Happiest Halloween

I love Halloween.

I love Halloween even more with a kid. 

It's going to be so awesome once David gets older. His first Halloween was pretty low-key. A party at school last week and then a trip to my parents house tonight for a few pictures and trick-or-treaters (he loved watching all the kids!)

We hope your day was spooktacular!

Hot Dog!

This video is pretty much a whole lot of nothing.

But I can't stop watching it.

On the weekends, mornings come pretty early around these parts. After Davids bottle and a quick check of the news, I sometimes turn on the Disney Channel for some background noise before starting breakfast and our day. David usually doesn't stop to pay much attention to it, but sometimes a song catches his interest.

This past Sunday the famous "Hotdog Dance" grabbed his attention:



You can't really tell, but David is totally dancing his tail off to that song. Complete with booty shaking, a killer split, some paper crunching and what appears to be a rather dignified bow at the end. (Also? That part where he bends down and picks up the paper? Apparently that's a big milestone. Nailed it!)

I'm sure in a few months I'll look at this and think "and you thought THAT was dancing?!" but for now, I'm obsessed. My little baby is a baby no more.

Hello toddlerhood!

Happy 5 Years!

Today is our five year wedding anniversary! 

We were supposed to be celebrating it together up in Sioux Falls for another family wedding, but David got the stomach flu, so I'm home with him.  Nevertheless, it's been an exciting five years and I can't wait to see what the next five bring.

To The Punkin' Patch!

As like most new moms, I was very excited to take David to the pumpkin patch for the first time. I'm a BIG Halloween fan, so I've been looking forward to this for quite some time. Our fall is mostly consumed with Zach's football schedule so this past Saturday was pretty much our only chance to go. It was cloudy and cold, but those are my favorite kind of fall days, so I was pretty excited.

We decided to stay close to home and hit up Pumpkin Valley in Lee's Summit, which is down the road from my parents house.  I figured a pumpkin patch is a pumpkin patch is a pumpkin patch.

Wrong-o my friends.  This place was super lame. First, there was no pumpkin patch to speak of. None that I saw anyway. Zach said he thinks we could have bought one of the (very few) pumpkins they had in their displays, but I'm not so sure.  Then, after paying $10 to get in, you had to pay to do any of the activities!  It was small and completely unimpressive.  Oh well.

They did have a petting zoo.  Mind you there were only 3 animals in the petting zoo and there was no food to feed them and the gate was too small to put your hand through, but it was there.  David was wildly entertained by the miniature mule (the website cleared that one up for me. I kept calling it a pony and Zach was calling it a donkey. Either way, it was smaller than our dog and we need to brush up on our barnyard animals). So, I guess seeing him so thrilled was worth the money.

Next year we'll drive out to one of the better known pumpkin patches and do it up right. But for this year, I'll just go get a pumpkin from Price Chopper.  At least I got my "David at the Pumpkin Patch" photo-op.  Here it is!...

Not shown: the whole lot of pictures of him freaking out because he HAD TO TOUCH THE GRASS. Yep, he's my kid.

David is Eleven Months Old!

Today, David is 11 months old.  Eeeeelllllevvvven mooooonths! How did this happen?!

I’ve been having a lot of mixed emotions about his first year coming to a close.  Those first few months are tough and then it gets easier and then it gets really fun and then all of a sudden you find yourself thinking “where in the world did my baby go?!”  I just don’t even know what to do with myself.

This past month has been a little rough for us.  First he had the ear tubes, which thankfully went pretty well.  Then the next week, he got a bug. His temp got all the way up to 104.5 at one point and we suffered through three days of misery and woe.  Then just yesterday he was sent home because he had two leaky diapers and was told he had to stay home today too (which we are kind of giving the side eye to. I mean for real, he’s totally fine.  He’s perfectly happy and content, so we aren’t sure what’s going on there. We are on the BRAT diet and will slowly add back in other foods because I’m worried it might be something he’s eating.)  We’ve only had one week where he went to daycare all 5 days and really it was only 4.5 because we had a doctor checkup in the middle of it.  So yeah, it’s been a little crazy around here.  Parenthood definitely teaches you all about being flexible, that’s for sure. And working at home with a 10 month old? Exhausting.

DESPITE ALL THAT NONSENSE we have been having a pretty good time around these parts!

He had his first haircut. I realllly didn’t want to get his hair cut. At all. But, it was in his eyes and I promised myself I wouldn’t be “that mom” who doesn’t cut their kids hair when it needs to be cut. So, off to my hair girl we went. He didn’t cry or fuss of anything. We didn’t get much chopped off, but it was enough to make him look like a big kid.  It’s growing back though. A little more evenly too!  The back and one side (just one side) are super curly. I’m sure once it really grows in he’ll have quite the mop of hair. It’s adorable!

He’s finally drinking his bottles like normal again.  Just in time to start thinking about weaning him off. Figures!

He’s cruising around like a pro these days.  He can pretty much walk himself around anywhere in the house.  The past few days he’s been letting go and standing on his own for several seconds at a time too.  Sometimes if I go up to him and put my arms out he’ll grab on to my hand and take a couple steps toward me and a time or two he’s even stepped (lunged) without support! I’m not counting it as walking yet, but I think we are veeeeery close.  I’m such a proud mama. 

He’s still a total string bean.  Mostly he has a long torso.  He wears 18 month shirts and pajamas but 12 month pants.  It would figure because a while back I went crazy at a consignment sale and bought an s-ton of 18 month pants. They are way too huge on him. So I had to go buy a bunch of 12 month stuff.  Hopefully the 18 month stuff fits before next summer. I just might have to get him some suspenders! Ha!

We’ve been getting out and about quite a bit lately.  He loves to go shopping with me and is happy as a clam in his stroller or the shopping cart.  We’ve taken him out to eat just a couple times. He seems to like it but gets antsy once all his food is gone, so we don’t like to do it too often.  We took him to Oktoberfest in Downtown Lee’s Summit last week. There was so much for him to see and I can’t wait for next year when he’ll be able to do some of the little kid activities. We like going to the park and sliding down the slides and swinging. We got him a little swing and hung it out back and he just loves it.

Other stuff:  Up to 8 teeth now with more definitely on the way.  Says "doggy" or in David language: "goo-ga-tee", lives for bananas, hates being in the grass (gets that one from me), shakes his head when he knows he's not supposed to do something, points at everything, and prefers to hold toys in his hands when he crawls (rings, blocks, balls, whatever. just always has to take something with him). Still hasn't chosen a "lovie" or security blanket.

I’ve been busy planning his first birthday party (mostly in my head at this point although I do have a little secret stash of stuff I’ve been gradually buying).  We are just keeping it very small this year.  I’ve never quite understood the giant first birthday party thing.  We’ll be having a little pizza party with cake and ice cream at the house.  Even though it’s going to be small I’m really excited about making a few decorations and his smash cake. It will be so fun!

A year old in one month. I honestly cannot believe it.