That’s right. Tennyson is now fourteen months old. And seeing as how our I’m Batman shirt still fits, we did a little photo shoot this afternoon. It was immediately post-nap so it turned out real nice.



A lot has changed this month.

Tennyson walks. Not just a couple steps, but walks. He can stand up from sitting on his own now, too.
He has become a creature of habit. He has learned tantrums. These two things together… well… it’s fun. You’d think he was being tortured to death if we were to not turn on Elmo’s World during lunch. True story. I swear he almost stopped breathing this afternoon.



He watches Monster’s, Inc. at least once a day it seems. (I’ve started noticing things that no person should ever notice. For instance, everything in the background looks like monsters. Even the remote controls. Also, things are priced as 4.299 and 9.195. I don’t know why but I like to think that it is birthdays of the kids of the Pixar peeps.) Every now and then Tennyson is even smart enough to figure out how to play the movie on our iTouch without our help. Although most the time he just messes up the settings.



His new favorite thing is to play upstairs in his room by himself. For a kid who always had to be in the same room as you were, this is a huge deal. It also keeps the other levels of our home much cleaner.

We now have 10 teeth. This month we had two molars come in at the same time. It wasn’t fun for any of us.


(look at all that hair!)

We got rid of all bottles this month. Cold turkey. One day we used them, the next day we didn’t. When he went a week without a bottle, we rewarded him with his very own Elmo straw cups, because even sippies are beneath him now.

He also fell in love with juice boxes and raisins. He still isn’t sure how he feels about chocolate milk.



Tennyson also terrorizes everyone at church. The chapel doors have these special powers that give little kids all sorts of excess energy. This last week we had a long discussion in Sunday School about how to love and accept little children who might be disruptive during sacrament meeting. I drove that lesson home by letting Tennyson run free around the classroom. I figured there was never a better time to let him do so. And (bonus!) he was so tired he just chilled on my lap during all of relief society and I got to listen to the lesson. I think he’ll be running free during Sunday School a lot more often.

Every year, Howell, MI has a great balloonfest where they bring in all sorts of hot air balloons and have a carnival and serve all sorts of fatty foods and it is a blast.

I have great memories of balloonfest. Balloons used to land in our front yard during the festival because our subdivision was right next to the end of the race, and hot air balloons are hard to aim. It was pretty much the coolest.

So, I took Mike and Tennyson along this year and we went to see the hot air balloons.

Before I go any further, let me just say that I never ever in my wildest dreams thought I’d see my son running around my old high school parking lot. Ever. I was certain that once I left Michigan for college, and once my family moved to Chicago, I’d have no reason to ever go back to Michigan. God must have had a good chuckle at that one.

Anyway.

We went to balloonfest. It was exactly like I remembered, but a totally different experience toting along a one year old instead of running around with all the teenagers.

Tennyson got to play his first carnival game.

He did well. He won a stuffed monkey. Doesn’t he look thrilled about it?

 

We walked around a lot and saw all the art stands and took in the atmosphere.

We even stopped for some quality festival food. Tennyson would have none of the hot dog, apparently they don’t make them right there, so he just stuck with his fruit loops. Have I mentioned yet that he’s learned to throw a tantrum? Yeah, his scream will burst both eardrums.

After our bellies were full, we went to wait for the hot air balloons to inflate and set off on their race (the one that ended in our backyard when I was younger).

Only they never inflated. There was too much wind. Well, I guess they did get one up after we left, but remember that ear piercing yell I just told you about? It’s ten times louder and much more frequent when he’s tired.

We did see a couple things in the sky before leaving.

Like kites.

And planes.

And skydivers.

And babies.

(and no, that is not photoshopped)

But we did not see hot air balloons.

Thusly, instead of pictures of hot air balloons, you get a ton of pictures of the cutest kid in the world (we had a lot of down time). Lucky you!

We haven’t been up to much lately. Things are pretty quiet around here. But that doesn’t mean we’ve done absolutely nothing.

First off, Father’s day.

My dad was still in town, which was so nice. It’s been a while since I’ve spent a Father’s Day with him.

And it was nice for Tennyson to have his Opa around, too.

Playing iPod with Opa is serious work:

I tried to take some pictures of Mike and Tennyson on Father’s Day. I said, “Mike, pose normal!” and this is what I got.

I tried.

It’s been pretty rainy here lately, so we really haven’t been able to do much.

We did make it to the mall once for an evening. Mike and I both needed new shoes. And Tennyson needed to get out of the house. Plus, we really wanted to go to the “nice Meijer” that is right next to our mall.

Other than that, we’ve done a lot of sitting around and laughing at the comedic stylings of Elmo and Mr. Noodle.

And we’ve watched the rain, just wishing things would dry up so we could go to the park.

Oh yeah, and this is how we sit in grocery carts now. Doesn’t it look comfortable??

My family is in town. The weather today was beautiful.

Family + Great Weather = Perfect Day.

We spent the afternoon at our new favorite park in town. It was supposed to be stormy, but ended up absolutely wonderful.

The first thing we did was take a walk around the lake.

Then we went to the splash pad.

I decided from now on I will only go to the splash pad on Saturday mornings. Seriously. The place was de-ser-ted.

Yes. The only people you see in that picture are members of my family. It was wonderful. Tennyson wasn’t quite as brave as he was last time, but I attribute a lot of that to the fact that we cut his morning nap short.

Since it was only in the 70s outside, Tennyson had sit out for a minute every now and then to warm up.

Once he stopped shivering, he jumped right back in again.

While we played in the splash pad, my dad and Mike and my siblings rented paddle boats and went out onto the lake.

We had a nice picnic lunch waiting for them when they got back.

Tennyson had fun playing in his stroller. I never let him sit in there without being strapped in. He quickly learned he could put both his feet on the back of the seat and climb up.

Which he thought was hysterical.

Before leaving, we soaked up the sun for a bit longer by sitting on the beach by the lake.

      

And that picture brings me to my latest obsession… CURLS.

I knew I would have a curly head kid.

   

Anyway. Back to the beach.

Tennyson quickly realized that all the other people on the beach had a lot more to play with than we did.

Not our towels:

Also not our towels:

Tennyson also learned about gravity since the “beach” is one big grassy hill.

For anyone who argues that this might not have been the perfect day, I dare you to say that after seeing what the sky was like.

Yeah, perfect.

Absolutely perfect.