5 years...

Today the hubby and I celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary.

I'd like to say it's hard to believe it's been 5 years already, but in a way it's not...

In 5 years we've...

• gone to Vegas
• gotten a cat
• totaled a car
• survived a major hurdle in our 1st year
• went through marriage counseling
• went to numerous weddings
• traveled to Dallas
• hit a buck
• had a baby and became parents
• bought a house
• lost jobs and gained others
• got a dog
• went through a major family crisis
• began raising a teen
• buried a parent
• and many other "minor" life experiences that are too numerous to recall off the top of my head.

Needless to say, it's been a crazy 5 years! Hopefully the next 5 will be less dramatic =)

And while it's not an anniversary trip to Vegas like we had mentioned long ago (but sadly forgot about until it was too late to start saving for), we're planning on making our trip to see the Cowboys play the Bears in Chicago this December our anniversary gift! =D

Happy Anniversary hon! I love you!

Becoming a big boy!

A few milestones for Jay recently.

First night in big kid bed!

First, we transitioned him into a "big kid" bed last month. I always wanted to get him the race car bed and my parents had offered to buy it for him when the time came. While he was content in his crib, he was getting a bit big for it and we decided we didn't want him to be 3 years old and still sleeping in a crib.

So we made the switch. He did good the first night... then a few days later he was up half the night playing with his books and everything he could get into, pulling out all the clothes in the drawers and whatnot. Plus he can reach the light switch now to turn it on.

Most nights, if he's tired enough, he'll go right to sleep, others he'll sit and look at book. He seems to be doing better as the weeks go on.

He also got his first "big boy" haircut recently.

Up until this point my mother-in-law trimmed his hair and when she walked out on us I took over keeping it trimmed. But hubby and I talked and decided it was time for him to get first real big boy haircut as the bowl cut style he had been sporting was getting a bit old.

So I took him to CostCutters, he got to sit in the car chair while the female barber did her magic. He was a bit puzzled as she cut it and it fell to the floor and he saw himself in the mirror with much shorter hair. He was shaking his head "no" at one point too.

But it's done.  Sadly, he can't whip his hair back and forth anymore like he used to. And he looks soooo much like a big kid now too! Makes me a little sad that my baby is no longer a baby!

Achievement Unlocked: Golden!

So being the crappy blogger I've been this year (my bad guys, assuming any of you still read/subscribe/follow this here blog), I totally forgot to mention/post about my golden birthday!

Yeah, it's kind of a big deal I guess...

I turned 29 (!!!!) on August 29th this year.

And I wanted to make it memorable.

Granted, it wasn't quite as memorable as my 25th birthday (seeing NiN's final farewell show in Chicago on my exact birthday... which is kinda dumb now as NiN's touring again - damn you Trent Reznor!), but we still went out and made it fun!

Dueling Pianos and purple fishbowl drink!

We spent the night of my actual birthday going to Gameworks in Schaumburg. I've posted and tweeted about it before - it's a 2 story arcade place with a bar and after 9pm they kick the kiddies out and you can drink and game at the same time. Plus on Thursdays they have $10 unlimited gaming on all the non-ticket giving games. So we went and spent several hours doing that on my birthday since it was a Thursday. I had several drinks and was definitely tipsy!

Then Saturday night we went one of the local nightclubs in town for Dueling Pianos! This particular place has 2 guys that do dueling pianos perform on the last Saturday of every month. Since it was 2 days after my birthday, why not? It was a lot of fun and I got this giant purple fishbowl drink for $10... yeah was definitely feeling my drink! I also got some yummy cheesecake to celebrate too! I've been wanting to see Dueling Pianos ever since our trip to Dallas and we had planned on going to one place down there that does it only for it to be blacked out the night we had available to go... got a little treat of it at the fair last month... I definitely recommend checking em out if there's any place near you that has them! It's so much fun! I'd love to go again in the future!

For the most part, I really don't want to turn 30 (yeah, I'm one of those people!). So I'm forever staying 29 (at least for now, I may change my mind some day lol...) which means every year will be my golden birthday! lol...

18 months!

My "baby" is officially a year and a half old as of last week.

That's halfway to 3!

Where has the time gone?!


We had his 18 month check-up last Friday - Jay is 32.5 inches tall (almost 3 feet!), 26lbs 7oz (he's gained almost exactly 3lbs in 3 months!), and his head is 50th percentile. His weight is also 50th percentile however his height is just over 50th percentile, which is no surprise there as his daddy's tall! Everyone seemed to know he had grown recently though as he can now reach things he couldn't before, such as things on tables or counters... oh and he can climb on the couch now and reach things nearby!

We asked about his lack of talking (he *can* talk, he just chooses not to - he'd rather communicate non-verbally) - the doctor said to continue to really work with him these next few months and if he's still refusing to use his words after 2-3 more months then he would refer us to a government funded group nearby that works with delayed speech development. We have noticed a slight improvement over the past few days - Jay's started to say "all done" when he's finished with meals or bathtime the other night and his babbling is getting better too as it sounds like he's actually trying to say something instead of just babbling. He still says "dada" "mama" "baba" and "dog" among a few others but not regularly.

Poor kiddo though, he was in tears for most of his check-up - he got upset when the nurse came in 1st to check his vitals and measurements, then he freaked out when the doctor came in, and then... he had a different nurse this time for his shot so that caught him off guard but obviously he cried when she stuck him with the needle. His next visit isn't for 6 months though, at his 2 year check-up so we're clear til then! He does have his urology check-up in a few weeks though up in Milwaukee - hopefully that one goes as well as it did last time!

We gave him one of his plastic forks last night at dinner, just to see how he did with it as that's

probably the next thing we'll need to work on with him. He seemed to have the idea of sticking it into food down, but not so much the next step of putting it in his mouth.

Breakfast consists of a bowl of strawberry banana yogurt, a bowl of oatmeal made with milk, and a straw cup of milk with strawberry syrup (he won't drink it plain); sometimes he'll get a waffle too if he's still hungry or some cinnamon bread.

Lunch is usually some crackers, some applesauce or other fruit, and a meat/protein such as chicken nuggets, a kosher hot dog, rice with chicken and veggies or beef ravioli in meat sauce.

Dinner is whatever we're eating (usually a pasta and some kind of meat/chicken) plus a veggie if one is not normally included.

For a bedtime snack he gets another bowl of strawberry banana yogurt and some water from his straw water bottle (which he also drinks at other meals and throughout the day).

Normal wake-up time is anywhere between 930-1130am just depending on how tired he is (or if Grandpa's loud in the morning and wakes him up super early and he can't fall back asleep).

He still takes 1 nap in the afternoon (when he goes down depends on how late/early he woke up) and

is usually asleep from anywhere between 1.5-3hrs. We start getting him ready for bed around 10/1030pm (depending on if it's a bath night or not) and he's normally in bed by 11pm at the latest.

He's in 24 month tops, 18 month bottoms, and his feet are a 5.5wide (so they have us buying a 6wide for growth room).

We think daddy being home during the day is throwing him off quite a bit, especially since mommy's been picking up extra hours at work like crazy and he now spends more time at home with daddy than with mommy, as opposed to it being the opposite for all his life.

He loves being outside though and picking up stones/rocks - when we first got out of the car at he doctor's office, we let him walk on the sidewalk holding our hands... well they have a bunch of rocks in their landscape around the building so yeah... he immediately took off running towards those to "collect" some. He also often comes home from Grammie and Grandpap's house (my parents) with rocks in his hands that he picked up around their backyard and didn't throw into their small fish pond!

He's still big on Thomas the Train, as well as the Wiggles, but lately he's been on a hardcore Elmo kick. I recently picked up a Pocoyo DVD for $5 - he's seen the commercial for Pocoyo on one of his Wiggles DVDs and seemed interested so I figured why not check it out. He seems to enjoy it and I like that that Pocoyo seems to speak in 1-word sentences, kind of like what we're working on with Jay. I must say, like he burned us out on the Wiggles, I'm starting to get burned out on Elmo! He loves his books too! There's several he really likes us to read to him, but it's not uncommon to find him sitting somewhere in the family room, or in his crib or car seat with a book in head, just looking at the pages! Glad he likes books!

15 Month Check-up!

Yesterday (Monday) we had Jay's 15 month check-up and overall it went pretty well.

Hubby tagged along this time, as he hasn't met with Jay's pediatrician since he was born (not to mention I get tired of him asking at each appointment where "dad" is - it's a weekday afternoon, he's working, duh!) and it seemed to help with Jay A LOT compared to the last time when it was just me and him.

He started rummaging through all the toys in the waiting room, settling on a Sesame Street coloring book and running around the waiting room with it. They let him take it back to the exam room with us too since he didn't want to let it go.

We had a 4pm appointment and it didn't seem nearly as busy so we didn't have to wait nearly as long as we did last time when it was the middle of the day. Jay started getting into everything once again, but this time I had hubby to help me keep him out of stuff so I wasn't on the verge of pulling my hair out.

When Jay saw the doctor walk in, hubby busted up laughing as Jay got this "oh shit!" look on his face -  he realized where he was! LOL

He hung out in my lap while the doctor did the basic exam stuff, but Jay started getting worked up when we laid him down on the table for the last bit.

Jay currently weighs 23lbs, 8oz with his shoes off (24lbs, 1oz with shoes) and is 30 3/4 inches tall. Doctor said he is in the 50th percentile for weight and and 50-70th percentile for height. His height to weight ratio percentile is 50th as well.

So overall, it was a fine exam - no concerns or anything to worry about. The doctor was thrilled to hear about how well his last urology exam went and he seemed intrigued at the fact that Jay matches things now. He didn't seem too concerned about him only babbling a handful of words at this point, just saying to not encourage the baby-talk but to say "bottle" or "water" if he says "ba ba" or "wa wa" to kind reinforce that those are the words he's trying to say. And he was pleased to hear that he's fully weaned off the bottle and onto sippy cups now.

Jay got 2 shots today - they said at his next appointment he'll have 1 left and be done for awhile. While we were waiting in the exam room, Jay figured out the one stool spun around so he had fun with that, and then it sounded like he was trying to say "my ball" or "my book" - he kept getting stuck on the "buh" part and couldn't get the rest out.

We took him to Red Mango afterwards to cheer him up for getting shots today. He did have a slight fever this evening but it broke before bedtime - pretty sure it was just a side effect of the shots. I did put him to bed a little early tonight though as he was just tired and worn out.

Between his check-up and Red Mango we stopped at my mom's house and Jay communicated to her that he wanted to do "Itsy Bitsy Spider"! She was holding him and he started doing the spider thing with his fingers, then putting his arms over his head in a circle, then the spider finger thing again, and then the circle with this arms over his head, all while babbling. It clicked with mom and she was like "Do you want to do Itsy Bitsy?" and Jay was all "uh-huh!" So they sat down and she did and he attempted the 1st part with her, and when she asked if he wanted her to do it again he said "uh huh!" It was pretty neat!

He started refusing milk near the end of last week - he'll drink some at bedtime, but during the day he'll push it away when you try to get him to drink it, so we've been giving him water instead. He loves the berry pomegranate flavor water spray - he drank 3/4 of my mother-in-law's big Aquafina bottle on Sunday and then Monday night, as she went to put her shoes on before they left Jay came toddling over and picked up the bottle and started walking off with it! As far as the milk goes... he gets yogurt at breakfast and I make his oatmeal with milk but I've been a bit more conscious lately to make sure to give him cheese and other dairy products so he's getting some dairy in his diet even if it's not straight up milk. My mom said my sister and I both went through a phase where we refused to drink milk as well and she too had to resort to yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, ice cream, etc to make sure we got enough dairy.Oh well, we'll manage!

Can you tell me how to get to Jaydran's 1st Birthday Party

This past Saturday, on his actual 1st birthday (February 4th!) we had Jay's 1st birthday party!

We did an Elmo and Sesame Street friends theme and had the party in our big finished basement. We invited quite a bit of people, but it was mostly just family that came, which is okay - Jay was more concerned about the cake and his new toys anyway to really care who was there, lol...

So anyway, here's the decor:

When you walked up to our house, the 1st thing you saw was the balloon wreath I made:

Which was inspired by the balloon wreath that Lindsay (the Undomestic Chica) had made and posted about a few weeks ago for her kiddo's birthday party and I combined it with this sign idea I saw on Pinterest.

I'd say I did a pretty good job combining the two!

Next, on our kitchen table, I displayed the favor bags, hats, noise makers and Cookie Monster and Elmo (and later Jay's smash cake).

 

 Cookie Monster's sign says "Welcome to Jaydran's 1st Birthday Party!" while Elmo's sign says "Brought to you by the letter "J" and the number 1!"

I got the ideas for the characters with signs as well as the favor bags from these ideas on Pinterest:

I think they turned out pretty well!

The view as you go downstairs to the party:

 

 

And then the basement:

 

 

 

I thought the banner was too cute - I LOVED that the "B" is a cookie pattern with a bite taken out of it too, lol...

 

 

Jay's "Throne"

 

Our bar with the punch bowl and cake displayed.

 

The food table. The party was from 2-4pm so we kept it simple with finger foods including some fruit medleys and a tray of veggies, crackers and cheese with veggie dip.

The cakes:

 

 I had our cake lady make these and considering she makes her own special frosting and her cakes just taste THE BEST, these 2 combined cost less than my ice cream cake I had for my birthday last summer! She also made our wedding cake as well as my baby shower cake. Seriously guys, she makes THE BEST cakes at the best prices in town!

 

Jay's Attire:

 

So he wouldn't stay still long enough for me to get a good shot of his clothes, but we had a Level 1 Human onesie with the official level 1 human WoW stats custom made on Cafepress. I paired it with a pair of brown Garanimal athletic-type pants.

Onto the party!

 

Jay playing with my cousin and some one of his new toys from mommy and daddy.

 

Showing him a card before he opens the present.

 

Excited about the Sesame Street wrapping paper.

 

One of my best friends came with her 2 kids, the youngest is about 11 months older than Jay - she helped him open his presents as he couldn't quite figure it out by himself.

 

 

 

Giving Jay his cake

 

Funny story: Jay LOVES to "sing." And he was a little confused when everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. And by the time he caught on the song was over. But he still wanted to sing! So... he led/directed everyone in a chorus of "Ahhhhhhhhh" for a bit, lol...

 

He was a little hesitant at first as to what to do with his cake, as we try not to make too much of a mess with our food at meal time and anything real messy we usually feed to him. But once he got the idea he was all over it!

 

 

 He ate/destroyed about half of his smash cake and kept going in and out of a food/sugar coma, lol...

 

After the cake, we got him cleaned up and dressed again and he was ready to go play! My parents got him a Cozy Coupe, as I had one when I was little. We have the floor board in it right now though, as he kinda slid out of the bottom and got stuck under it - oops! He also got a Thomas the Train play tent that my sister and her soon-to-be fiance got him too! 

 

I'd say he made out quite well and has plenty of toys to last him throughout the year, since the next big event to get toys is Christmas! I also think his party turned out pretty well! I was a bit bummed at first that we didn't have more friends with young kids show up and as we could have guessed, only 1 of hubby's 3 brothers that live in town made an effort to come (I swear, my sis's soon-to-be fiance is more of an uncle to Jay than his actual uncles, save for his aunt and uncle that live hours away as that's understandable), but Jay didn't seem to mind and he seemed to enjoy all the Sesame Street decor and his party in general so I think that made it a success! Hubby thought I went a bit overboard with the decorating, but Jay's face lit-up when he saw it, not to mention my father-in-law complimented me on all the work I did as well.

So, that's the last of Jay's 1st holidays... hard to believe my baby's a toddler and a 1-year old!

A Jay update!

So I just realized I haven't done a Jay update in a while and well, quite a bit has happened the last few weeks!

We're alllllll done with baby food! Which is HUGE!

We buy em in big cartons, Jay loves
Goldfish so much!

We're finishing up the last of his rice cereal and switching him to oatmeal. For lunch he gets some whole grain Goldfish crackers with chicken nuggets and ranch or meat (like turkey or Hebrew National hotdogs - something that can be a finger food) plus fruit (usually Mott's All Natural No Sugar Added applesauce). Then for dinner he usually eats a bit of whatever we're having plus some fruit and Goldfish crackers (as an appetizer while we get his plate ready and cooled down). Then he usually gets a warm bottle of milk before bed.

And yes, milk - not formula! He's drinking whole milk now! It was actually a pretty easy transition, I put in his cereal one more and mixed a bit in with his formula throughout the day... within a day or 2 he was drinking just the milk, no formula. We go through a gallon a week it seems, but it's still cheaper than formula!

He's finally gotten down fingerfoods, but we have to monitor when him when he's feeding himself cuz he likes to just take a handful of food and shove it all in his mouth at once and then wonders why he's choking on it when he can't swallow it all at once /facepalm

We've also transitioned to a sippy for lunch and dinner and he seems to be doing fine with it.

He's taken a few more steps when it comes to walking alone, but he still prefers to crawl... maybe in the next 2 weeks, before his 1st birthday...

Speaking of which... I can't believe that's just 2 weeks from tomorrow! Where has the time gone?!

Most of the prep for his birthday is done - got his cake ordered, invites were sent out earlier this week, decorations and presents are bought or made, birthday onesie is here, photo albums put together... all I have left really is to finish up his baby book, buy the party favors (which I'm waiting til a few days before so I have the final kid head count), buy the food and make the punch! Should be a fun time - I'll definitely post pics!

Bedtime has been a bit of a struggle lately... unless he passes out while drinking his bedtime bottle, he'll stay up and play or do whatever in his crib for a good hour or so after his bedtime... which is already 11pm! Drives me nuts hearing him play over there when I'm trying to have my "me" time at night. And it's not like he has a lot of toys in his crib - he has a music box thing crib toy and My Pal Scout and a stuffed Eeyore. How is that keeping him up?! And he doesn't nap that close to bedtime either... hopefully this is just a phase.

He did have a bit of a growth spurt this week - he's been taking really long naps in the afternoon (2-4hrs!) and well, today I put his 6-9mo pants on him and they were above his ankles. Time to bust out the 12mo pants!

"Gimme cookie, please!!! Nom Nom Nom!!"

Jay gave me a few good laughs yesterday. He likes to play with Tiger... by throwing his toys at her when she's sitting on the steps to the basement. Now we have a gate mounted into the wall, so he can't fall down them, but he can get his arm and some of his smaller toys through the rails and yeah... he thinks it's hilarious to throw his toys at her and today she was completely instigating it too, buy jumping around, dodging them, etc. It was pretty funny, although he made an obstacle course out of my stairs...

Then I go to change him after naptime and I find one of his Cookie Monster doll's plastic cookies sticking out the top of his diaper, underneath the onesie he had on and his flannel around the house pants! I keep telling hubby I swear he pulls those cookies out of his butt, as whenever we're looking for them to play with the Cookie Monster doll (he talks and asks you to feed the cookies to him) we can't find them, but whenever Jay is playing alone, they magically appear! This just proves my theory - he really does pull them out of his diaper!

We returned to storytime at the library last night. It started up again last week but due to the mass amount of snow we got last Thursday, we decided it would just be better to stay in and avoid traveling since some of the roads were still a mess. Jay was a little stinker and a flirt though! 2 little girls joined us tonight, and the one that was 9 months old was quite taken with Jay, even trying to chase after him at a few points! It was pretty funny! He also managed to get his shoes off and then made quite a scene when I tried to get them back on at the end of storytime so we could go home... he also threw a fit when I made him put his coat on too (it was 7 degrees out, not wearing a coat or shoes was NOT an option!). He was all over the place at storytime though - one of the other moms asked if he's always this active, to which I told her yep, pretty much. Jay likes to go, go, go! Instead of practicing the different sounds (the volunteer has a bag of letters we call sounds, like M is Mmm, O is ahhh, P is puh, B is buh, etc) Jay found matching ones (the O's) and was carting them around our little section of the library, lol... he was quite proud of himself for finding matching ones, lol...

And that's my Jay update!

11 months already!

I can't believe it... as of yesterday, Jay's 1st birthday is now less than a month away!

Holy cow!

Where did this last year go?!

Well... in the last month Jay celebrated his 1st Christmas and 1st New Years.

He took his 1st few steps, but would rather crawl or cruise along furniture instead.

He likes to make my family room and kitchen look like a small hurricane went through it at some time during the day.

He can stand and balance without holding onto anything now (although half the time he does it, he doesn't realize he's doing it).

No new teeth although those 1st year molars sure are taking their good ol' time coming in and it hasn't been fun!

Jay's had his 1st illness, getting both a stomach bug and a cold right around Christmas.

He's gotten very good putting the rings on the pole in the right size order too and he's a pro at feeding his Cookie Monster that eats the cookies which he got from his aunt, uncle and cousins in the Quad Cities for Christmas.

He definitely needs another haircut (I guess I should probably see if my mother-in-law can bring her hair cutting stuff with her next week when she comes for her weekly visit).

He also regularly eats "real" food now, often getting small portions of what we're having, otherwise he eats the Gerber Nature Select 3rd Foods if mommy's not around to do the cooking or we're not eating out.

He recently discovered Whole Wheat Goldfish crackers and LOVES those things!

He has issues with the word "no" too - it gets his attention, but he'll look at you and go back and do or touch what you told him not to.

He also tries to be sneaky by tricking you into thinking he's going for one thing when his goal is to distract you so he can go for something else (ie: the remote or phone or computer cords).

Can't believe in less than 1 month from now he'll be 1!

In other Jay-related news - I just learned tonight that his pediatric urology specialist switching from Madison to Milwaukee was a bit of a blessing. While Milwaukee is a bit further drive, his doctor and the hospital he's now at IS in our healthcare network! Yay! That'll help us out a lot in about a year or so when he has to have his surgery. I liked the children's hospital in Madison a lot, and since there's no pediatric urology specialist in our network within 30 miles our insurance was giving us a discounted rate, it was still out of network which mean more out of pocket expenses and every time he goes for a visit (now every 6 months) he also has to have a renal ultrasound to check on the status of his kidney and ureter tube so the doctor has something to discuss with us. And that ultrasound isn't exactly cheap! So good news for us! I just need to call and setup the appointment in Milwaukee and cancel the one with the specialist's associate he referred us to in Madison.

Jay update

Despite all the long hours at work that I mentioned in my previous post, it's been a fun week with Jay!

We had some snow last week that had left a nice little layer over everything when we woke up in the morning. I showed Jay and his eyes got all wide as we looked out the glass patio door. He then proceeded to try and open the door to get outside and play in it, lol... It started snowing the other day while my mom was watching him and they were out running errands - she said he was looking up and big snowflakes were landing on his face... he thought it was the funniest thing ever! Kinda sad I missed it though, as we haven't really had much snow yet!

He cut his finger up pretty bad, playing with a pot! We think there was a rough edge on it and he got his finger caught on it when he went to pull it out of the handle slot... he was playing with it like normal when I heard him shriek and when I looked over he was face down on the ground freaking out. I picked him up to see what was wrong and his finger was all bloody... it looked bad, but my mom came over and took a look and it looks like it'll fine once it scabs over. He sliced it in 3 spots though - I wince and feel horrible every time I look at it.

He's also eating real bananas now too, cut up of course. He was watching my mom eat one while she was babysitting him so she let him have a bite and he LOVED it and ate a good chunk of her banana so I went out and bought some and have been giving him half a banana a day. I also started making using of my Magic Bullet I've had since college (back then we used it for mixed drinks, lol...) by pureeing whatever we're eating and giving it to Jay for dinner - he had some chicken and dumpling soup with veggies last week (and a banana half) and tonight I tried giving him some of this cheesy skillet chicken and rice with veggies I made, but he didn't like it and puked it all up - oops! He did make a meal out of bean dip with cheese and sour cream at a birthday party I took him to over the weekend for his lunch there!

He snores sooooo loud too! The other night I had to go in and nudge him to get him to switch to a different position as he was snoring louder than hubby and I couldn't sleep, hearing him so loud over the baby monitor!

And in BIG news - he took his first steps!

He's been balancing by himself pretty well lately so hubby and I decided to see if we could get him to go from one of us to the other - I had him stand by me on the loveseat while hubby sat on the edge of the couch not too far away and called for him to come. He took 2-3 steps! I think he surprised himself too! He can walk if you hold 1 of his hands, but this was the first he did it all by himself not holding on to anything (he cruises along the furniture really fast!). We tried to have him do it again and he took 1 step before deciding crawling to daddy was faster, lol... oh well! He did it though, we just need to keep practicing with him - we knew he'd walking on his own by the end of the year!

10 Months... already?!

I just realized yesterday... in 2 months Jay will be 1 year old!

Where has this year gone already?!

Happy 10 months, buddy! Mommy loves you sooooooooooo much!

You're growing big and fast, having just had a growth spurt this month, officially putting you in 12 month tops and 6-9 month bottoms.

You have 8 teefers already and sadly, we've started on molars, which put you in great pain and fussiness, but we manage. It helps you finally have an interest in teething rings now!

You've weaned yourself off your binky for the most part, only really taking it when you're having some doctor tests done or when your mouth is in enough pain and you need to gnaw on it.

Burpie cloths seem to be your choice of "lovey" as you'll snuggle with the old white kitchen towel ones Grammie gave us and you snuggle with a soft, smaller one when you sleep.

Meal time hasn't changed too much - you still eat a full bowl of rice cereal mixed with formula for

breakfast plus a bottle, a combination baby food jar and a bottle for lunch, a meat and veggie baby food jar and a fruit jar with a bottle for dinner, and a full bottle for your bedtime nightcap. We have been giving you more and more "real" food to try and eat on occasion, in addition to your other food. You love pumpkin pie and sampled all the dishes everyone else was eating at Thanksgiving (your 1st Thanksgiving, by the way!).

You got see Sesame Street Live and you went to Chuck E Cheese for the 1st time too! 

You know "ma-ma" is mommy and "da-da" is daddy, often rambling about us or inquiring where Da-Da is when he's at work or napping in the bedroom. You know "ba-ba" is bottle and seem to understand quite a bit as well. You often greet me in the morning when I go to get you from your crib with a "Hi!!" or a "Heyyy!" You are often quite the little chatterbox!

You still sleep through the night just fine, however since we started letting your My Pal Scout and your touch and feel animal board book spend the night in the crib with you, you've been entertaining yourself with them in the morning, letting mommy (and daddy on his days off) sleep in a little longer! You usually take 1 good nap during the day, however you don't always take a 2nd nap anymore like you used to.

You do spend a bit of time in your Pack n Play lately though, especially in the morning when mommy doesn't have the energy to keep chasing you away from the laptop power cords, or away from the picture albums or books on the bookshelves. We tell you "no", which gets your attention, but as soon as we move you back to your toys or distract you, you're right back at it again. Wears mommy out in the morning!

You're a pro at pulling yourself up using people and objects and cruise along the furniture like a

speed racer.  Recently you started standing along, without holding onto anything, holding it for a good 5-10 seconds until you realize you're doing it and scare yourself, quickly grabbing onto something nearby or plopping onto your butt. You walk in front of mommy, holding onto her hands - we think you'll be walking on your own before this year is over!

You've gotten several bumps, a nice little cut on your eyebrow, and your 1st bloody lip. Nothing major and the doctor didn't seem too surprised at your check-up this past month, stating it happens with little boys and is expected (something daddy keeps reminding mommy - I still cringe and wince in fear every time you fall or bump your head though!). They found a little heart murmur, but since we haven't heard anything further since your check-up with the cardiologist it's safe to say that it's just an innocent one and you'll likely grow out of it as you grow!

You're very smart too - you showed mommy that the portable button to your fishtank has a handle on it (I had no idea that was there, but you did!). You crawl to objects with a purpose, going all the way from the family room to your room just to get said portable button and bring it back. You don't like wearing your winter hat with the ear flaps but seem to understand that you need to wear it outside or

your ears and head get cold - you do seem to understand though that you can take it off in the car, recently dropping it in its place in your diaper bag when daddy picked you up from Grammie's the other day (and then you proceeded to show daddy where the buckle for your car seat straps were!). You also know more about smartphones that you probably should - knowing that certain games and videos you like are on there, not to mention you put Grammie's phone into airplane mode for her and she had no idea how to unlock it without the manual! You also hide things (such as bottles) and reveal them later, even after mommy and daddy looked everywhere for them!

You also figured out how to get into the baby-proofed cabinets, causing mommy to resort to using hair ties to keep you out from under the sink and playing with glass/ceramic kitchen objects. You are allowed to play in the cabinets with the pots and pans and plastics though... which you make sure to pull them all out and leave them throughout the kitchen.

This month we get to celebrate your 1st Christmas and New Years! And once Christmas is over, mommy's going to start putting your 1st birthday plans into motion!

Can't believe how much you've grown so far!