Ray, 15 months

My little Ray. You are hilarious. You always have a ready smile. You’re pretty easy to entice with games and distract. We love to make you laugh. Your brothers love you a TON. Both are totally enamored with you. Here are a few bullet points about you right now:

– Liam calls you “Yay” (he can’t say his R’s).

– You don’t walk yet. We’re all concerned. Your 10 month old cousin, Emily, is taking steps and you’re holding strong on the ground. But you are a SUPER fast crawler. And you move along furniture pretty quick too. Your feet and legs are so stiff, it’s so funny. You’ll get there.

– Noah sings to you in the car, all the time. To calm you down, to cheer you up, to make you laugh … and you seem to love it. Your eyes really sparkle when Noah comes around.

– You love opening and closing things; putting things in and pulling them out again. You have nearly broken our cheap IKEA dresser drawers with all the opening and slamming shut they get from you.

– We just moved into a house with 2 stories. At first, 6 weeks ago, you didn’t know how to climb stairs … but that didn’t last long. Within a few days, you learned. But you never learned how to come down the stairs. We’ve tried a few times, teaching you, but you haven’t caught on. As a result, you’ve tumbled down the stairs to the landing twice. You are now scared of coming down, so this is what happens everyday, about 14 times a day: you climb up the stairs fast, like a maniac, then you get to the top of the stairs and call down to us “dee-da! Da! … unnnn, da! Dee, dee da!” And we come and carry you down the stairs.

– You have very specific opinions about things. Last night we had fish sticks and carrots for dinner. Daddy and I were eating some yummy sun dried tomato hummus with pita that I got at the Farmer’s Market. Noah and Liam did not want the hummus and pita, but you refused to eat fish sticks. We offered you the hummus and pita and you downed it!

– You have the cutest nursery in, possibly, the world. I worked very hard on it, and made sure everything was at your level and interactive for you. However, you don’t play in your room. You always crawl down the hall to Noah and Liam’s room and hang out with them and the Legos. sigh.

– you take one nap a day. It is from 10 am to 12 or 1 pm. That’s it. You seem tired around 3 or 4 pm, but I have tried to get you to go to sleep in the afternoon and you won’t do it. You really need it. So do I. You get so ornery in the afternoon … right when I need to make dinner.

– You don’t really love the water. We take you to the pool and at least you don’t scream (like you used to), but you don’t seem super excited about it either.

– You fold your hands when we pray. You just grasp your fat hands together and look down. You picked this up all on your own. Nobody taught you how, you just started doing it. I love that.

These pictures I took of you in the bath. There was no natural light in there and I am still learning how to figure out the lighting thing, when it comes to photography. These bath pictures are not the best photography-wise, but you were so happy, I had to share these shots.