Halloween

I actually forgot to post about Halloween this year. This year I got put in charge of our Ward Halloween Party. There always seemed like a lot to do so I made it simple. Just a dinner and trunk-or-treat so people could quickly go on their way. I thought it turned out well. Although it took me a long time to decide what I wanted to dress Grant up as. I had finally decided to do Chewbacca as I had found a really cute costume online. However, when I went to go buy it, I had taken too long to decide and couldn’t guarantee it get to m on time unless I spent more on shipping than I did on the costume. So the day of my Halloween party I had to go into Salt Lake and find a costume. I was hoping I would still be able to find the same Chewy costume, but couldn’t. I did, luckily find this really cute dragon costume. I thought it would be perfect since I already had a medieval princess costume that would go with the dragon.

Grant hadn’t gotten a good nap all day so by the time the party started he was pretty grumpy, which made this picture cute with his grumpy face.

Loved taking pictures with him. His costume was so cute!

Then on actual Halloween night I wanted to go Trick-or-Treating, but since Grant was too young for candy I didn’t really want to go by myself. So I ended up going with my dad who was taking my nieces to Main Street Trick-or-Treating until their parents came home. I helped them get ready and did hair and makeup. I had a lot of fun with the girls, Grand and Grandpa and can’t wait for Next Year.

4 Months Already

I can’t believe how quickly it is going. He is already 4 months! I also can’t believe how much he is growing and learning. I started feeding him with a bottle more regularly and he already can kind of grab the bottle and guide it to his mouth. He is truly a boy and likes eating. We gave him green beans on Sunday for the first time and he just gobbled it up, he loved it! He’s also pretty good at rolling over both ways, but I don’t think he likes doing it that much. There were a couple of weeks where he just stopped trying, I would put him on his belly and he would cry and would not roll over. He is starting to get his knees under him a little, but his hands don’t hold him up so he looks all funny with his butt in the air.

Last week he has started to yell, it’s kind of funny. The first time he did it was with Jake. Jake was holding him and he started squawking, it kind of sounded like a bird. He didn’t sound upset, but it was new to me, I was very confused and couldn’t tell if he was upset or not. He’s been doing the yelling thing lately and it cracks me up. He has also really gotten into TV now. I used to watch shows while feeding him, but now he’ll be eating and then stop to watch the TV so I have stopped that habit of watching TV while feeding him. However, I will have him sit on the couch and watch children shows. I hope it will help him learn colors and all that, plus it keeps him from getting bored. He is able to sit up as long as he is propped up on something. Although he will occasionally fall to one side or the other. I think he has the strength, just not the balance.

4 Months:

3 Months:

Grant’s Blessing

On October 13th 2013 we blessed Grant. Church was at 9:00 am and everyone that could come was here. I was so excited to see everyone and glad they all made an effort to come. I even had my uncle Dave and Cousin Cody come which was unexpected.

I should have done this sooner since I do not remember much. Thankfully Sister Thiel wrote down some stuff from the blessing and gave it to me because I do not remember anything.

Here are the items she wrote down that he would be blessed with:

• Grant will be blessed with a desire to follow and serve Heavenly father throughout his life. To server a mission and draw people to the church. To obey his parents.

After the blessing Jake sat down next to me, leaned over to me and said, I blessed him now you get to give your testimony. Which I was planning on giving my testimony even though there was a part of me that said “Do I really have to”. I am terrified of public speaking and usually have my mind go blank as I stand up to speak. I did get up and give my testimony. Thankfully I didn’t have a blank mind and thanked Heavenly Father for this blessing of raising a child. I also stated that I am grateful that I have a Heavenly Father who is willing to help me when I make mistakes and will pick up the slack as long as I believe and trust him.

Many other people went up and gave their testimony and made me tear up. I am very happy to be a part of both families.

After church we had a brunch at our house which was a little cramped, but worked out well. All the kids played downstairs and by the time they all left it looked like they had a food fight down there.

I forgot to get pictures after church, but here are a few before Church. Grant looking so handsome in his tux!

Grant is 3 Months!

Well he was actually 3 months on Saturday, but Saturday was a super busy day and I forgot to take the picture on Sunday and Monday so today I am writing about three month old Grant.

I cannot believe how much he is growing and learning. He loves attention! If you are holding him and/or talking to him he has the biggest smile. He is however, learning to entertain himself, as long as he has a toy. It doesn’t last long, but at least he doesn’t cry as soon as I put him down. He still loves to stand. I think if he can get to sitting up on his own he probably would stand up on his own. I do play with him and take him from the laying position to sitting to standing. Then I go backwards and sit him down then lay down. I hope he gets the idea. He still hates tummy time and has learned how to roll from tummy to back. He mainly uses gravity and pushes one hand on the floor and twists his head so the weight is on one side and lets gravity pull his head down and then his body follows. Now we need him to have incentive to want to be tummy to learn to crawl. If he has something behind him or the bumbo chair he can sit up and not tumble. He’ll sit on the couch with out things on the side without falling for a bit, but he still needs something behind his back. He doesn’t look much different this month, but it does show him being able to grasp the toy. I also have the video of him rolling over.

2 Months Old

Today Grant has hit his 2 month mark. He loves to be talked to and is starting to do the cooing more when you talk to him. He loves to stand and I have a hard time getting him to bend his legs. Many times when I am changing him his changing pad tends to move around because he’ll kick his leg when I am holding it. He hates being in the car seat but loves to go for drives as long as the car is moving. If we stop at a stop sign or a light he’ll start crying and then stop as soon as we start moving again. He does know his mother’s voice although he only shows it occasionally. Can’t wait to see what the next month holds.

2 Months Old:

1 Month Old:

As I look at these pictures I am noticing how much better he is getting at holding up his head and sitting up.

The little things

This morning I woke up at 6:00 to feed Grant. After he was done eating I was just holding him and rocking him back to sleep. The sun was almost coming up so it was starting to get light out. I was awestruck by how precious my baby was in the quiet early morning light.

When they are this young and younger it’s the small milestones that make you happy. He may not talk yet or walk, but those other milestones make me happy too. At first he wouldn’t even look at you and if by chance your eyes did meet he would only hold it for a second and move on to the many things to look at. It made me so happy when he would look at me when I was talking to him. Then he would start to move his mouth like mine. These little things just made me the happiest mother in the world.

The next milestone that made me even more happy was when he started smiling. He has the cutest little smile and has his mouth open wide when he smiles, it’s so cute. He’ll also do a half smile often which is super cute as well.

I did take a picture of him at one month but forgot to post anything, so here’s the picture. I plan on taking his monthly picture in that same spot with the same stuffed animal.

Below are just random pictures I took of him. I love pictures

Stockton Days

This year marks 150 anniversary of Stockton so they have gone all out this year on celebrations and had some event every month since April. The celebrations ended with Stockton Days on Saturday. The only events I made it to was the first one in April and then Stockton Days.

In April they had a guy come give history on Stockton which was interesting. They also setup a room showing the family histories of Stockton as well as the school pictures through out the year. We only stayed for about 1/2 hour and then went to my Mom’s for a barbeque. Around 9:00 Stockton had fireworks shoot off from Tab Hill. It was beautiful and awesome to watch from my mom’s front yard. The little kids were all on the tramp yelling “Happy Birthday Stockton!” Then Erin yelled “I love you Stockton!” It was so cute.

For Stockton day celebration they actually did a parade this year and invited any families to create a float or something to be in the parade. My parents were super excited and wanted to create a float and get what grandkids they could to be on the float. It’s not well known now, but Cranney used to be a slang used for outhouse and therefore my parents love to do the outhouse theme. They decorated the float with a outhouse, some bales of hay and trees. Then my dad thought of something funny to put on float since Stockton just barely put in a sewer system: “Stockton, the first town to get electric light . . . last to get a sewer. Rashelle and I were the only ones able to be on the float, but I had fun.

 

Here’s a cute picture of my mom, Grant and I just before the parade.

After the parade Jake and I went home to let Grant nap. Then at dinner we went back up to the park and ate there. While we were gone they had booths and bounce houses, but they were all gone by the time we got there. After dinner they had a magician which all the kids loved! Brook being a helper to the magician.

Grant Jacob Taylor

So I am finally blogging again. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with the blog.

On July 5th I had the greatest joy in my life, Grant Jacob Taylor. I am so excited to finally get to start my family. Early in June I was already starting to dilating and was certain I would go early and so each week I kept thinking I would have the baby any day now and he kept waiting. By my 39 week appointment, only 4 days away from my due date, I determined that I would probably would not have him until I was induced which my doctor told me would probably be another 1 1/2 weeks away. . On the 4th I kept joking to Jake maybe if we saw lots of fireworks we could smoke him out. I know cheesy joke. We did some aerial fireworks with my sister and her kids. Then we drove down close to Desseret Peak to watch the fireworks after the Rodeo. They started around 11:00 and I really enjoyed them. After the fireworks we went home and went to bed. However, I never got a chance to sleep. I started having contractions. They were about 20 min apart, but they were long and they hurt. After a few contractions I called the hospital they stated they wanted them to be closer and that I should try to take a bath. Then some were like 7 min apart and some were still 20 min. Finally around 3:00 am I told Jake that they hurt too bad and I didn’t want to wait any longer. So we grabbed our hospital bag and headed out. At that time my contractions decided to be only a few minutes apart. We got to the hospital quickly. They got me in the room and started hooking me up to the machines. The Nurse checked me and said I was ready to go and called all the on call people, the doc and anesthesiologist. Really enjoyed my epidural it was great and made me feel tons better. When the doctor checked me again she said I was almost ready to push. She had me do some practice pushes and said she would come back in 1/2 hour and we would start to actually push. When she came back my contractions started to be 4 to 6 min apart so I would push and then wait for the next contraction. It only took 4 contractions I think, I can’t remember exactly how many, to have him. They put him on my chest as they cleaned him up. I was so happy to see him and thought he was so beautiful that I started crying. Then they took him to give him some shots and check his vitals, stuff like that. Jake watched them and took pictures of him.

By this time it was around 7 in the morning. Here are pictures of the proud parents holding their bundle of joy.

The first two visitors were Grandma & Grandpa Cranney and Aunt Tiffany. I can’t remember who exactly came first. I had the intentions of taking pictures of all the visitors but forgot. Aunt Shelly came to visit during the Hospital’s quiet time and so they wouldn’t let her in and she had to wait for a bit. Then she came in with Brooke and Erin, Abby was sick so they didn’t have her come.. I had gotten some sleep by then so I remembered to get some pictures.

I saw a cute idea on pinterest where you take a picture of the baby with a cupcake and a 0 candle for his Birthday. Late that night before midnight I wanted to get the picture. I’m no photographer, but I still think it’s a cute picture.

The next day aunt Alicia, Uncle Chris, Eve and Layla visited us in the Hospital. Grandma Burns also came with them and saw her favorite Great Grandson.

The rest of our visitors came when we were home. Aunt Andrea was blessing Emma and so they were not able to come down. Also Aunt Mikey and Aunt Amanda were already on their way up to Idaho for the blessing and so they also had to wait to see him. I didn’t get any pictures of them either. Grandma and Grandpa Taylor and Aunt Nikki also visited us at home. As well as our friends Jeff and Cindy. I also had many visitors from our Ward. Some I got pictures and some I didn’t.