flashback friday

Three years ago.

thanksgiving at the coast, 2011

We had Thanksgiving at the coast this year and it was wonderful! The weather cooperated and it was gorgeous. Little LOVED the beach. Since the weather was awesome he was really able to get into playing in the sand.

Here's a flashback to our last Thanksgiving at the beach, in 2009....


He dove right in...

He was very interested in chasing the birds again. But we also played football, flew kites, dug in the sand, and went wading in the water.

running along the beach with Nana

Little playing in the sand with Aunt Katie

B teaching Little how to fly a kite

We had a blast and we have a lot to be thankful for!

sneak peek #3

Once again, Lyndsay has blown me away by capturing such an amazing image of Little. I just love it, and I can't stop looking at it. More to come. :)

You can see her blog post about it here.

arrrrg, matey!

Lyndsay of Life in Motion Photography held the annual Little Monsters Bash yesterday. It's a fundraiser benefitting CureDuchenne, an organization near and dear to Lyndsay's heart. I love how my little pirate loves the camera. :)


And an outtake....
We have our family photo session in a few weeks and I can't wait! Thanks again, Lyndsay!

just because

the black greenish blueish yellowish eye

Not too bad. I thought it was going to be way worse. The bridge of his nose turned all yellowy, which looked nasty, but the only greenish blueish yellowish part was right there in the inside corner. My kid is tough. He walked into his preschool classroom on Monday and all the other kids shuddered and hid in the corner.

a how-to

This blog segment? A how-to, of sorts.

HOW TO GIVE YOUR MOTHER A HEART ATTACK.

Heart attack #1

Every night I go in to check that Steven is still breathing before I head to bed. (Ahem, we aren't focusing on my insane paranoia in this segment. Maybe next time.) I check the video monitor before I head in there and I can't see Steven on there. Not uncommon- the monitor is on the tall dresser on one side of the bed, so if he scoots in that corner I can't see him. So, I walk in, fully expecting to see him (and move him out of said corner) and ... he's not there.

I am obviously already panicking, look on both sides of the bed, no Little. Behind the glider, where he loves to crawl and hide, no Little. There isn't anywhere else he could be, it's not a very big room. Just as I reach for the blinds to see where the baby toddler snatcher busted in the window, I see the closet door cracked. I leap over the glider, some how not breaking an appendage, and there he is, sleeping peacefully on the floor of his closet.

I catch my breath, and go get Matt to show him what his son has done. Matt just laughs. "Why are you so upset?" OMG,IALMOSTKILLEDHIM.

We have a door knob cover on this closet door knob, mainly so he can't get in there and pull all his clothes off the hangers and make me want to rip my hair out. There aren't any toys in there, so I'm not quite sure how or why he wanted in there so badly. But he was, all cuddled up with Blankie.

After I calmed down and didn't feel like I was going to for sure vomit, I called my mom and told her. What does she say?

Mimi- ::hearty chuckles:: "Did you get a picture?!" ::more hearty chuckles::

Nope. No mom, in all my high pulse rate, vomit inducing panic I CANNOT believe I forgot to go grab the camera.

I know she meant well.

So, to honor her and her picture request, I asked bribed Little to reenact his little stunt for me.

It kind of came out.
Kind of.

Heart attack #2

It's Friday night and I'm in the office working. Steven is STUPID excited about going to see Thomas again the next morning. SO stupid, in fact, that he leapt off the love seat, nose first, right into this train table.

You know it's a bad owie when there is the initial ear splitting scream and the silence....the silent cry. OMG. They cry so hard they can't even get any sound out. YIKES. So then we had this:

It may not look that bad (and of course, the cheesy smile is very misleading) but it's a bad owie. Fairly certain this will lead to his first black eye. Called Mimi ASAP to ensure we did not have to make our first trip to Dell Children's Hospital. This should be fun explaining to his preschool teachers. "I know, it totally looks like I punched him, but I swear I didn't. NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS." His father likes to teach him to say inappropriate things.

Heart attack #3

This one wasn't so much a full-blown heart attack, but maybe like a little angina.

We had a blast at our friends birthday party this morning, and Little was tuckered out. Our office is right next to his bedroom, and I was working when he went down for a nap. I was not at all surprised when his room got silent pretty quickly after putting him down. But I WAS surprised to peek in there and find he was NOT IN HIS BED AGAIN. Automatically my eyes dart for the closet- closed. OMGNOTAGAIN. But it took a lot less time to find him, hence the indigestion-type symptoms and no signs of vomit.

I wonder how many other places I'm going to find him passed out.
I'll keep y'all updated on the black eye. And how many times CPS calls to find out if I, indeed, punched him.

flashback friday...

Two years ago today (whaaat?), One day shy of 10 months old. That night he took his first steps. :)

my blue eyed babe

I'm such a softie.

So. New and exciting things happening this week. The latest? Dropping the bink, aka, the pacifier. Little was very much in love with his bink. I thought I was tough though. From about 11 months on I only let him have it at nap and bedtime, and I really stuck with it. I really did! (OKAY. except on long car rides...and not-so kid friendly restaurants...and movie theaters {what was I thinking?!} I think that's it.)**

For about a year now I've been telling myself we really need to get rid of it. Really. But I've been putting it off. Why? Uh, just the fact that he would MARRY it, if he could. I've been noticing a difference in his bite, which can be super expensive to fix. And he had started hiding them all over the house, so the only bedtime and naptime deal was getting ruined. He also started asking for it allll day, so I knew it was time. He's got another love affair going on with his blankie, which is a-okay with me. Blankie can go off with him to college as far as I'm concerned.

Monday was 'drop the bink' day. After much enouragement from Aunt D (Diane), I took one of his favorites and cut the tip off. I showed it to him, and said "Uh OH, Steven LOOK!". He looks at it, tries to put it in his mouth and says "oh no mama, bink is BROKEN!". He handed it back to me, and that was that. I put him down at naptime that day, offered the broken bink (because NO WAY was I going to be the bad guy in all of this) and he didn't want it. And knowing there are about eleventy-trillion others in the house (which I hid) he never asked for another one. All week. Naptime was easy, bedtime was easy. No wakings, whatsoever. By the second day he wouldn't even let me leave it in the room with him. "Take it, Mama, it's BROKEN!"

What a big boy.

BUT. While he was sleeping just fine during naptime, GETTING there was becoming quite a feat. Like today? I work from home at noon on Sundays, and I thought I would wear him out really well this morning. I took him to the splash park at 10am and we had a grand ole time, complete with almost falling alseep at lunch. PERFECT.

An hour and a half after being put down he's still awake, not in his bed, and I had lost count of how many times I had to yell "GET BACK IN BED!" and I was about the rip my ears off if I heard him cry one.more.time.

Dropping it the SECOND time will be just as easy as the first, right? RIGHT?!

I started typing this post right after I gave his bink back. See those two stars right at the end of the first paragraph? That's how long it took him to fall asleep with his bink. ::sigh::

ps- I took it out right after I took this picture. I swear.

we're swimming.

A lot. See?

It's a good thing homeboy loves the water, or we would be miserable this summer.

abc's

Steven is pretty video camera shy. I've tried several hundred times to get him singing on camera and the only ones that seem to come out are when he's singing in the shower. HA! I got one though! He's been saying/singing his abc's for a while, but this is the first full song I've been able to get on camera. Enjoy!

guess who we're heading up to see?

We're coming, Holloways!!

Steven can't wait to see Sadie again!

Easter 2011

Easter was a fun time at our house this year! We started off by celebrating Uncle Jon's birthday with a delicious chocolate cake. Steven really loves blowing out candles and he thinks anyones birthday is also his own.

This was his first year dying eggs and he was too cute about it. He was very careful and he loved seeing them turn colors.

Easter morning we went to mass. Little was SO great during church- we never had to take him outside! I think this was a first ever for church-going.

Hunting for eggs was just about as much fun as dying them. We hid the real eggs (hardboiled) and he would get so excited he found one he would throw it in his basket. I think most of them were cracked by the time we were done.

All in all it was a great Easter!

floaties!

Little and I went to the pool for the first time this season! I was so anxious for it to open, and I knew it would give us a lot more to do in the hot afternoon. And can I just tell you? It's HOT already.

Steven did not like floaties last year, so I was hesitant to even try them this year. He loves being in the big pool, but doesn't want to wear anything, sit in anything, and he doesn't like me holding him. Guess what that equals? Baby under water. Not acceptable. So I busted them out again and....

Success!! (I was right there, by the way. A nice neighbor friend took these pictures, so I was close to him, but wanted to show off what a big boy he is.)

It's SO NICE now, being able to just stand there next to him while he kicks and paddles instead of fighting with him while he screams "Down Mama!" not knowing what "down" would mean. He still loves the baby pool, too (or the "play pool" as I call it so he doesn't get all "I no baby, I big boy" on me).

YAY for summer!

flashback friday, video version

big boy beds and bluebonnets

Our little man is growing up so fast. A crib can no longer contain him, at all. Mama tried all kinds of tricks. I took the spring board off the bottom so the mattress was laying on the floor, he could still climb out. I turned his crib around so the high back was in the front, he could still climb out. Naptime was beginning to look like circus acrobatics, so I finally gave in and we converted his itty-bitty-baybee crib into a big boy bed:

We did it a few months ago and he's done really well, right from the start. He will still get out, but he goes back in and falls asleep easily when he's tired. Nighttime is a breeze and he loves his bed. What a big boy! I can't even believe it. I feel like tomorrow we're going to be looking at colleges (hopefully Baylor ;) ).

We did our annual bluebonnet picture taking a few weeks ago at a near by park. Here's a flashback at this time last year:

SO cute. :)

Here's a few from our shoot this year:

it didn't start off well...

it was hard to get him to sit still...

and he was easily distracted by bugs...

we were in a field full of flowers and he brings me a weed.

"here flower mama" :::melt:::

something was evidently hilarious here....
and I finally got some super cute shots...

and I think it ended with a bang. :)