ever seen! You LOVE music and have some of the cutest dances known to this planet. The last few weeks you have started trying to stand on your head without using your hands, and I keep telling Dad that you are preparing to do headspins any day now! You are going to be Mommy’s Little Break Dancer aren’t you? Speaking of breaking…. you have been to urgent care twice this month. Apparently this is a sign that you are turning into a little boy instead of my baby. You have had “nursemaids” elbow twice this month and have given your Mom and Dad panic attacks both times when we have seen your arm hanging limp by your side. You are so active and LOVE to be outside. Dad gives me anxiety by letting you go down the big-boy slide at the playground, but you LOOOOOOOOOVE it! You giggle uncontrollably as you climb the stairs of the jungle gym and you squeal with excitement when we catch you at the bottom. Then we do it all over again…. again….. and again…. and again…. and again. You have started bringing us your shoes when you want to go outside and it still seems so strange to have you communicating your wants to us in a way that we can understand what you are asking for.

You have started to snuggle more recently, and it makes my mommy heart feel so good! Not to mention that it balances out some of the temper tantrums too! You have also started giving open mouth kisses which are pretty nasty and slobbery. For the longest time, when I ask for a kiss, you would press your forehead to my lips, but now you are trying to meet your lips to mine but forget to close your mouth first. It’s gross… but funny. You still let me blow-dry your hair after your baths, and apparently that is an oddity because people always look shocked when I tell them that I dry your hair and that you sit patiently in the sink while you get your style. Don’t people know that we have to work to have that gorgeous head of hair?!

I love you little man and I am so very proud of you!

Love,

Mom

P.S. Typically I post a picture of you with your birthday posts, but I realized this evening that I didn’t have any recent shots of you. So therefore, Dad and I planned a stealth operation to get a picture of you while you were sleeping. We shut off all of the noise in the house and turned off all the lights, and snuck into your room, me armed with my camera and Dad armed with a flashlight. I signaled to turn the flashlight on and I didn’t even get a quick shot before you sat straight up! Dad flew out of the room in quick fashion and I chose to stand very still and hoped that if I didn’t breathe, you wouldn’t see me standing there in the dark. You saw me. Sorry buddy for waking you up! I will add a picture sometime this week!

Here is the shape peg game! Silly Briella… putting a yellow triangle on the purple rectangle peg!

Their dog, Lotto, wanted to make sure that he was included in the family portraits! This shot makes me giggle!

Thank you guys for allowing me to take part in your family’s history! Now I am off to go teach Griffin some shapes! Ha!