Two month catch up in pictures

New House

Ok, this is terribly late! But here's the story: The very first people to come through our house in July liked it but decided to keep looking. Well they came back through about 6 or 7 weeks later and wanted to make an offer, but at the last minute, their buyer fell through. She mentioned to her realtor that maybe we would consider a trade. Our realtor mentioned it to us and we didn't take it too seriously but said we would take a look at the house. A few days later, we saw it and realized it was pretty much the exact house that we had been looking for. It took a few weeks to get everything worked out but we closed in October and moved a week later. The whole process went very smoothly and all of the people we dealt with were just wonderful. It was a great experience to be in the closing with the two realtors and the other couple and be able to discuss how it seems that God was at the center of the whole thing.
So we are pretty settled now. Still some unpacking to do, but we're tackling it slowly. We've met some of the neighbors and everyone seems very nice. Lots of kids for Orrin to play with, and lots of dogs for Spot and Daisy to bark at. Pretty much everything we need is within walking distance, which is awesome. Emmons Lake and Lakeside park, the high school/junior high/elementary school (and its accompanying playground), the new Caledonia library, and the grocery store. I haven't taken any pictures of the new house yet, so I guess if you want to see it, you should come visit! :)

Orrin stuff

Well, somehow between all of the house showings, we have managed to have some fun the last few weeks. Orrin is cruising along furniture and climbing all over everything lately. I found him inside the bathroom cupboard one day, throwing everything out. He finally learned how to go up and down stairs, and is quite obsessed with that now. A couple more teeth have popped through, too. We don't think he is too far away from walking, I say by Halloween, Scott says by mid-November, and Becky says by February (so little faith in her nephew!). :)
Best of all, he loves to "help" me with the laundry. I don't mind. Although trying to clean the house for a showing with him around is pretty much impossible (very thankful that Mom M comes and gets him when necessary!). He has an amazing knack to know where I'm going next with the vacuum and plant himself there.

So lets see, we went to the beach with his aunts, uncle, cousins, and grandpa. Orrin spent hours shoveling (and eating) sand, exploring, and crawling into the water and just staring. Just ask me how I know that Orrin ate more than one handful of sand (except don't, its gross).

Then we went to the Hudsonville Fair, where we learned that Orrin LOVES rabbits.
He also fell for this guy. Someday Orrin, someday. (well, someday when you are grown and can afford your own and let me come and play with it)Cows were pretty cool, too.

This one left Orrin pretty slimy.
This picture does not do it justice, but Orrin really gets into blueberry pancakes.
We returned to the fair with some of Orrin's good friends. They were loving watching the rides.
And we played at Gun lake one fabulous Sunday with my family.

More to come. Up next, the great story of our (hopefully) new house.

Numbers

Can I just say that I love that I married a math major. When we were first presented with a house trade idea last week, we needed a pros/cons list to see if this (or any house for that matter) was really the house we wanted. Except Scott can't stop at pros and cons. So he came up with a couple formulas so that we could assign any house a value, essentially a percentage of the things that we want in a house weighted by their importance. We actually had five different methods, and then took the average of those numbers. I love him.

So there's a little insight into our nerdiness. Orrin is doomed.

Stats and Random Things

Orrin's 1 year appointment was yesterday - he weighs 21 pounds, 6 ounces and is 31.5 inches tall. Thats the 92nd percentile for height, and 40th for weight - tall and skinny like his daddy! :)

He was a champ about getting shots! He cried for a second, then went on to smile and babble at the nurse. The doctor gave him a little cow and he thought that was pretty great.

I made him a pair of pants with knee pads on them yesterday, thinking that might be nice for crawling. They turned out so cute, but probably won't fit him until he's 3 or so! Oops. Try again today.

The dogs have taught Orrin how to growl. He growls at the dogs when they play with each other, like he wants in on the action. Its pretty funny.

Party

We had a great time on Sunday celebrating Orrin's birthday!

We had decorations
And snacks
There was lots of water to play with (no pictures of the water balloons)

And cake to eat!
Orrin only took a minute to dig in (thanks for the pictures Jerilynn!)
And new things to play with/read/wear.

Thanks everyone for coming and celebrating with us!

1!

I can't believe its been a year! Orrin is growing up very quickly.

He is saying a few more words now. Still mama, dada, book, fish (he says this one a lot, and very insistently if I don't notice that my aquarium screensaver is on as we walk past), hi and bye. But now he is saying Spot, up, uh oh, and I'm pretty sure no. He babbles constantly and says many other words repeatedly as he points to random things, I'm just not sure what he is saying. :)

Speaking of pointing, he loves to point. Especially at people, and if you point back he giggles. He points at things he wants and occasionally cries if he doesn't get it. I'm not looking forward to this phase of toddlerhood!

He LOVES books. He also loves to pull them all down off of the shelf. He will sit for a long time looking through them all. He likes to point to the pictures (of course), and sometimes kiss them, especially if it is an animal. The touch and feel books are a current favorite. He is also just starting to bring me books to read to him, and turn the pages for me.

He is giving lots of kisses, mostly to the dogs and pictures, and Scott. Every once in awhile he will give one to me.

He is crawling all over now, and quickly. This is making cleaning for house showings almost impossible as he has an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where I need to go next with the vacuum. And as I said before, he likes to unload shelves. He also loves to pull out the outlet protectors. I think we are not anywhere near walking, though, since he still can't quite pull himself up on the furniture and doesn't try to step forward when we help him stand.

He loves to harass the dogs. Spot is finally starting to play with him, which is fun to watch. Daisy just gets up and moves whenever he gets near. She only moves a couple feet away, though, and Orrin is pretty persistent, so he just chases he around. She is not so thrilled with him at this point.

His two top front teeth should poke through any minute now.


Enjoying his first time in a pool.
Daisy finally gave up one day.
At the track watching Grandpa race.
Scott and I went to a random park on the Grand River (Chief Hazy Cloud I think) and realized there wasn't really anything there. So we plopped Orrin in a field of tall grass. We also took that picture of him on a rock above.
Orrin's first time at the beach was a success. Until he started eating the sand. He wasn't really sure about the big waves.