The Milestone- Clapping

Raif hit a developmental milestone today, drum roll please, moment of suspenseful silence, he clapped. Yes today for the first time in our house Raif has clapped. I had been taking some extra time lately to show him how clapping worked and today he decided to try it himself. Of course the Saturday basketball game may have brought his curiosity to a peak. The final result- clapping. He has been practicing it all day. He gladly showed the ladies at Dennis' bank that he could clap and happily clapped them a goodbye.
Of course he is not always successful in his endeavor to clap.
But after careful examination he is once again on track and clapping his way around the house.

And Heerrrreeee's Raif!

Every morning at 7 AM Dennis and I are awaken by the sturrings of our son Raif. To share the joy of what we see in the mornings Dennis took this picture. Shortly after it was taken Raif asked for the keys to the car. How could we resit? I'm sure as soon as his feet can touch the pedals we'll hardly see the car again.



To hassen the event he has been

practicing his walking and has even started to stand by himself for seconds at a time.
He has also taken to pursing his lips while doing various activies-eating, crawling, standing and we suspect sleeping. At this time we are not sure wheather he picked it up from that play group that's been hanging around the park or learned it on his own but he looks cute enough for our camera:) He looks looks so cute doing it that Dennis has taken it up as well. The bank thinks that it is so funny that they have just encouraged him. I just keep telling him that it may stay that way if he's not careful.

I also thought that I would take this chance to post a picture of the painting Mom and Dad got for us before they left. The hard part has been figuiring out where we want to put it.

Happy Birthday Jen

We would like to send out a BIG happy birthday to Jen. we hope that you got everything you ever wanted. (Dennis and I were going to send by something tall, dark and handsome but apparently he's booked several months in advance).
Everyone on our side is doing great. Raif is getting over his ear infection and moving, moving, moving. I'll post some pictures later.

The finger and standing

We got a shot of Raif with his finger poised and ready to touch or grab whatever he can get. Lately, he climbs up the side of various object in the house to see what is on top of them. Then he'll stretch his finger out to grab the edge of various things (pens, paper, stuffed animals, important documents) pulling them to the edge so that he could get a better look at them. I've started to place various objects on top of the chairs so that he can explore. He is also getting good at pointing at pictures in books while we name them off.


One morning Eric wanted to see if Raif could do a cheerleading stand. Raif was delighted to help and pose for the camera. Later that day Dennis came home and decided to give it a whirl as well . Raif is getting to be quite the acrobat. Just the other day I had to tell him to stop swinging on the sprial staircase because batman was NOT going to mistake him for robin and ask him to join the "gang". Come to think of it maybe we should cut back his TV watching as well. Hmmmmmm

Raif's not feeling well

I took Raif to the doctor today because he was running a high fever. They found that he had an ear infection so now he is on medicine for it. He's been really tired lately. I put him down next to the couch and when I had come back he was stand next to the couch asleep. I should have gotten a picture of it.
Mom and Dad have headed off to the MTC. They say that they have been kept busy so they haven't had a chance to miss us yet. I said that it was probably a good thing.
There was another girl that quit at Dennis' work so he will be staying longer. He had a pow wow with some of the big wigs and they said that they have been very pleased with his work. They wished that they could have moved him on but things weren't looking good for that. On the bright side they gave him a $2 raise and said they give him an additional raise at the end of this year. Well that's it for our update today. I hope things are going well for everyone else!