Sunday, August 25, 2013

Andrew {1 Year Old!}

We made it to a year! :) I can't believe how fast this past year went...so crazy! I don't even know where to start with this one....I haven't been keeping track of what I wanted to say for the wee boy for the past month....although he's not such a wee boy anymore! At his 1 year appt he weighed 24 lbs and was 30 3/4 in long, both being in the 90th percentile. And he's really just all of sudden become a little toddler and is LOVING it! I swear...he hit the 1 year mark and is just now all boy/all play/all over the place! His biggest achievement, which has attributed a lot to his big boy attitude, is that he can walk now!

He's been walking along stuff for awhile now and about 3 weeks ago he started talking a step or two by himself, then the next week a bit more distance and before his birthday he was full on walking! The past week he's been working on turning and pivoting and has gotten pretty good at that too. He's pretty funny though...he's pretty good with his balance but likes to walk around with his hands up to help him, it's pretty cute. Mark says he looks like a little chimp walking like that ;) Andrew is pretty pleased with himself though, he gets so excited about things and when he does new things. He's so cute!

He loves "running" around the house, chasing Evelyn and Mark. He really loves to play ball...he throws it and chases it or throws it to someone. He's getting more and more better at actually playing, with toys and with Evelyn, which is nice for me! I think she's glad he can play more now although she doesn't always want to.One of their favorite things to do is yell at each other though...Evelyn will hide sometimes and he'll "find" her and then they'll yell at each other as loud as they can...super fun :)

He did get a lot of toys for his birthday and is having fun playing with them. He's starting to try and figure things out more and putting things together. He's definitely in that curious little stage. He's definitely playin more like a big kid though...he's been trying to build with the blocks we have, he's started to "draw" more with the chalk outside, and the last time we went to the beach he was "helping" dig a hole with Evelyn. I've never seen him focus and do something like that before. :) It was so cute! But at the same time super sad...he's definitely not my baby anymore! Along with that he's becoming a bit more of a daddy's boy...it's SO super cute when Mark comes home...Andrew will run to him screaming (if he's not in his high chair anyway) and give him a big hug and will stay with his daddy for most of the rest of the night. I'll try to take him sometimes and he'll push away and stay with his dad. Cute, but sad :( But I'm glad he's loving on his daddy! Mark gets a little jealous with the babies and how clingy they are to me (totally not my fault...can't help that I'm the food source! We're pretty much done with nursing Andrew though so he's definitely gotten over the whole cling to mom thing).

Another accomplishment Andrew has is climbing...well he's been able to climb for awhile, like the stairs I mentioned before, but now he's climbing on more things...he tries to climb on the couch and can do it when he has one of us to pull on, but his favorite thing is to find one of Evelyn's stools and he climbs on top of those. He mostly does it with the one in the playroom...he pushes it up to the kitchen and climbs up so he can reach more things on the kitchen...but then he can't get down and he gets mad. So I'll be in the kitchen or something and he'll be playing and he'll start crying and I'm like...are you stuck again? And he usually is :) Luckily he's pretty cautious and stays instead of falling :)

One of Andrew's favorite things to do though is EAT! Man this boy can eat! And he's impatient about it too!! If anyone has something and he doesn't, I swear he can sense it, even if he's in the other room, and he zooms right over and starts begging :) He also zooms over to the kitchen when I start making dinner and he loves to watch inside the oven. He'll eat anything though and most of the time eats more than Evelyn or at least the same amount! Granted Evelyn would rather snack throughout the day and have tiny meals but still...he totally eats more than her.

Andrew hasn't really made much progress in terms of speaking real words but he is trying more and paying more attention to words. He is doing better sleeping-wise too for the most part. He'll wake up once usually but is sleeping for the main part of the night, which is nice! Now I've got to adjust to not waking up regularly... :) He's still doing pretty well with naps too...he takes 2-3 naps a day still which is super nice.

Let's see...well I don't really have too much else to say about the boy! He's just such an adorable, happy, sweet little guy and I just love having him in our family!

The pictures I took of him for his 1 year pics! Isn't he the handsomest little guy ever!?! 

He pretty much pounced on this cake...he was SO excited!

Literally dove right in ;)

very happy boy right there ;)

12 months of the boy! 

At his birthday party!




yay more cake! 


so cute :)
doing his crab crawl cuz he doesn't like to crawl in grass :)

learning to stand up!



climbing at the park...he's so proud of himself! 

makes me nervous though that he'd climb this by himself! (i was there the whole time of course but still! ) 

bad pic but his first black eye! Fell in the bathtub while daddy was watching him...tsk tsk! :) 

enjoying a popsicle 

playing with the sorter toys

such a big boy! he's doing more big kid stuff every day it seems :(

my impatient little eater! he loves to watch me cook 

our little trip to Krispy Kreme ;) 

more big kid stuff! actually drawing instead of eating the chalk! although he did try to eat it still

getting stuck on the stool! 

Sunday, July 21, 2013

No man needs a vacation so much as the person who has just had one. -- Elbert Hubbard

After the wedding we started our family vacation! It started off a big rocky...on our way to the wedding I realized we left our tickets to Disney....at home...in our safe...which was locked....I know, I know...why did I put it there and NOT put it on my packing list at all? I don't know...stupid move on my part....so I got to the wedding super stressed out cuz NO ONE was answering or being helpful that I called. We went through quite a few scenarios of what to do and finally just gave our house/safe key to a friend at the wedding cuz he was driving back to Jacksonville the next day, had him give it to another friend who has been in our house and he went in and got our tickets for us. Luckily I finally got a hold of someone on Saturday morning that gave us helpful information and all we had to do was have him email us a copy of our tickets and we showed that to the ticket lady and it all worked out! It was a stressful 12 hours for me til we found that out though but I'm so glad it was an easy fix. 

So on Saturday while we were waiting for our keys to get to NC, we went to SeaWorld, which we were planning on doing one day anyway, just switched our plans around a bit and it was perfect! SeaWorld was pretty awesome. We saw a lot of fun animal shows and animal exhibits. Evelyn loved it. She is really into dolphins right now so she really loved seeing them. We saw them in their exhibit and also a dolphin show. Another show we saw was Shamu, which was pretty awesome as well! 

Andrew did pretty good, he didn't love being in the stroller all day but did pretty good...he liked watching a couple of the shows but was pretty blah about them in general. It was a pretty great day though! The crowds were pretty mild, the weather was hot but not unbearable, and we had a lot of fun so it was great! 

She was so excited! 





Evelyn's reaction to the whales :)


Evelyn riding her first roller coaster! :) She loved it!

These two are SO cute! I just love them so much!

This is how we kept him happy.... :)

Happy girl! 

She's so cute!

eating again :)

Her reaction to the dolphins! :) 


So there's day 1 of our fun! :) next up, Disney! 


Andrew {11 Months}

Can you believe my little boy is almost 1 year old!?! He's been looking so much "less baby" the past few days and it's making me sad! He's been such an active little thing and so fun to watch. He loves to play and adores Evelyn. She, for the most part, does pretty good with him but isn't always the most gentle with him still...he's such a big boy that I think she forgets he's still a baby and can't be pulled and such like she does. When they do get along its very sweet though and SO nice for me! Andrew also does pretty good playing on his own....he'll play for a good while in the playroom whether alongside Evelyn or by himself. He loves to throw his little basketball and chase it around the house, he still loves cars, and he's starting to like blocks and things he can put together. And he's starting to like the board books I have for him too.

He thankfully, doesn't have anymore teeth yet, although this past weekend he had a temperature and has been super clingy and grouchy and whiny so it had better be teething cuz nothing else seemed to be wrong with him. He does like to kind of grit/grind his teeth together now that he has them on top and bottom, which sounds AWFUL. He's still eating like a champ, he even scarfed down some zucchini we had the other night with our spaghetti...he LOVED it. He likes to try to feed people now and "share". He is even pretty decent at sharing toys and stuff...for the moment! We'll see how long that lasts ;) He's pretty funny when he's getting into something or doing something he shouldn't, when we notice him or say something, like "hey!" he gets a little shocked and hurries even faster to do what he was doing...he gets a little grin on his face too like he knows we're gonna stop him and knows he better do it fast before we do :) he's SO cute!

He still loves to clap and whenever he hears anyone clapping, on TV or anything, he claps. He also has started to be a bit more observant and at church has noticed the music conductor, which he tries to copy. He's even started to notice when music is on and starts to "conduct". Pretty cute :) He's also started to wave good bye and I swear the other day, when Mark left, I said bye bye while waving with Andrew and he tried to say it :) Pretty easy one to say but still! He's quite a babbler and totally has his own version of Evelyn that he says. He yells at her a lot :)

Let's see....he's not walking yet but loves to sit in this crouching position and he's even started to get up in a standing position all by himself from that position. He really likes to bang his head against you while you're holding him and likes to throw himself backwards when we're on my bed.

Andrew has gotten real dramatic the past little bit too....I mentioned before he has a very specific mad/offended cry and he's now since added to it...along with that he'll squeeze his eyes shut really hard and have this dramatic, pathetic little face and then a couple tears will squeeze out and boy..it's just so sad but SO funny! I love how many sad things babies do that are funny at the same time :) Oh, he's also pretty cute at bed/naptime...he's gotten very good at going down, he knows when he's tired and doesn't put up a fight, which is SO nice! As soon as you hold him and get his blanket he lays his sweet little head down and then I bring him up to his bed and lay him down and he ALWAYS takes his blankets in both hands and covers his face and tucks in to sleep....SO adorable :) He loves his blankie!!!

And here's some pics of the boy this month!





making silly faces waiting for his food :)


he loves the water!

being silly eating his food!

:)

getting his hair cut, for reals! He HATED it so we gave him a mini sucker and he calmed down :)

tired babies!

and more tired babies, Andrew decided they had a long enough nap :)

checking out the car with daddy before our Orlando Trip

Eating! I swear half the pics I have of him are of him eating :)

In Orlando, we got soaked on our way back from dinner :)

happy to be out of the car!

Sleeping at one of the parks :)

This is a very "lay off me I'm starving" face :)

Happy to be home after our trip :)

movie/popcorn night! 

a very sad/sick little boy after he woke up :(

being grouchy...

his pathetic/mad face :)