Most Favorite/Least Favorite

Every night at dinner at the Christopherson house, everyone gets asked what their most favorite and least favorite thing was that happened that day. I wanted to do that for my trip. Since I was there for 10 days, though, I think it's only fair that I'm not limited to just one thing in each area.

Most Favorite - My new nephew!! Henry Atticus Christopherson is just the cutest little guy. His first week and a half in his new home was mostly spent sleeping, but when he did open his eyes, he always looked very skeptical of this new, bright world. I loved being reminded of what new babies are like :)

Most Favorite - Nieces/cousins. Spending time with Juniper and Olive, Jennie's two daughters was great. I got to take them to school and pick them up almost every day. Some days were a little challenging, but I definitely had lots of time to bond with them. So did Steven! And this video proves it...

Most Favorite - The beach!! It was especially great to be able to take Steven there and let him play around. Hopefully he'll learn to love it as much as his mom.

Most Favorite - The playground. I went there with Junie and Steven and it was so fun! It was such a nice area and such a nice day! There weren't any wood chips or anything for Steven to put in his mouth, so it was perfect for him. And I got to introduce him to the slide which he loved!

There were, however, a few not so favorite things that happened.

Least Favorite - Throw-up. Everyone in the house (accept Henry, thankfully) got sick at one time or another. Luckily Steven and I weren't sick at the same time, and it was only a 24-hour thing. It was my first time dealing with Steven throwing-up, though, and that was not so pleasant. The first time he threw up all over the rug, himself, and me right before church. (You would never guess that was about to happen in about five minutes following this picture)

That night he threw up all over his crib. I only had to scrub the throw-up out the of the latter (you're the best, Cody!!) but I think it's safe to say that was my least favorite thing. It might have even been worse than throwing up myself, which came a couple days later.

Least Favorite - Pulling hair. Steven decided pulling hair was his favorite past time, especially Olive's beautiful blond curls. This made it almost impossible to keep them next to each other (like in a stroller) or to really let him around her at all unsupervised.

Least Favorite - Driving home. The drive there was really not as bad as I thought it would be, even going on about 4 hours of sleep. We made good time and Steven was really not that unhappy. The drive home, however, was filled with taking the long way, getting lost, taking an even longer way, getting a ticket, crying, Steven having a huge blowout, and finally getting home at 3 am. No bueno.

Overall, though, it was pretty much just an awesome trip all around. I loved being able to spend time with my sister and Cody, too!

11 Months

I'm not really sure when Steven turned 11 months, but it happened sometime in the last week :) He's doing great, and is such a happy guy, especially when he's around people besides us. I can tell he's going to be quite the social butterfly. Something that I'm sure has contributed to him having some not so happy moments recently is the fact that he has 4 teeth coming in right now. Poor guy! He loves to play with our cell phones, and seems to know a lot about them already! As I was importing some pictures from my phone the other day I discovered this one...

I'm not even sure how to take these on-screen shots, but apparently Steven does! He's getting closer to being able to stand up on his own, but doesn't seem in a huge hurry to conquer that milestone.

He also has starting doing some other cute things. When he gets really excited (or if I do it first) he scrunches up his nose and breathes really fast through it. It kind of reminds me of something that my family used to do (I can't remember why... I guess it was an inside joke I was somehow never a part of)

Also, just today when we were taking his pictures, we were trying to figure out the best way to pose him and discovered the rocking chair worked well. We also discovered he likes rocking in it. Now, there have been a few injuries in my family that I know of involving rocking chairs, so I don't plan on letting him do this often, but it was still cute.

Trip

I just got back from a trip to IL for a few days. It wasn't the happiest of reasons to go home (my Grandma passed away), but as always, it was great to see my family. All of my sibling came except for Jennie (who is due on the 12th, so that would not have been a good idea!) and we also go to see Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. It was great! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so I just took a few pictures/videos with my phone. Everyone loved Steven. It was really great to have him there. I was a little unsure if a funeral was the best place for a baby, and though it was hard to keep him quiet all the time, he brought a lot of joy to an otherwise very sad situation. It was impossible for people not to smile at him, and he always smiles back. He started reaching for everyone when he was being held, and ended up just being passed around between everyone. I really got a break because everyone was so great and helped take care of him. Anyway, I wish I would have taken more pictures/videos, but this first one is of Hillary playing with him at my Grandma's house. I just thought it was super cute :)

This next one is of Steven with my Uncle Perry. He had just been doing his Donald Duck voice, which Steven loved, but I didn't catch it. I still thought this was precious, though.

The flight there and back were a little difficult, however. On the flight there, Steven was pretty happy most of the time, but didn't sleep at all. That was no good, since we didn't get into St Louis until 11:45. The night before the flight back, Kelly and PJ were nice enough to let us stay with them so we didn't have to wake up so early, but I still had to wake Steven up before 6, which he didn't love. Once we got on the plane, I started thinking a replica of the flight there wouldn't be so bad. I wasn't that lucky. Steven was really unhappy and I could tell he was just exhausted. Unfortunately, Steven will almost never fall asleep with me holding him. So instead, he screamed for probably 45 mins straight. I didn't want him to disturb the entire plane, so I put my hand over his mouth a lot to try and muffle the sound. I'm sure that didn't sound very good either, though. Finally, after 45 mins of him screaming, me rocking back and forth and trying everything I could think of to comfort him, he finally wore himself out. With him looking like this, I almost forgot what a terror he had been just a few mins before.

At that point, he luckily slept for almost the rest of the flight, and was much happier when he woke up.

Overall, it was a really good trip. Pretty exhausting both physically and emotionally, but good.