Progress on the House

There has been a lot of progress on the house recently.  They finished the framing and we did a frame walk through and added a few canned lights and figured out the layouts of the closets and where we want outlets and light switches.  The plumbing and electrical are all in. They now have added insulation and completely finished the sheet rock.  They have the kids bath tub in and our tub is sitting in the box in McKay's room.  All the roofing material is on the roof, so hopefully that will be finished soon and they have all the siding up, but it still needs to be painted. We are getting very excited as this is coming together

master bathroom

view from the stairs into the living room/kitchen area

brooklyn and her window seat

Brooklyn wanted a picture in her closet

It's Fun to be One!

We decided to celebrate McKay's birthday over a few days, not that he knew what was going on.  On Sunday the 13th, my parents had a birthday dinner for him and he got to open the presents from them.  of course his favorite part was the ribbon, but he will appreciate the gifts soon enough.

On his actual birthday, the 15th, we had family over for cake and ice cream.  He got his own cupcake but wasn't very interested.  He played with the frosting a little bit and took a tiny bite, but just wasn't feeling it.  He later decided that he wanted to eat my mom's piece of cake instead.  Brooklyn definitely appreciated having all of the cousins over more than McKay did.

Our last little bit of celebrating was the day after his birthday when we finally had time to open the rest of his presents.  His favorite gift by far was the cars that Brooklyn chose out for him.  I know next year he will be into the whole birthday thing a lot more, but it was still fun getting to celebrate this cute boy turning one!

12 Months Old

August 15, 2017
18 lbs. 6 oz. (9th %)
28.4 inches (6th %)
9 and 12 month clothing
Size 3 diapers

I can't believe that my baby is 1 already!  This year really flew by, some of the days seemed forever long, but in general it really went by quickly.  He doesn't have much interest in walking by himself yet, but he loves to walk along furniture and use his walker.  He likes to climb on anything and everything.  He is very good at climbing up, but still wants to go down head first, one of these days he will figure out that it is much better to land on his feet instead of his head.  He is still drinking 3 bottles a day and still loves just about any table food you give him.  His new favorite food is fresh peaches off of Grandma and Grandpa's trees.  His sleeping has improved a little bit, about half the days he sleeps until 6:30/7:00am and then will be up for the day and the other days he will get up around 6:00 drink and bottle and then got back to sleep for an hour or so.  He still naps twice a day and I think he will keep two naps for at least a few more months.

He has gotten himself a little attitude.  He gets very upset if Brooklyn doesn't let him play with the toy he wants and of course he doesn't understand that she had it first or it will be your turn in a minute.  Most of the time Brooklyn is pretty good about giving into him but when she doesn't he has developed quite a little tantrum, like throw the head back and kick his legs.  It is pretty awesome, NOT!  I am really not looking forward to his "terrible twos" if this is how he is at not even one years old.  He is still so so so smiley.  He just gives the best smiles and has the best giggle ever and the best part is that it is so easy to get him to smile and laugh.  He loves his Daddy and has gotten really good at saying "dada".  When he hears Craig walk in from work, before he even sees him, he goes Dada.  it is super cute.  One of these days he will say Mama happily instead of just when he is chasing after me.  He knows where his tummy and hair is.  he is always so proud of himself when we ask him and he pats his tummy.  he has also started to do this growl (supposed to be a bark) whenever he sees a dog or wants to play with a stuffed animal dog.  It is pretty cute, he is trying so hard to bark, but it just comes out more like a growl or roar.

He still has MAJOR separation anxiety.  Occasionally he will let me leave him with Craig without him screaming, but pretty much he just screams bloody murder when I leave the room.  I have just decided that i will be the mother that has to go to kindergarten with her kid.  Everyone keeps telling me that it will get better, i just don't know if I can hold out until he is 10 (which I feel like it is going to be).  His saving grace is that he is so dang cute and his slobbery kisses.  Brooklyn is so great with him and is so happy for him when he accomplishes something.  She has a baby doll that she has started mothering, like literally mothers, feeds it a bottle, lays it down for naps, puts it in the bouncer chair when we eat dinner, etc.  It is super cute.  She just is so good and gentle and has such a sweet spirit about her.  McKay is really lucky to have her as a big sister.

We still spend a ton of time outside.  He loves to crawl around at the park and go down the slides with Brooklyn.  he likes to crawl through the splash pads and sit in the swing.  He loves when Brooklyn blows bubbles and he tries to crawl after them and pop them.  He absolutely loves playing with the rocks in my parents backyard and picking leaves off of trees.  He likes to watch Brooklyn ride her bike and he even does pretty good in the stroller when we go for walks or runs.  He likes swimming and watching Brooklyn jump off of the diving board (which she is so proud of herself that she no longer needs floaties when she swims).  It is amazing to me all that has changed in the last year with this sweet little boy. I know that I complain a lot about how he is glued to me, but really I just can't imagine life without him.  No matter what the day brings with him, I know that at some point he will always bring a smile to my face.

He loves to sit on the sir vents

He has this obsession with taking clothes out of things, whether it is the laundry basket or dresser drawers.  if you leave a drawer open it will be empty when you turn around

We ended up having to put the car away because he just wanted to go for rides, but his legs aren't long enough to push himself so Craig or I would have to push him around and that got old fast.  So that toy will come back out in a few months.

He figured out how to get passed the baricade

He loves to give the baby hugs and kisses

11 Months Old

July 15, 2017
Size 3 diapers
Size 9 month clothes
17 lbs.  11 oz. (8%)
28 inches (5 %)

Well our goofy little man is 11 months old.  What a month it has been.  He went on his first airplane, went to a different state, saw the ocean, went on 2 boats, got 2 more teeth.  It really was quite a busy month for this guy.  Tooth count is up to 4 and working on 5 and 6.  He loves table food and loves to feed himself.  He loves rice and pasta and just about any kinda of fruit.  He hates yogurt, eggs and ice cream (sometimes I wonder if he is my child).  We are transitioning him down to 3 bottles.  After we got back from Alaska we had to do a little bit of sleep training to get him out of his 4:00 am funk and really we just gave in whenever he woke up in Alaska.  After a few rough nights he is finally sleeping until at least 6:00 am before drinking his bottle.  If he wakes up before 7:00 he will typically go back to sleep for another hour or so.  Hopefully soon he will just consistently sleep until about 7:00 and we can just call it good, but really I might just need to come to the realization that he could be an early riser.  He is still taking 2 naps a day, some days they are long and other days they are really short, which makes the day seem long.  One good thing this month was that he has stopped throwing up.  He threw up once while we were in Alaska but has yet to throw up again.  He had what we hope will be his last ENT appointment last week.  They said everything looked and sounded good and that we should be able to get him off his medicine when he turns one.

He crawls so fast now and pulls himself up on everything.  He NEVER stops moving, which makes diaper changes super hard and most of the time they end up in tears because I have to hold him down with my foot to get the diaper all the way on him.  Right at the end of the month he figured out that he can climb the stairs, now we are working on going down, but baby gates and blockades have been put up (not such a big fan of having 3 sets of stairs right now).  He is in to EVERYTHING.  He will be playing in Brooklyn's room with her and I will come in 5 minutes later and he will have her entire toy box emptied and her floor just covered in toys.  He loves to play pat-a-cake and can do all the motions with you.  His favorite is roll it and roll it and toss it in the oven.  He still loves to throw balls.  If he has a small ball he can throw it quite far and he definitely prefers throwing with his right hand.  He has gotten really good at waving hello and goodbye and will wave at anyone and everyone while he is flashing them a huge cheesy grin.  He loves to stand on the bench at church holding onto the back and just smile and wave at everyone. He also started dancing.  When one of his toys plays a song he will start bobbing his head to the music and Brooklyn likes to have him do it on command, it is pretty cute. He is still a big Mamma's boy.  He seems like the happiest baby in the world as long as he is right with me, but the second I walk away or some one else grabs him then all hell breaks lose and he is screaming bloody murder.  Needless to say we don't get out on many dates.  He absolutely loves brushing his teeth and will have a fit if he can't brush his teeth while Brooklyn is brushing hers.  He loves to tease, especially Craig.He loves the remote, but only the real one.  We have tried giving him ones without batteries,  but he always knows its not the real one and he can always tell no matter whose house we are at.  If Brooklyn is actually watching TV then she has to hide the remote or McKay will throw a  big fit when he can't have it.  Brooklyn is still such a great helper and big sister.  She shares so well with McKay, which is good because he is to the point that he will cry if a toy gets taken away or Brooklyn has the toy he wants.  Luckily she realizes that he will lose interest quickly and she will let him play with whatever.  He really is a sweet boy and I just keep reminding myself that one day I will miss him being glued to my hip.  I can't believe he is almost 1 years old.

The weekend that McKay turned 11 months we spent in McCall.  The kids and I headed up Friday morning with my parents to a friends cabin on Lake Cascade and boated the whole day.  Brooklyn had a blast tubing and it felt so good to ski again, since I couldn't ski last summer because I was 8 months pregnant.  That evening we went to My Father's Place for dinner and then they dropped us of at our cabin where Craig met us after work.  The weekend was full of pretty normal stuff for us.  We went on a few walks, hiked up to Boulder Lake (McKay actually did pretty well, he fell asleep on the way back down), walked around Ponderosa State Park and had a picnic, ate at Pancake House and got ice cream at Ice Cream Alley, and did s'mores.  McKay wasn't feeling super great the whole weekend, but he was a trooper and did pretty well with all of our adventures.

When we got back from McCall they had done quite a bit of the framing on our house.  It was fun to be able to actually walk through the lower level and see the different rooms.