8 weeks (almost)

Just wanted to share a video of our little guy...

Life Continues...

Life in the Briggs household has been up and down lately due to a teething 13 month old and a suddenly fussy 7 week old.  The latter has been more problematic as he has not allowed for much sleeping to occur, day or night (even when he's asleep at night, he somehow manages to be noisy and keeps me awake - we're working on remedying that situation).  So most of the time I am in survival mode, trying to make it to the next chance to catch a little sleep, but there are definitely beautiful, fun, and sweet moments to help balance out our current challenges:

Leah loves to drink out of the little silver cup her Grandma gave her when she was born.  The problem is we use it during her bath time to help rinse her off, so the water she uses it to drink is her own bathwater. And sadly, we pretty much let her do it. 

(there's no way to recreate in words the way she refills the cup every time, but I have to make a note of it so I don't forget...it's such a quick, jerky little stab at the water, and she's so proud every time she comes up with a full cup!)

Dallin is growing so quickly...he's become quite a chunky little baby.  We've retired all of his 0-3 month clothes, and his 3-6 month clothes are none too big for him (he probably won't even be able to wear some of them much longer!).  He has also been giving a lot more social smiles the last few days - such a rewarding milestone!!! Here he is at 7 weeks:

The outfit he is wearing here is one of Dave's from when he was a baby (I wish we had a picture of Dave in it!):

(Dallin was not at his best when these pictures were taken, but I do love his little pout!)

5 and a half weeks

I'm trying to repent of my failure to take pictures of Dallin.  I know it's typical to take the most pictures of your first child, but I feel bad about how much less I've photographed our little man.  At this point in Leah's life, we had enough pictures to fill a couple books (which, admittedly, is a little excessive).  So we took a few quiet moments after church today to capture a 5 and a half week old Dallin.  He's growing so much...and Dave and I both admit we feel a little relieved when babies grow out of that fragile newborn stage and become a little sturdier.

 These pictures all pretty much look alike...but the subtle difference in his facial expressions don't go unnoticed by us, and I have a difficulty choosing one over the other, so we're posting them all! 

Dave even got him to smile!

Walking

I've never seen Leah so visibly proud of herself as she is when she stands up and takes those steps toward us. You can see the determination in her eyes when she's planning on walking away from the security of the furniture - it's adorable.  Her current record is 16 steps, but we've had a hard time catching a good run of steps on video...so this will have to do.

P.S. I love her little squeal at the end...I wish we hadn't cut it off when we filmed it!

The piano again

This week I sat down at the piano to practice a solo piece I would be playing in Sacrament Meeting and quickly learned I wasn't going to get any good practicing done with Leah around - unless I was okay with playing while she sat, crying at my feet, begging to be lifted up so she could participate with me.  I could only take it so long and finally brought her up with me.  After a few minutes, I got tired of playing, but Leah had no inclination to stop, so I left her on the bench.  She played on the piano nearly 15 minutes by herself (after having played at least that same amount of time while on my lap), and was very upset when Dave and I finally pulled her away (see pictures below).  Photos compliments of Dave - I loved some of the angles he got...my heart melts seeing those tiny, chubby hands on the piano keys.

I hope she doesn't get upset with me someday for posting pictures of her in just a diaper.

Heart melting.  I LOVE those hands.

Not staged...she did NOT want to leave the piano.

Totally staged...Dave had so much fun taking the first one of him pulling her away from the piano, he wanted to do it again.

It took Leah a few minutes to recover from being pulled from the piano.

I did actually comfort her in her misery...I just took pictures of it first.

Close call

Here's what happens if you don't strap 'em in!  

This little wiggle worm worked his way almost completely out of the chair...in his sleep!

This girl's got personality!

Here's a little peek at our girl during dinner last night.  She's nonstop.