Layton is 14 months!

It has been another great month of growth, changes, laughs, smiles, ups, downs, a few fits, many discoveries, and lots and lots of fun with you, Layton!!  You are just such a joy.  I find myself spending a lot of time just watching you.  I love to watch you walk around.  Your little fat belly, short legs, hair that sticks up in the back, and the way you kind of pull your arms back as you walk, just make me smile.  I can't get enough of you.  I love to watch and listen to you trying to communicate with me.  I love realizing that you understand things that I say and will do things that I ask (LOVE this because right now it can be almost impossible to get your brother and sister to do this!).  I love watching you discover things like the little popper thing that you push around or that you can climb the stool in the bathroom and "try" to reach the faucet or toothbrushes or new toys that you try to figure out.  You are so much fun!!!

You are loving Hannah's room right now.  I am pretty sure it is because we kind of try to keep you out of there more than we should.  Of course, this makes it more appealing I'm sure.  She just has so many little pieces to things in there that it is just easier to keep the door shut.  But when you can get in there, you do and you have a blast checking everything out.

You seem to like the train table.  I hope that this continues.  You love to play with cars and it amazes me that you automatically knew how to drive them around and even make the car sound.  I guess that is just a boy thing!

One day you pulled your diaper off in the hall.  I couldn't resist taking your picture.  Sweet little bottom.

I found you like this one day.  You are starting to want to climb more for sure. 

Here is our monthly bathroom shot.  Ha!  You have at least switched your focus from the toilet to the sink.  I must say I feel a little bit better about this.  You think you are so big that you can climb up the stool.  I don't think you really know how to get down yet though.

You have also discovered what I call my pantry room.  It is the little room off the kitchen where we have our pantry and extra fridge and freezer.  It has a step that you found and have spent quite a bit of time going up and down.  You think this is so much fun.  Anytime you can get near some steps, you are all about them.  It has actually been good because this helped you figure out how to sit down to go down a step safely.

You had a rough couple of weeks this month.  At the end of July, you were having lots of diarrhea and had some bloody stools which concerned us quite a bit.  We were afraid that you were having platelet count issues again.  We took you to the doctor and they did a CBC and had your stool cultured to see about bacteria or parasites.  After some trouble with the machine at the doctor's office, we were told your platelets were fine.  We were told to call back the next day if you still had bloody stools and we would have to go to Children's Radiology to have an ultrasound and exray.  We ended up having to do that and thankfully nothing showed up.  They even repeated your CBC to just verify your platelet count since there had been some confusion at the pediatrician.  It was really high, so we felt good about that.  We were back to wondering if it was a bacteria.  A few days later, the cultures came back fine.  SO, you did have to take an antibiotic, but we never really figured out what the deal was.  The diarrhea and bloody stools went away.  WEIRD!!  You were teething at the time.  I can't help but wonder what roll all that played in the diarrhea.  Who knows.

 

Speaking of teething, you have gotten 4 new teeth this month.  Lots of teething going on.  You got both of your bottom lateral incisors and the top and bottom right first year molars.  You now have 10 teeth.

 

You discovered ice cream cones and how to eat them. :)

You discovered that you can almost crawl into one of my kitchen cabinets!  You love my kitchen cabinets.  You like to be near me when I am cooking.  Lately you have been wanting to pull out all my Ziploc bags and foil and stuff which are to the bottom left of my oven.  I am constantly telling you no no.  I am so afraid you will cut yourself on the foil box because it is so sharp where you tear the foil off.  You get very upset with me for not letting you get all the foil out.

Just about every time I get the broom out to sweep the kitchen floor, you will go get it back out after I am done and try to "help" me.  You drag it all over the house.

Bath time is always fun for you!  So many smiles!

Sweet brothers!

Lincoln can still be quite rough with you.  Bless his heart.  You are learning how to "voice" your disapproval when you don't want to be touched though.

You are still loving to be outside.  I can't wait for cooler temperatures so we can go outside more.  You are really starting to explore the back yard now.  You will walk across the grass in your bare feet.  You try to climb the slide and just take in everything around you.

One of your favorite games is to get into our dirty clothes and drag them around all over the house.  Here you have one of my dresses.  I often find our underwear in different rooms though!  Ha!

You love to push things.  You push the push toy in the picture below, your fire truck, Hannah's baby stroller, the toy vacuum, and the popper.  It is so fun to watch you push things around.

Sweeping again.

I think you are trying to talk more.  You don't say alot, but you try to.  You make lots of sounds.  One day you looked at a picture of Hannah on the fridge and said "DaaaDa" which was very obvious to me that you were trying to say Hannah.  You have done this numerous times since.  You know your Hannah!  You let her put you in your highchair sometimes at night for dinner.  She picks you up and sits you in the chair and straps you in.  She can be such a helper and loves to help when it comes to you!

You have started giving me this face when you know you have done something or you are sad about something. You will be crying and all of a sudden get really quiet and put your head down. Then, you cut your eyes at me and look up with the most pitiful expression on your face. I can't help but laugh out loud because it is just so cute!

You definitely know how to let us know when you are frustrated about something.  Now that you can walk around, you really love this freedom.  Here we had just had shaved ice.  I wanted to get your picture with Hannah and Lincoln but you wanted to keep exploring.  Another time where this is showing itself is at church.  We have let you go up to the front and play on the steps after church on Sunday nights, so now you think you want to do this during church service.  You try to escape out the pew and let us know that you are upset with us for not allowing it! 

Speaking of church, you have gotten better about Bible class!!  Yay!!  You are going great now!  You do get sleepy sometimes and one of the ladies sometimes will rock you to sleep if you can't quite make it all the way through class!

You are really giving us kisses these days.  These are those open mouth, wet ones that are oh so yummy!  You will just randomly come over to us and open your mouth and lean it towards us to give us a big wet one.  Your Daddy and I just LOVE this!!!  You have also learned how to give love or hugs.  I want to remember this one little moment I had with you where you gave me the sweetest hug ever!  One day I was playing ball with you and was trying to get you to hold your hands out to catch the ball.  I was saying "Hold your hands out!" and showing you what to do.  You would make this little grunt sound like "Huh".  I started laughing alot and you looked at me and died laughing because I was laughing.  You had this huge smile on your face and then you reached over and gave me a hug.  Precious precious moment to me.  You showed me your love!

This face.  I could just eat you up! 

Layton - 14 months

Lots of discovery this month, buddy!  So SO much fun!