The last 2 months :)

So overwhelming (for me to do this post and for you to see it!) . . . I know it isn't quite as fun to see all of this at once, but here is His Cuteness anyways! About a month ago, he learned how to pull himself up in his crib. We were so proud! But, we had to lower his mattress down as far as it would go . . . don't worry this little tank can still pull himself up from his tummy to a rail as high as his chin, but as least we don't have to worry about him climbing/falling out! Climbing . . . When I got Neal after one of his naps at the beginning of January, he made this face at me . . . mouth open as far as it will go, smiling, raised eyebrows, and crinkling between his eyebrows . . . and then kept doing it all afternoon! It was hilarious! Ever since, he enjoys making funny faces at us. I can't believe he already does that, and he knows that he's being funny. It kills me! I wish I could remember the whole story to this . . . but for some reason he had been crying, and he had tears, and he was so sweaty, and I wanted to take a picture, just because he was so cute even though it was a pathetic little sight . . . so of course as soon as I bust out the camera, he is all smiles. I love it! So worn out, but happy. Oh, I could not love this boy any more!His favorite toy that I rarely let him get a hold of! He has always loved to stand, and it has increased int he last several months. He always wants us to hold his hand so he can balance, and then have a toy in the other hand. So now he has this toy he can just stand next to, and look how proud he is! He even reaches down to spin the little wheel and bounce the little froggie on the other side and then stands back up to watch the lights. I cannot believe he is old enough to do all of this! He is having so much fun though. I hosted a little young women's sleepover a couple of weekends ago. It was so fun to have most of the girls over, and we got to celebrate a birthday too! They were all so good with Neal too. Unfortunately he was teething (story of our lives!) so I had to spend a good portion of the night trying to get him back to sleep since Jon was on his transplant surgery rotation and only home to sleep for a few hours before going back to the hospital, so I couldn't get any help from him. Hopefully next time I'll get to relax and play with the girls more! In the morning . . . Neal almost always goes from his bum and stretches forward until he's on his tummy. If he pauses in the middle, he ends up in this little yoga pose. I love it! Jon walked in to find Neal sleeping like this with his bum up in air, which he doesn't do often. I often find him on his tummy, but that little bum is so cute like this! Oscar and Neal . . . Neal LOVES to play with Oscar. That is, grab at him, especially his head. Here, he was just going for his feet/socks. But this is usually how they are in the car together. Oscar screaming and Neal happy . . . except when he stares at Oscar, confused as to why he's screaming. Neal really has started having a love for babies. He gets so happy when he sees them, smiles and kicks his legs while making happy sounds, and tries to grab at them. It's so cute! Classic Neal . . . and a daddy to match :) I love watching him sleep . . . so beautiful and peaceful . . . don't mind the spit-up spot I didn't crop out . . . Neal loves playing with cans. Here he is real excited about his Diet Rite cola. Only the best for my son. No calories, no caffeine, no sodium, and sweetened with Splenda! Another of his favorite toys . . . the huge metal mixing bowl.Oh so strong! I love this onsie . . . I can't remember if I'm mentioned it before, but it says "I dig my Dad" with a tractor . . . Man, he's one solid kid. Neal's favorite game for a long time has been to try to get Jon's glasses while he's wearing them while Jonathan shakes his head and pretends not to let him and says, "Don't get Daddy's glasses!" However, I hesitate to enjoy it as much as them because Neal has bent the frames a little and scratched the lenses with his teeth when he gets them and chews on them. I would prefer to not have my child play with an approximately $150 toy that would need to be replaced if/when broken. So I asked Jon to use these cheap old sunglasses that I keep wearing, because I don't want to spend the $7 at Marshall's and get a new pair. Except I need to because these are cracked and not even cute anymore. I thought this way, it's ok if they get ruined, and then I'll have to buy a new pair. Sure enough, that night he broke a side off :) But we still use them for the game, when I can get them to! Jon says Neal doesn't like it as much. Maybe some dollar store reading glasses would do?He got 'em! For Valentine's Day, the Osmond's volunteered to babysit for us. I planned the date. So, we got dressed up (I like any excuse to get done up) and went out to dinner at the Olive Garden. It's a half hour away, so we haven't been there in a couple of years. But, it is Jonathan's favorite, so since I was planning it, I wanted to take him there. I found his CD of Jerry Seinfeld "I'm Telling You for the Last Time" that he used to love and have memorized, and took the opportunity of the long drive there and back to surprise him and listen to it (he hadn't seen it in years and didn't know where it was). Of course the wait was ridiculous, but we ran into some friends from our ward who only has a 30 minutes wait left, and they invited us to join them. We were starving and took them up on it! So it was not what we had planned, but we were SO appreciative of them being so nice and had a really nice evening. I then surprised Jon (to his detriment) and took him by the bi-stake dance which was about 10 minutes away, next to the temple. I figured since he's in young men's now, he should be ok with it. I'm so glad we know how to laugh in our marriage . . . it ended up being very funny! He just has these flashbacks of high school dances where people tried to actually make him dance, and so thus he hates dances. We were going to make these white chocolate dipped pretzels and strawberries and have fondue, but we didn't get home until 10 and were too tired. So we just made them the next day after church. Yum!We had the Osmonds over to share fondue with us, fortunately we didn't have to eat it all ourselves . . . I totally would have! And, we also got a sweet game of Rage in. Neal had fallen asleep around 6 om, so just a little too early to be down for the night. So when he woke up at 8, we went ahead and let him get up and play while we had waffle fries and an oreo shake from Chick-fil-a and watched a TV episode online . . . he was the happiest he had been all day! We just had SO much fun playing, laughing, rolling around, tickling, and making sounds at each other. I want to always remember that fun night with Baby Neal! Neal looked SO cute when he woke up from his nap on Sunday, that when I started to undress his because he was so hot and sweaty, I had to take these pictures because he looked like a little man unwinding after work. Love him, love him, love him!!!!