Celebrating 7 months: the cuteness on video

John is 7 months old today. To celebrate, we are sharing his latest cuteness. Here is a recent outpouring of enthusiastic grunts, laughs, and squeals while eating and playing.

Happy 7 month birthday, little man!

"Marry You" Surprise

Here's video of our surprise "Marry You" for Scott and Brittany! We rewrote some of the lyrics to this Bruno Mars song, and choreographed a knock-off of Glee's dancing to their version of this song. We pulled this off at the dinner the night before Scott and Brittany's wedding.

This was so fun. Great idea Jane!

Growing baby!

John is 6 months old now, and he just keeps getting more active and more fun every day! Here is a picture journal of some of his latest loves and feats:

He is all over the place in his crib. He loves playing with the bumper (pulling on, kicking against, trying to eat, etc.). Here is one priceless picture of one of his many amusing sleeping positions:

He loves to roll and attempt to crawl. He can no longer be contained on one blanket. His latest favorite is turning around on his stomach; on the tile, he will entertain himself by turning fast 180's! He has worked out an inefficient scoot, but he hasn't mastered a coordinated four-limbed approach to crawling (which is fine by me if he waits a few more weeks... :) ).

As shown in the San Diego picture, John loves to balance in Matt's hand. It make me nervous sometimes, but Matt is very safe with him and John absolutely loves to explore balancing!

Mirrors are now the best entertainment available. John is fascinated by his reflection and loves validating smiles and silly faces from the reflection of whoever is holding him.

Latest John laughs: being tickled, being surprised, silly sounds, his own vocal cord experiments,
silly words, and splashing water. He has the cutest belly laugh! He gets caught up laughing once or twice a day, and those moments are truly my favorite points of the day.

Food! John loves solids. Rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, apples, bananas, avacado, and the list is quickly growing. He breathes quickly and grunts anxiously if we don't keep the pace fast enough :)

And finally... a tooth! At 6 months and 1 week, his first tooth erupted.

I'm amazed at how quickly we are flying through milestones, but it sure is fun to watch him grow. We sure love this little boy!

Scott's Wedding

Scott and Brittany are married! New Years Eve, San Diego, such a fun wedding! We drove into San Diego on Wednesday, and we enjoyed catching up with family and walking around the Coronado Marriott. Thursday we enjoyed a beautiful walk around Coronado island, with gorgeous views of the ocean, downtown San Diego, cruise ships and sail boats, marinas, and the famous Hotel del Coronado. San Diego is stunning! The weather was cool, sunny, and refreshing, and we are already planning to return to see more of the sites.

Here is the view of downtown San Diego from Coronado:

Thursday night, my parents hosted a dinner gathering for all family and friends that had traveled in for the wedding. We ate at a delicious, authentic Mexican restaurant in Old Town. Old Town is charming and fun, and we enjoyed touring the Mormon Battalion Museum and learning about my ancestors Charlie and Philander Colton (Charlie was the youngest member of the Mormon Battalion and Philander introduced the skill of brick-making to San Diego).

This delicious Mexican dinner was a great start to the wedding festivities!

Jane organized an awesome suprise for Scott and Brittany; she rewrote some of the lyrics and organized the choreography to Bruno Mars' "Marry You" (based on the Glee rendition). Matt and I were sitting, pretending to eat, and then I threw on a vail and we joined in the song and dance. With each verse, a new pair of family members hopped up and joined in with dance moves. It was so fun! The dancing turned out even better than I had anticipated!
Then, Friday morning, my Grandpa married Scott and Brittany for time and all eternity in the San Diego temple. Grandpa's words were so powerful and compelling, serving as a great check point for Matt and I to reflect on our priorities in our marriage and communication. It was a beautiful wedding! Brittany and Scott were truly glowing with joy and love for each other.
And they could not have ordered better weather!
The reception was held at the Admiral Kidd Club, a naval base near the airport. The view was incredible, overlooking the ocean, sailboats, and downtown. After all the family/bridal party pictures, Scott and Brittany donned their favorite East coast footware, Sperrys, and took off in a sailboat for some stunning photos. I'll post a link to some of the professional pictures later (if possible); their photographer was fantastic! Here are some of my favorites from my dad's camera:

[John is standing in Matt's hand, one of their favorite new tricks]

The reception was incredible. Brittany planned so many thoughful details, tying in a maritime theme in intricate ways. The view was stunning, the food was great, the dancing was fabulous, and overall it was a great party! Matt and I were honored to give toasts, but it was Thomas that blew us all away with a very smooth, sincere, sweet toast. Sandi helped us with John, and he really held up well, somehow napping and then enjoying the dancing!

We sent off the newlyweds by ringing bells, then we returned to the hotel to ring in the new year! I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to people at this final party. It's amazing how different our experience was at the festivities when taking care of John. He did so well, but it was great to get John the sleep he needed and trade off so we could focus on a few of the many people we wanted to catch up with! We enjoyed a hotel breakfast and a smaller group of family and friends to hail in 2011. Overall, many parties, many great memories, and a very fun celebration of two great people! Congratulations, Scott and Brittany! We love you both so much!

Christmas!

We had such a wonderful first Christmas with John! Matt finished his finals on Friday, December 18th, and we drove up to join Matt's parents in Salt Lake City, UT. In Salt Lake, we went out to a great breakfast, watched the BYU bowl game, and visited Santa at R.C. Willy (free, take your own pictures, happy John, and no line- the best Santa experience we could've hoped for!). Here's our smiley little man with his first Santa:

After visiting Santa, we went out to celebrate Matt's birthday at Happy Sumo at Gateway, then we left John with his first real babysitter and went to the incredible Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas show. We barely made it in the door, but we were so grateful we were able to see the show! David Archuleta was the guest singer, and Michael York was the guest narrator. That show was filled with more Christmas spirit and joy than the rest of my seasonal activities combined! David Archuleta was great, very cute, endearing, and sang with such a soft, pure sound. Michael York told a touching recount of the history of the Tabernacle Choir. John was a champ for the babysitter, so overall, it was a wonderful night!

Sunday morning, we made our way to Elko, where we thoroughly enjoyed some quality relaxation. I decided to finally dive into the Harry Potter books, and I am now in the middle of Book 4. The first two were good, but the third and fourth books have been really enjoyable reads! We took advantage of Grandma's willingness to babysit, and Matt and I went on a fun snowshoeing and snow photography adventure. We had a lot of fun trying out different settings (shutter speed, aperture, etc) on our camera. Here's one shot with an extremely slow shutter release, to catch the stream of the moving water (I think it almost looks like a painting!):

Mandi and Ryan and their two little boys, Chris and Max, joined the party on Tuesday, so we were able to have fun talking, eating, playing games, and watching movies together. John was captivated by every movement of his two older cousins. Max took a special interest in checking in on John's well-being, and it was really cute to watch their interactions. Here are some shots of John hanging with his cousins:

And here are some more shots including Matt's parents (who, as the pajama elves, provided us with these cute Christmas pjs):

I love this one! John sure enjoyed being spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa Alleman!

Loving the Christmas festivities.

Reading a favorite Christmas tale. Naturally, all John cared about was trying to eat the book.

Christmas really has been that much more enjoyable as a family. I've honestly never been so touched by the nativity story; Mary's experience is so powerful to me now.

We enjoyed a boisterous Christmas morning, feeding off of the adorable enthusiasm of Chris and Max as they assessed their gifts from Santa. Santa generously brought John.... diapers! Sorry, John, I know Santa will be much more exciting in future years... I realized I really have reached a new level of practical adulthood when I could hardly contain my excitement over a Shark mop! Seriously, best thing ever when your house is floored with tile and you have a baby who is eager to start crawling :) We received so many wonderful gifts; thank you again to Matt's parents and Mandi and Ryan for the presents!

Overall, it was a great, relaxing, fun Christmas!