Spring Break - Day 1

Hottest spring on record and not much of the promised rain.
But can still party:

This is me hangin' with the boys on Spring Break.

Explorations and Encounters Part 2

Nothing however interests Cheetah more than food. He brakes for anything edible:

As you can see from the above video nothing about the wild outdoors is nearly as interesting to Cheetah as the cherry tomatoes growing on the side of our house. When he eats he is very enthusiastic and very single minded. 

He is also very insistent. Apparently Jane was not moving fast enough for the walking stomach last week and so when her back was turned he reached up on tippy toes to get a bowl of cottage cheese off of the table, remove the totally unnecessary fork, sat down and proceed to gorge most gloriously on the tasty curds. Such beautifully expressive eyes. Here is a being experiencing life to its fullest and wondering why you aren't doing likewise. Bon Appetit!

Epic Recap

I wonder if any one has failed so spectacularly quick at their New Year's resolution?
There is no explanation other than I am a lazy bum and enjoy playing with blocks and reading books all day.
However, Tarzan has posts scheduled for the next few days so I thought I'd speak before we jump into the current moment to get us all caught up. 
The last time I shared any pictures was before Thanksgiving - mostly because I do a lot of my posting from my iPad which does not post pictures. (Or I can't figure it out if it does.) - and as we learned, the small ones make progress really quick.
When we last saw Cheetah he was crawling and pulling himself up. Particularly when near a thing that makes noise:

Or when items require flinging from the shelves:

He's quite adept at emptying a bookcase in record time.
He was very interested in our Little People Nativity during December (thank you Liezel for the recommendation!) His favorite part was pushing the angel to make it light up and sing:

(It was a really adorable set, with a lot of pieces - none of which we lost, which was amazing - and my only comment/criticism is why would it include a sheep, a cow, two donkeys and no shepherd?)
He was less amused with Santa:

It was fantastic to have Tarzan home more during his Christmas break from school and he and Cheetah spent many adorable hours bonding:

We got a larger Christmas tree than last year and Cheetah thought it was great. It looked a little odd as the season went on. We kept having to put the decorations back on higher up so he couldn't reach the breakables:

Which is always higher than we think. I remember the day I walked in on this:

Cheetah quit nursing in January, and I think I pushed him to continue longer than he may have cared to. This kid came into the world expecting to eat steak and when presented with only milk it just wasn't enough. He eats everything:

We cut his hair for the first time in January. The back was just a little too long:

Of course it's a little crooked now, so I'm not sure which is the greater faux pas:

Somewhere in there Cheetah let go of our hands:

And started walking:

Of course now he's an expert, up and down everything, even stairs, needing no help:

He loves to 'help' me with the dishwasher:

He's a big reader:

And he likes to climb:

The latest stats from his 15-month appointment this week.
*Almost* 33" tall. (32.84")
*Almost* 30lbs. (29 lbs 11ozs)
Gigantic head 20.24"
This is me with only the one excuse for not blogging. I've got to get it together.

Thanksgiving 2015

As mentioned last year; it's a whole new ball game.
I know it's cheesy but it's true, being a parent changes you and makes you look at things differently. (At least it has me.)
It's been a good year, crazy in some parts of the world - crazier in others - and this country sure ain't perfect, but our little lives are good. We are blessed and we try to bless others. It's all anyone can ask really.
These might be a bit of a cheat but it's my blog, so there.
I give you my three kernels of thanks:

1. I am thankful for Tarzan and Cheetah. Yes, they're in one entry. They are my family. The one I helped create and am charged with nurturing. I am thankful they are mine and are, respectively, so supportive and accommodating.
2. I am thankful for health. Mine, Tarzan's and Cheetah's. It's one of those things we can easily take for granted but I hear a lot of horrible stories about and from mothers with sick babies and hospital visits, teething nightmares and complicated births. I am thankful we are all healthy and able to work as needed.
3. I am thankful for the Gospel. The world is insane and people make poor choices because they don't know, or don't believe, in a different way. I am thankful I have been protected from many horrible actions and subsequent consequences because of what I have been taught and know to be true.

I whine a lot on this blog so I am also thankful for this opportunity every year to publicly write down and publish some of my many blessings.

This is me wishing you and yours a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I Smell Christmas Cards

Right.
So the post I was going to write last week got sidetracked because I forgot I was going to write it.
With the holidays coming up, Tarzan and I decided that it was time to get a family portrait taken, since we have Cheetah now, and our family looks different than it has for the last 15 years.
Our last official family picture was in January, when Cheetah was blessed:

 

It's been almost a year and so much has changed, not the least of which is he was aware of this experience:

He was so fascinated with the equipment and the computer screen he wasn't much for smiling:

Until Daddy got serious with the tickles:

He was really interested in the backdrops, the floors, the props, anything that was not the actual picture taking. We were lucky he hasn't figured out how to sit down yet, or these would not exist:

This is me and I have become that woman.

Summer Adventure #4

Here's something I started composing back in July and then never finished.
The summer has been beautiful.
For the first time in fourteen years Tarzan was excited for vacation and didn't spend the whole time bemoaning being away from school.
Obviously it's due to this face:

And even though Cheetah's very young and won't remember any of it, we have had a few adventures. This particular one though, I hope will last a lifetime.
We enrolled Cheetah in a "swimming" class this summer:

Keep in mind he can't stand, can barely sit and doesn't always have control of his arms, so to call it swimming is a little ambitious. One of us held him the whole time and just moved him through the water:

But it was fun and at home when we sing the song;
"I'm going fishing, fishing, fishing
And I'm wishing, wishing, wishing
For a splashing (or kicking, spinning, jumping or bubble) fish!"
Then he smiles and gets all excited.
The splashing is his favorite part and he really likes it when *we* blow the bubbles.

P.S. We've continued swimming weekly after his class ended and he still likes it. Obviously he's more comfortable now and as he learns to maneuver his body it's even more exciting.

This is me wishing for some more summer.

New Pants Same Space

It's been a little over two years since Tarzan was called to be bishop for the congregation in our little corner of the world.
I was thinking to show how he has settled into the role with a picture of him handling things from this position:

But as I look back through the archives, it seems that other than the first week, he's been a bishop-in-his-jammies kind of guy.
I don't know if it's good or bad that he spends a lot of time here.

This is me and he works hard at this job too.

Ode To Fifteen Years

Holy do-you-know-how-old-I-was-when-my-parents-celebrated-15-years Batman?!?!
That's right.
Old enough to remember it. (Old enough to babysit so my parents could go on a date for the first time in 13 years.)
But here we are (well, were; our official anniversary was Wednesday) with our own 15 year milestone.
We celebrated in true understated fashion; dinner at home, cards for each other and leafing through the wedding album.
The menu consisted of bacon wrapped filet mignon topped with goat cheese and a balsamic reduction, roasted potatoes, butternut squash and kale salad with brownies and ice cream for dessert.
I had a beautiful plan in my head, I started with enough time and everything was on schedule. Until Tarzan got hung up at work and Cheetah decided he needed to eat immediately. It was a downhill slope from there.
When we finally sat down to eat, the filet was dry, the potatoes were cold, the squash was just okay but the salad - which was a dumped from a bag into a bowl - was lovely. Bless him, Tarzan ate it all - ate so much there wasn't room for dessert so we ate the brownies yesterday.
We did look over the wedding photos and redid the celebration in our heads the way we should have done it - not the least of which was getting a photographer who used digital!! - laughing over how young everyone looked and how big the glasses were:

The whole night was a metaphor of our marriage; we had a plan, a good plan, a considerate, modest plan, and it all went different than we thought. Scheduling out of our control, demands we hadn't expected, results less than perfect and hindsight being 20/20 we'd have done it differently and maybe saved ourselves some stress.
But in the end we have each other (and now Cheetah too!) so it is worth all the insanity.

This is me and it's a ride.

Plus Nine

Aaaand boom, we're back to my life going by in a flash.
Eight days late for my birthday post...This has never happened.
(And what's worse, I am an entire week late with Rocketgirl's ode. I am ashamed.)
To begin, I laugh in the face of my last year self, promising to keep this blog current and all that. Some days I can't keep current with a shower, but really, it's because I'm lazy and it's much easier to watch this all day:

Than think of witty things to say on a blog. But I will try.
To sum up the last year, I turn to a quote from Rocketgirl, "yeah, it was a good year. No biggie, we just brought a human into this world and he's doing awesome stuff. Also, I made pesto."
And there you have it.
But of course, that's not entirely true.
In addition to bringing this human into the world my last year was spent thusly:

• Feeding said human.
• Changing the diaper of said human
• And getting said human to sleep.
• Tarzan and I took Cheetah on a plane for the first time for the wedding of a family friend.
• ATL got married!!!! (There's a post I need to get written)
• Tarzan and I celebrated 14 years of marriage. Which sounds like a lot but hasn't felt long at all.
• I celebrated eight years writing this blog - celebrated it with a massive headache and little else apparently.
• Helped PIT and MOY move into their apartment in Provo. (Another post I need to get on, hopefully before he graduates...)

Inevitably, most of the things that I did this year were baby centered. And my posts reflect that; sitting up, rolling over, "talking," playing, doctor's visits etc. Awesome though it was, it leaves me with a shorter list of items then in years past. Of course it's been a shorter number of posts this year too.
It's good to have goals.
But I did make this:

So I consider it a year well spent.

This is me with my own belated birthday.

3 Generations

Tarzan's father was in town on business this weekend and, despite it being record breakingly hot, we were glad to have him stay with us.
Partly because he got to see Tarzan 'bishop-ing' and partly because we got to take this picture at church:

Three generations of O'Grady men.
(Poor Cheetah. It's practically guaranteed he'll wear glasses.)
Cheetah was right on the edge of being too tired to be pleasant so a slide show of the pictures taken is quite amusing as he goes from blasé to briefly smiling to irritated to grouchy to all out screaming:

This is me and I hope it's okay to be amused by such things.

Story Time

Both Tarzan and I love to read and we want to pass that love along to Cheetah.
Some days he looks like he's picking it up:

And other days he'd rather play with something else:

 

I love the expression on Cheetah's face as Tarzan reads to him in this picture though:

It's such an expressive face that I open this up to you, the people with the senses of humor, to caption it for me.
To that end, I promise to send a dozen of my best cookies (your choice) to the person who submits the funniest caption for this face.
(Tarzan will be the judge.) And then I'll post it.

This is me with a second contest.

Summer Adventure #3

The last weekend of June we traveled to Salt Lake City for the wedding of a friend of Tarzan's family.
It was Cheetah's first time on a plane and other than the eternal taxiing of the aircraft that caused him to finish nursing before we actually took off, I feel he weathered it well:

And despite his screaming for the first third of the flight waiting for his ears to pop, once he had adjusted, he charmed everyone, including the flight attendants and gossiping college girls sitting behind us.
The wedding was on Saturday but we left the Jungle Thursday night to spend some time with Tarzan's brother Phatfiddle, Liezel and their family on Friday.
We met in the morning for some play time and catching up. (It's been a while since we've seen them.)
**I must apologize for my distinct lack of photos on this trip. I was intently focused on Cheetah having a positive experience and making sure he slept, which he does not like to do when there is new stuff to see. And this whole trip had a lotta new.**
We stopped for lunch on our way to a local farm/petting zoo and sadly for Cheetah, Daddy was not sharing his hamburger:

 

No matter how long and hard he stared:

Liezel and Phatfiddle's children are almost 5 and 3 so while Cheetah was a novelty at the farm, he was not much good for playing:

He was slightly interested in the geese:

But no one looked as cute in their hat as this kid:

I am *so very* thankful that Cheetah sleeps well at night because he doesn't nap well during the day, even when we're home and it's boring. He did sleep good Friday night which was excellent as Saturday was the day and it was both lovely and busy.
The happy couple:

At the wedding luncheon our family contingent took up an entire table:

The food was very picturesque:

(And, thanks to Gamma, Cheetah got to try roasted red peppers and pistachios that day. (There was a romesco sauce on the chicken.) Mommy was mean and drew the line at the chocolate pudding.)
He also ate his own food:

But all eating stopped when Uncle Phatfiddle pulled out the violin:

During the actual wedding, Mommy and Cheetah hung around outside and despite all the cool sites to see:

Cheetah got bored - it was a Saturday in June after all, so the temple was a little backed up, but we amused ourselves as best we could:

Cheetah discovered that Gamma wears a lot of really cool adornments:

And she's always good for a cuddle:

There was a reception following the wedding but Tarzan - being bishop - needed to be back for early morning meetings on Sunday so we dashed off to the airport to catch our flight:

Cheetah was exhausted, so he slept most of the way home and didn't even wake up when I moved him from the car seat to his bed.

This is me and it was a big adventure.