Last Month Was Such a Special One, Birthday Time For Andrew

I know everyone always says they can't believe their baby is one, so I won't say it. I can't believe my baby is 13 months old! The first year always flies by, but Andrew's first year was not really a whole year, I swear. One day Gary and I had this crazy idea to have another baby, and we didn't think much past him being born. And that was yesterday. However, somehow I have this hilarious chubby boy running around, and the calendar said to have a birthday party, so a month ago, we did.

Andrew loves pancakes and waffles - he downed two waffles once while Josh and Noah lingered over their one. So of course we had to make him blueberry pancakes for breakfast on his big day. Josh heard me saying I was going to try to make Andrew's party The Bomb, so of course he assumed the theme of the party would be bombs. He had a lot of questions about that until I put the blueberries in the pancakes, then he said, "Oh, I know, the blueberries can be the bombs." Exactly.

Josh had been planning a cake for a long while, and so had I. My version was from scratch, gourmet, and adorable. Due to all of the things we had going on that week, I was trying to enact my plan at the last minute, and was frantically searching for the perfect recipe when Josh brought me a chocolate cake mix from the pantry. We went with his plan. He actually "made" the cake while I chatted with my visiting teachers (and supervised). His vision had included sprinkles all over the sides, which he attempted to apply one by one before I showed him an easier way. Josh was pretty proud of what he'd done for his brother.

Since it hadn't been too long since we'd gotten together with family, and Andrew isn't real tight with kids his age, we didn't have a party exactly planned. However, I just had to have some people over to make things festive for my baby Andrew, and luckily we have the perfect neighbors for the occasion. They haven't lived here long, but my children just adore them. They have teenagers, so it's fun for them to be around little kids, and were up for our last-minute invite. I was so glad they came, they totally got in on the adoring Andrew thing, and having them there made it a party. I should have gotten an adorable group shot, but I feel pretty good about getting some of the birthday boy. And as you can see, he did enjoy himself.



Classic Andrew, "Oh!" He says it for many occasions.




Being the center of attention is a little awkward . . .

Right before Noah blew out the candle. We told him to help, and after he did he exclaimed, "It's not even my birthday."



Josh is making Andrew smile.



Andrew's present was immediately popular with everyone. Even me - after the kids went to bed that night, I figured out how to use the abacus to add numbers up to 999,999. Don't worry, Andrew's gotten plenty of chances with it since.



At Andrew's 12 month doctor visit he was 25 lbs, 6 oz., and 30.75 inches. He started walking just after turning eleven months, and is quite the climber. He even climbs onto the couch and drops himself off of the arm of the couch into his exersaucer. He is hilarious - always laughing. He loves peek-a-boo, chasing, tickling, playing cars, singing, and snuggling. Well, when he's tired he's a great snuggler, otherwise, he has to get up and go. He imitates everything we do. He'll put pretend to put on backpacks, brush his hair, put on a shirt, fight with a lightsaber . . . and get excited about all of them. This kid really melts my heart, he's such a sweet boy. Hey Andrew - love ya, kiddo!

Quick Fall Update

Thanksgiving was awesome!! It was great to get away and to see everyone. Thanks so much to C & C for letting us invade their home, and for playing with boys at the park. They loved it. Josh has come home with a variety of things he got from his cousins. For instance, he asks me a lot why "gooder" is not a word, and who Frankenstein is. His cousins know everything, according to him. We're almost back into the swing of things, just put away my leaves and scarecrows, which looked awesome buried under a foot and a half of snow when we got back.

 

I was feeling nostalgic for the good-old family updates, so I'll do highlights and lowlights from the last couple of months. Gary took me to Preston for my birthday, and I had a great time with my family. Gary and my mom both got me cameras, so I now have one, hooray! (One of them turned into clothes.)  I spent the next couple of days with my sisters, picking and bottling apples, and felt good about my 60 plus quarts. Then, due to a series of unfortunate events, they did not get processed. Do you see why canning makes me cry? No matter, I got my sister-time in. After that we did one million things, which were all good, and included Andrew's birthday and Halloween. I guess one of the million things had germs attached, because then we spent the first three weeks of November sick. In the midst of that, we were able go to Preston to have a family Veteran's Day dinner. Random, yes, but a lot of us were available to get together, and we have an actual veteran in our midst. And it was fun! Also in the midst of the sickness, Noah woke up one day and said he was going to wear underwear. And he has ever since, for about a month now. His accidents are pretty infrequent now, except right when we got back from Arizona. He was so tired he peed all over the carpet, everywhere in the house, for 3 days. Not his pants, just the carpet. Oh, well, I'll still count the potty-training-himself incident as a highlight. Wish I knew a good carpet cleaner . . .

 I just took a break from writing this to get on emailsanta.com with Josh. It is hilarious to watch how excited he is about Santa's reply. Also, Gary just said, "Who are you e-mel-ing?" He's consciously trying to aquire a Utah accent. Also we just had dessert that involves chocolate and a stick and a half of butter for 5 servings. So much for the trying to eat healthy between holidays.

 

P.S. Through a mistake of my supervisor, I was auto-terminated from my job at BYU Independent Study this week, and they won't re-hire me because of their hiring freeze. Cross your fingers and/or send up a prayer that I can get someone to be reasonable and do the re-hire.

Note a few months later: Got an email saying they eliminated the position. Life isn't all about money, right?

As Soon As We Get That Picture . . .

 . . . I can get set ordering my Christmas cards from Shutterfly. At first I imagined a lovely flower-filled September shot, then the realization came we might be looking at another fall picture, and now I'm trying to decide whether or not we should all wear snow boots. But we're doing it on Saturday! (If you have an opinion about the boots, feel free to share.)

I've been baby-stepping into this Christmas cards thing. At first it was just electronic greetings, then two years ago I made my first step into actually using the postal service with this card from Shutterfly. I have to admit I was proud of it, and looked at it way longer than someone should actually gaze at their own Christmas card. It was limited release - people who don't use the internet and family. Then last year, I almost didn't send, but I couldn't make backwards progress. I sent to the same limited release crowd, using a quick-print place for the card. I didn't love it like I did the one from the year before, but I thought it was a valiant post-partum effort.

This year, I was excited to find that bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010 . Hooray, back to the beautiful ones! If we go with the boots theme, we may go with this card. Or maybe this one.  I think this one is fun, if our family ends up looking good in color. Not always the case, but if it is, I like this option, too. And if we look sooo good, we might require this one.

As long as I'm in picture mode, I should mention, that yes family, I do want you to send me pictures. I have been making family calendars on Shutterfly for the last six years. At first, we just put one picture in per month, but now there is a huge variety of templates and backgrounds, making people like lil ol' me look like design geniuses. Also, you can keep track of family birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar, and the beauty is they save the dates for you year after year. Saved my new-baby life last year. Go here if you want to make one yourself.

And while you're digging up those photos, if any of you have pictures of Andrew during his first year, I want them bad! I've made Josh and Noah photo books from Shutterfly all about their first year, and they love them. I swear it is THE BEST way to get a crazy toddler to calm down, to sit down and look at their baby book with them. Problem for poor Andrew is that I didn't have a camera for half of his first year, so I'll have to depend on others. Shutterfly always has great promotions, so I've found the books to be quite economical. Make your own book here.

So, as you can see, I've got quite the holiday list going on here . . . is it possible to send more cards than before? Stay tuned.