First "Solids"

On January 8, shortly after he turned 5 months, we started Robby on baby food. (sorry, I know messy food faces gross some people out). His pediatrician suggested starting him on meats and vegetables rather than the cereals that people usually do. She said that they are starting to think maybe that will help kids not get too used to all the starches. Makes sense.  Anyway, his first food was chicken! He seemed to like it. Just needed a little practice figuring out exactly how to swallow it... but it didn't take long.

Christmas Break

Well, Steve finished his exams on Friday, December 18th and we flew out bright and early the next morning.... at 6:50..... Sure 6:50 might not seem that early to some people, but when you take into consideration that we live about an hour from the airport AND it was the weekend before Christmas AND it was supposed to be snowing.... We ended up leaving at about 3:45. Now you can't argue that THAT is not super early!!!

Thanks so much to our friends the Carters who drove us to the airport so bright (actually, dark... why do they say "bright and early"? It's not light that early... that is one reason it is so miserable....) and early!

Robby did quite well on the airplane. I was relieved.

One nice thing about leaving so early was that, with the time change, we arrived in Utah by 9:30a.m.! We were a bit tired, but excited to spend that first day with our families. That night we had our Toller Family Christmas party.

We were sure to get a picture of the four generations.... three of which are Robert Tollers.

Notice how Robby has his bottom lipped sucked in? He was doing this a lot that week leading up to Christmas. He also continued to chew like crazy on everything, as he had been doing the previous weeks. Everyone told me he was probably teething.

A few days before Christmas, my family (along with Steve's brother Adam) got together and made gingerbread houses!

I had planned to make a gingerbread train that night, but ended up taking care of a hungry and tired Robby. So, my nephew Kyler helped me make it on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve we had a little shindig with my family.  My parents bought a new house over the summer.  It was so fun to be together with everyone and actually have enough room for all of us!

We had a night full of food.......conversation.....

....singing Christmas songs....

...during which my niece Kahri just couldn't resist the urge to dance.....

.....a talent show....

...featuring break dancing by my nephew Kyler....

....which quickly turned into everyone dancing to Michael Jackson....

.....followed by the amazing musical talents of my three brothers.......

(They sang/played a rendition of Joy to the World. It was seriously so awesome!...watch the video below...)

(sucking that lip in again, eh, Robby?)

Robby was so excited for his first Christmas that he hardly slept at all that night! (Riiiiggghhhtt......I'm sure that's why he was up all night......)

Christmas morning.......

(showing off his cool trick Daddy taught him....Not even 5 months old and already standing! haha.....and sucking in that lip yet again....)

Enjoying the contents of his stocking...

Later that day we headed over to the Tollers, and then we all went over to visit Grandpa Toller (Steve's Grandpa, Robby's Great Grandpa-- Robert Toller #1).

Grandpa helped Robby open his present from Great Grandpa.

It was a nice Christmas. So nice to be able to be with our families and enjoy time together.

Robby got so spoiled in those weeks we were out there. He was a little nervous around all the new people when we first got out there, but by the end, he was loving all the attention and had warmed up to everyone.

We headed back to Ohio on January 6th. It was sad to say good bye, but we left with lots of new memories, a suitcase full of Christmas presents, a spoiled, but well-loved Robby......

...and TWO NEW TEETH!

December 15

On December 4th, Robby turned 4 months old!

At his 4 month appointment, he was:

 15 pounds 9 ounces (only 65th percentile now! before, he was 90th percentile)
His percentile for head size and height is in the 80s... I'll have to find those stats again. Anyway, he continues to grow, but it looks like he's been stretching out a bit. He appears to have lost a bit of that froggy belly.

Wow... I keep thinking he should still be a newborn... but he definitely is not! It is amazing how much he has changed even just in the past couple weeks!

On December 5, I put Robby on his belly for some tummy time.  He looked so cute like he was posing for a picture. I walked out of the room for like 30 seconds, thinking I should grab my camera, and when I looked back he was on his back! That was his first time rolling over and I missed it. :(

Over the next week or so he did it a couple more times, but each time... I missed it. Steve did see it a couple times. Then, today (December 16th) he rolled from his back to his belly! Now he keeps doing that over and over. Every time I set him down he flips over onto his belly! So I have finally seen him roll. He still doesn't  go from belly to back very often. But, he is getting quite good at the other way! My little boy is becoming mobile!

I walked in the front room and found Steve exercising. 

He is so innovative in his methods of getting a work out. 

I love it.

And so did Robby....

Thanksgiving: Continued...

Hooray for good friends. It was fun to get together with the Felts and the Hansens again for Thanksgiving.

However, for some reason it just didn't feel like Thanksgiving...

Was it because I did a lot of the cooking?

Or perhaps because there wasn't any snow on the ground yet?

Maybe it's because I didn't put a fancy table cloth on the table...

Actually, I think the main reason was because we weren't with our families.

I know we weren't with them last year for Thanksgiving either, but somehow last year felt more like Thanksgiving. I think the fact that the Felts hosted it last year and Keriann's mom was in town somehow made it feel more normal...something about having that motherly figure there.

Anyway, I really did enjoy spending time with our friends. And we had plenty of tasty food.

I am thankful for good friends out here in Toledo. They are like our little family our here.

Even the little boys seemed to enjoy themselves.

It is fun to see James and Robby start to "interact" more. James wants to crawl on Robby and play with him. For now Robby can't do much more than smile and laugh and maybe grab James' shirt. But, he is getting more and more interactive each day.

He has started using his hands a lot more and wants everything in his mouth! Steve likes covering his finger with a burp cloth and letting Robby chew on it.

I am thankful for....

...my boys!

Well, there is a lot to cover from the past couple weeks.
Where shall I begin......?

Lets back track to November 19th-- Steve's 28th birthday.
Steve decided that he wanted to have some friends from school over on his birthday. They had just finished their big final for their Immunology and Infection course earlier in the week. So, no body had much objection to leaving behind the books for the evening and coming over to our house for an ICE CREAM PARTY! Steve is not a huge fan of cake. So, we had ice cream with different toppings and brownies.

(If you look closely you can see the one candle glowing in the pan of brownies. We were singing to Steve in this picture).
Thats right folks.... there were 10 of us there.... and 7 different flavors of ice cream!
Quite the spread.
It was fun to get to know some of Steve's classmates a bit better.  I think Steve enjoyed having them over and showing off his little boy as well.


Speaking of the little boy...
Robby got his first bout of sickness shortly after Steve's birthday. That Saturday, he started coughing a little bit and Sunday he seemed like he just wanted to be held most of the time. Then, Sunday night, when he was already awake for the second time and it was only 3 am.... I knew I was in for a long night. I took his temperature and found that he had a slight fever around 101. Robby and I spent the next couple nights sleeping on the couch.  I wanted to be close to him, so I could keep tabs on him. Anyway, he only had the slight fever for 2 nights (only at night). Other than that, he's just had a sad little cough.  He was such a trooper through it all. Even on the days when I could tell he didn't feel well, I still got little smiles from him.

....such a little sweetie....

On Wednesday I woke up feeling that Robby had likely passed on his sickness to me... I delayed my Thanksgiving preparations that I had planned for the day and took a nap for a few hours. Luckily, Robby was still not feeling top notch either so he slept the whole time I did! Good boy.

I spent the remainder of Wednesday preparing for Thanksgiving. This was my first year hosting Thanksgiving. And so, it was my first attempt at making a turkey! I was a bit nervous...what if it didn't turn out?!?! I would ruin Thanksgiving for everyone...hahaha.

But, of course, being ME... I have to make everything more complicated than it needs to be. So, did I just rub the turkey with oil and pop it in the oven? Of course not! I decided I was going to brine my turkey for a day before roasting it! It actually turned out to be a really good thing that I decided to do this.
Not only did the turkey turn out wonderful and moist... but, had I not decided on this method then we might not have had a turkey at all! 
Why?
Well.... you see, when I pulled the turkey out of the fridge on Wednesday to put it in the brine, I found that it was still ROCK SOLID FROZEN!!! It had been in the fridge for a few days.... I really thought it would have thawed by then! Can you imagine if I had pulled the turkey out on Thanksgiving and it was still frozen solid? I would have freaked out! Luckily, since it was only Wednesday, I had time to thaw the turkey in cold water in the sink. Due to this, I wasn't able to brine it as long as I'd hoped, but it still turned out great!
I was so happy.

THANKSGIVING:
TO BE CONTINUED.....