a hint of Scotty's Birthday Party!

So my parents were in town this past weekend (Yay!) and my mom of course took a hundred pictures of our sweet boy, so I'm waiting for her to get back to Phoenix and send them to me...


In the meantime, I thought I'd post just a few shots to celebrate his cuteness :o) I'm glad I took a video on my mom's camera of his first day really walking, because he's already starting to run around the house!

My parents got Scotty a rocking chair so he can sit by me--he helped put it together! They also brought him a Scottie dog from Scotland, which he immediately loved, cuddled, and bit...











Speaking of Scottie dogs, my mom helped me make this adorable cake for Scotty's birthday! Yellow, his favorite color, and practically life-sized. He loved it and had no problem eating the entire tail of the cake--including the coconut on top.

Now this is what I call "Rocking Out!"

Business Notes

Ok, a few items of updates and random facts.

1. I'd like to welcome Janae to blogging! (Yay, our nagging was finally enough!) The link to her blog is in the 201st ward list.


2. I finally succumbed and read the first three books of the twilight series. I've had mixed feelings about them overall--I'm not thrown by the vampire/werewolf thing, but am bugged by the "being obsessed with beautiful boy who i barely know but have decided i could never live without" and the seemingly controlling/possessive relationship...but i admit, by the end of the third book I was finally starting to understand her relationship with Edward, was glad she finally admitted she also loved Jacob, but was actually glad she didn't choose jacob because he'd been an arrogant prick most of the book. I guess I defected from Team Jacob to Team Edward.

Moral of the (long-winded) Story: Does anyone have a copy of Breaking Dawn I can borrow? I'm not in the least bit tempted to drool on it...

3. I want to get pictures of Scotty taken while he's still so completely adorable, but I was not to keen on JCPenny's or Sear's. Does anyone have recommendations about photographers to use or not use?

4. I think I got this out to most people, but I didn't have email addresses for everyone, sorry! Consider yourself invited if you're interested, and if not, well, I'll just have to eat your cake for you...

Make a Smilebox postcard

5. I am LOVING my education program--I even enjoy reading the textbooks sometimes! I'm also totally rocking, which is a nice little boost for my academic self-confidence after dropping out of my first master's program. This time I really will be Master Megan!

6. I am totally cracking up reading this mock-blog to Eric...check it out if you need a break or a chance to laugh at yourself! http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com


7. I love the Olympics! I've ventured over to campus and the dorms a few times to watch the gymnastics coverage, but as we have no TV reception at home I've been watching the live internet feeds in the middle of the night...some highlights: discovering judo and archery, and actually understanding the rules of fencing (though I still can't really follow it), being able to watch all of the gymnastics routines (after the fact) instead of just the highlights on TV, and watching the US women's soccer team pull-out a steal of a win over the much better brazilian team LIVE, without knowing in advance that Michael Phelp's pulled off an amazing 0.01 second win...err, you get what I mean.

Great Scott! A year in a review...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Adventures in Bryce Canyon

He's showing me a rock he found...how exciting!

WOW what an adventure! Early Friday morning our little family caravaned down to Bryce Canyon with Eric's brothers, Brent and Stephen. We thought adding a tent to the mix would be too much for the monkey, so we rented rooms in Panguitch and shuttled back and forth to the canyon.

Overall Scotty handled the drive time pretty well, though his yelling is even more piercing in the confined space. He loved having his uncles sit by him and feed him graham crackers. He also liked the hiking for the most part! We did three separate hikes and Eric carried Scotty--who spent time checking everything out and waving at all the French people we saw. I expected to see lots of foreign tourists, but we were all amazed at how many were from France! It was great for Stephen, who just returned from the Paris, France mission in February.

We all had a great time hiking, watching the Olympics, and eating junk food. I felt even better after I bought tennis shoes at the local thrift store for $2...I thought Eric had grabbed my shoes and he thought I had them, so I spent the first day hiking in flip-flops. Yikes!

Scotty's One Year Stats

Weight: 19 lb. 5 oz. (5th percentile)
Length: 28.5" (5th percentile--he's small very apparently very proportionate. Except for his large head (50th percentile) and his ears, probably...)
Teeth: 4 (two top, which are actually behind the bottom two, meaning he has the death bite...)
Naps: one long morningish nap, and occasionally a cat nap or two
Night wakings: none! Well, the other day he woke up once because he got his arm wedged between the bars...
Favorite toys: spoons, his little puppy, cars, and his hungry hungry hippo walker! he also likes his toolbench a lot and spend a lot of time banging toys and yelling
Favorite food: everything but lunch meat. And i mean that--no exaggeration! Some days he eats more than I do...
Favorite games: tickle, dadzilla (aka "i'm gonna get you..."), and anything involving water
Words: mama, dada, wa-wa, and "please" in sign language
Favorite things to do: get into mom's drawers and/or pull books off the shelf, EAT, go to the pool, visit the ducks ("bwack-bwacks"), climb up slides, and push things around. and EAT. Did i mention eating yet?
Favorite book: nothing, really! to my chagrin, as I am a total bookie. I refuse to give up, however. For now, I settle for him dancing in front of the tv to Donny Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Newest tricks: walking. Yes, hard-nosed as I am, I officially count this now. He's taken some steps here and there on his own, but today out of the blue, he walked across the waiting room at the department of health. All on his own! I barely even noticed as I was looking the other way and he was walking toward a random woman. Some day he'll walk to mama! Maybe if I have food...

Also, yelling, though I am not nearly as enthusiastic about this. Especially in church. Though he made me smile last week when I was accompanying in sacrament meeting and he yelled "mamamama!" and when I looked up he was waving at me...

Happy Birthday!

Well, it's official...my baby is an entire year old already!

I shopped for his birthday at the DI but am saving most of his presents for the party we're planning for Saturday, the 23rd. We did give him one present because it was too big to hide:
He loves this thing! Perfect for our little monkey...
I'll probably put together a slideshow or something so we can all ooh and ah over how small he used to be and how much he's grown, but for now this will have to do:

Man of the House

Since Eric has been gone since Wednesday morning, Scotty has stepped into his daddy's big shoes and has turned into the man of the house. Mini man is more like it!

Besides his little adventures,


he has been helping me clean. Check out this video of my new helper:

Scotty has also discovered a love for boxes and containers. He's reorganizing my house for me! The other day I got out my sewing machine to finish a project and found all of my foot spa lotions in there...and instead of wipes in the wipe box i found a few toys and a spoon...how helpful!

I learned the hard way yesterday not to let him play with my wallet anymore! At least when he hides my cell phone i can find it when it rings...

P.S. Eric has decided that Scotty actually looks a lot like he did when he was little, to the point that he asked his mom to mail him a picture when she sent his bike helmet (thanks mom!) and I have to agree. I asked Eric when his hair turned dark and he just shrugged...and he wonders why i never knew he was blonde!

What do you think?

Out of the Ordinary

Yesterday turned out to be a day full of unexpected things!

I took Scotty for a quick walk to the Provo library to return a book and ended up on a little adventure...now that I have internet at home (fabulous!!) I don't spend my time trying to pacify him while I check my email, but it also shortens our time out of the house. So, even though I only meant it to be a quick trip--I had no makeup on and didn't even bring the diaper bag or anything for Scotty--the weather was so nice we went for a long walk.

From the library we went to the duck pond, where we saw 20 ducks ("bwack bwacks" according to Scotty), 3 turtles, and a doe. Yes, a rather large female deer in the bushes just behind the duck pond, at 2 in the afternoon in early August. So we decided to explore a bit more, and on the path at the south side of campus we found her three fawns! So little still, with spots and everything...too bad I didn't bring the camera! Scotty liked the ducks best, but he also thought the fawns were interesting, and they were apparently very used to people as we almost got close enough for him to pet them!

Since we were gone so long already, we walked over to meet Eric as he got out of class. On our way home, we saw a group of people in matching BYU shirts standing around the Cosmobile and got curious. Turns out, they were filming part of the Cosmo videos they show during the third quarter break at home football games! SWEET! Of course, we volunteered to help out--including Scotty, because it wouldn't be a BYU movie without a cute kid, would it? We spent the next 20 minutes running around and pushing the stroller on the south side of campus and chasing up Maeser hill...

SO--look for the three of us during football games later this year cuz we're in there somewhere!

As an added bonus, we know the storyline behind this year's cosmo series, and we all got free T-shirts. As if Eric wasn't already obsessed with BYU football this year...

How can you not love this boy?

Scotty is our little explorer! I wish we could take pictures at the Family Support and Treatment Center (privacy laws) because he just loves it there--this weekend he spent an hour pushing around a kid chair to practice walking, and i realized that i could motivate him to inch his way over to me--walking--if i held out food. Sometimes I feel like i'm training a dog to do tricks...hmm...

Anyway, this is how I walked into the front room to find him Saturday morning, so content.
I let him use my stool as a walker in the kitchen, and he decided it made a tremendous boat. He's also practically indestructible and unfazed by the occasionally consequences of his adventures, which is good because right after I took this picture he tipped over and the stool collapsed! Guess he learned not to rock the boat *too* hard...