Max at 1 Year

Today, on his birthday!

Our sweet little Maxie is one today!  I can't believe it.  He seems so much smaller and younger to me than Andy did on his first birthday.  And with Andy, I was so excited it was his birthday! But for some reason, I just feel kinda sad this time around.  I'm not typically the one who thinks the first year is passing too quickly.  (If I could give birth to a one-year-old, I would!) But this must be what people feel when they tell their babies to stop growing up.  (Stop growing up, Max!)

Some things to remember about Max:

• He is the best baby.  So chill.  So accommodating.  Skips naps like it's no big deal.  Content to just crawl around and explore.  He doesn't need much.  
• He is into everything.  His favorite thing in the world is our drawer with all the measuring cups.  And the tupperware cabinet too.  He pulls everything out of them 10x a day.  (But it's starting to feel like 1,000x a day.) I don't mind too much because he's so good at entertaining himself.  He also enjoys splashing around in the toilet when Andy forgets to close the bathroom door.  
• He started crawling at the end of July, when he was just about 9 months old.  He stands and pulls himself up on things and is starting to use things to walk around, but I think we're still a ways from walking.  He doesn't stand independently yet.  He mastered climbing the stairs a few weeks ago and almost gave me a heart attack when I looked over and saw him halfway up our long, steep staircase. 
• He loves to be sung to.  On the very rare occasion that he needs consoling, if I sing to him, he's happy.  He loves Itsy Bitsy Spider and Pat-a-Cake, especially.  
• This boy is a serious eater.  He loves food! He's calm and mild until food is involved.  If you're not feeding him fast enough, he lets you know with an ear piercing squawk.  He's past pureed food now, and eats anything that we do.  (Despite not having a single tooth still! I'm not sure how he manages everything without teeth, but he gets along somehow.)  He loves "real food" and isn't impressed by "kid food."  For example, I made him mac 'n cheese the other day, and he wouldn't have it.  But the next night, he devoured our pretty spicy chicken curry.  Andy could survive on cheese, bread, crackers, unsweetened yogurt, etc. but Max thinks that's all pretty boring.  It's hard to even name his favorite foods because he really loves everything.  He usually has some dry cereal and a banana for breakfast.  Lunch is a PB&J with a pear or something.  Dinner is whatever we're all having.  The only thing he seems to not like is milk.  I've just started introducing it this week, and we're not successful so far.  
• He has to be THE messiest eater in the universe.  I really loathe cleaning up after him every meal.  There is food everywhere:  all over him, the floor, the highchair.  He needs a new set of clothes after every meal, and I have to mop every time he eats, too (which happens to be my least favorite chore ever).  
• He still nurses twice a day, to my great surprise.  I thought for sure we wouldn't make it to a year!  I thought around 9 or 10 months he'd wean himself for sure.  He just never seemed to want to nurse.  I dropped down to only three feedings a day around 10 months, and that helped me not feel like I was trying to convince him to nurse all day.  I dropped the mid-day feeding a couple weeks ago, and we just do morning and night now.  He doesn't eat much and only nurses for a minute or two--it's more of a comfort thing.  I'll probably keep one or both of those feedings for a while, at least until Cameron and I go on a trip or something and I'm forced to wean.  
• Sleeping!  We're in a pretty good place.  He goes to bed at 7 and usually wakes up once in the early morning to nurse, around 5 or 6, and then will go back to bed til 7:30 or so.  (We usually have to wake him up.)   On the rare occasion, he'll wake up twice a night.  He usually reserves this for the nights before I have a long run or race.  Little stinker. I've come to peace with the fact that I just don't make babies that sleep through the night until they stop nursing.  I guess there are worse things, right?  He's a fantastic napper.  He naps from 9-10:30 or 11 and then again from 1:30-3 or 3:30.  No problems there.  
• He has the sweetest giggle! He has this playful side of him that's started developing--he's such a tease!  He thinks it's so funny to pull my hair.  Or to clobber my face with his hand.  Also, he thinks it's the funniest thing in the world when I sneeze (real or pretend).  He loses it.  
• His most common sounds are "Dadadada," "Babababa," and an occasional "Mamama." His favorite thing to say is, "Uh oh!"  I'm going to go ahead and count it as his first word, because he says it when he drops things.  He's starting to mimic more and more sounds.  
• He still doesn't wave or clap.  Weird? 
• My favorite three moments of the day are the three times I put Max down to sleep.  I rock him with his head on my shoulder, and he nuzzles in and cuddles for a minute or two.  Oh my goodness, it's the best thing in the world.  It lasts for a minute or two until he wants to put his hand in my mouth.  (He has an undying interest in mouths.) 
• He has this annoying rash around his mouth that's been there for about a month.  I put aquaphor on it a few times a day.  It helps, but it's STILL there.  So annoying.  Go away rash!  I want to see my baby's pretty skin again! Not sure what the culprit is--dry skin?  Teething?  His unending runny nose?  
• Loves the baby swing.  And loves going down slides on his back.  
• I'm not sure on his measurements.  His well child visit is next week. I'm guessing he's about 24 pounds.  He's a chubby looking guy!  Still got lots of delicious baby fat on him. 

First bath together!  I think this was at the end of July.

This one's from early August. On my birthday, actually!

Cute, messy eater. He loved peaches from Cameron's parents.

11 Months

One of the first times he pulled himself up! Mid-September.

"What a genius idea to feed me boiled egg, mom.  Now it's everywhere in my eye."

Sunday best in September.  Max's first time wearing shoes. (!)

Choo-choo train down the slide. 

Andy snapped this one!

Earlier this month. Can you even handle it? I can't.

August

August was another great month! Here's what we were up to:

Cameron's cousin Austin got married to wonderful Andrea in the Draper Temple.  It was so fun to share in their special day!  They're such a beautiful, talented couple.

Andy took swimming lessons and loved it.  He did so well! They moved him up a level the first day, and his teacher always told me how impressed she was with him.  By the end, he was already swimming a few strokes by himself.  (Yes, I know I sound like a proud, bragging mom. :) We're proud of our little fish! This is him loving it on his first day.

Andy and his teacher, Brighton, on their last day.

Our dear friends Jason, Kasee, and Nora were in town for just a couple days, so we met up at Kasee's mom's house for a quick catch-up and we got to meet baby Nora! We couldn't be happier for them.  They're the cutest parents to the cutest baby.  (Why didn't we get a picture?!) 

Fun summer activities, like impromptu running through the sprinklers at my parents' house. :) 

Cameron and I both celebrated our 29th birthdays! I think I talked about Cameron's birthday in another post.  My birthday was great!  My mom took me to lunch at Plates & Palates, I went with the boys to the Farmer's Market in Bountiful, and then Cameron and I went out that night to Cheesecake Factory.  We ate outside, the weather was perfect...everything just seemed so nice.  A great day! A little later in the month, Cameron's parents took us to Cheesecake Factory again (can you tell we love it there?) for another celebration for our birthdays.  Brendan and Cameron's Grandma joined in too.  I also had a fun night out at Pizzeria Limone with my Texas ladies (Lindsey, Andrea, and Kristin) to celebrate a few days after my birthday.  I feel so lucky to have these life-long friends!

The only picture I have from my actual birthday, at the Farmer's Market.

 Cameron and I had a super fun date to see Ben Folds with the Utah Symphony up at Deer Valley.  We loved it and had the best time.  It's so beautiful up there, I think we'd enjoy any kind of concert up there, but it was especially fun to see one of our favorite artists.

We painted.  We try to repress this memory because it was so awful, but ultimately we're glad we did it. It took a couple weeks.  We painted the whole main floor and upstairs hallway, both walls and ceilings.  We love the way it turned out. The walls and ceiling were this yellow-y dark beige color that was clashing with the overall decorating scheme we wanted.  So we painted the walls a "greige" color and the ceiling white.  We had wonderful help from family members--my dad, Cameron's dad, Brendan, Sara, and Jordon.  Thank you!

I ran lots and lots to great ready for the Half Marathon I had coming up in September.  Rachel was training for it too, so she came up from Provo and we did a long run together one Saturday morning.

We had a fun swimming date with my Ryan (my cousin), his wife Kim, their cute kids, my Uncle Dale, and my cousin Sean.  Andy was in heaven, jumping in a million times with the girls and playing with Sean.  We finished up the night with Pizza at Uncle Dale's and had the best time! (Let's do it again, Kim!) 

We celebrated our fifth anniversary!  It was so fun.  We went to Sawadee (our favorite!) and ate outside and chatted about the past five years.  

These cute brothers played and played.

We potty trained this cutie.  To say I was terrified was a gross understatement. But--he really did great! So much better than I expected.  My cute friend Amy sent me a general plan that she'd done, and it worked really well for us.  I think he was really ready, which made it go well.  He was very excited about his new underwear (super heroes and disney characters) and his new potty.  We stayed home for a few days.  He got two jelly beans whenever he went.  And we didn't do any pull-ups.  There have been a few accidents here and there, but nothing crazy.  He was so proud of himself, it was pretty adorable.  He tried to show everyone his new underwear and wanted them to watch him go on the potty.  :)

We had a fun outing to Discovery Gateway.  

We went with our good friends Candace, Olivia, and Cate to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point.  It was crazy busy, but so fun!  Andy was in heaven.

We had some fun date nights! One of Cameron's best friends Jordan was in town with his wife Milan.  We went out for dinner then they introduced us to Gourmandise for dessert.  Clearly we fell in love, because we took some friends there (the Camilos) a couple weeks later when were were out with them!

We went to the zoo with my friend Amy and her boys and had a blast.  Andy and Cayden get along so well.  I guess we were having too much fun to take pictures. :)

We went with Cameron's parents to the Ogden Temple Open House.  It was so fun to teach Andy about the temple and to then take him inside "Jesus' house." He loved it.  I think he felt the spirit and it strengthened his sweet little testimony of the temple and of Jesus.  He kept talking about getting married there afterward.  It was so fun to go with Cameron's parents too!  We had a great time at dinner with them afterward.   (I also got to go with my Young Women earlier in the month.  So fun!)

The funniest moment was when we were in the little visitors tent they'd set up and suddenly we couldn't find Andy.  We spotted him standing by the Christus, posing, waiting to have his picture taken.  Ha! Crazy kid.

Our boys LOVE Grandma and Grandpa!

YW/YM Activity

Splash pad fun with my friend Katie and her cute kids.  Andy and Liza absolutely LOVE each other and get along so well.  We always love getting together with them!

July

As usual, I'm incredibly behind and realized I never did in a summary of July.  And July was pretty packed!  Here are some highlights.

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! The pictures are a bit out of order, but we started off the 4th of July at my parents' house for breakfast, then we went to the Bountiful Parade and got soooo much candy.  We had dinner in Park City with Greg and Kathy later and then headed up to the Oakley Rodeo with April and Kevin and their family.  We spent the night in their beautiful cabin.  Andy was in heaven spending time with Truman and Olive.  The poor kid needs some cousins in the area...he's usually surrounded by boring adults.  :)

Andy and Truman on a "hike." 

Cute Nicole making homemade ice cream with the kids.

Sweet Max and G.G.

Breakfast at my parents'

Andy loved the parade.  Max thought it was really hot. :)

Waiting for dinner.

 

We had a fun neighborhood party, where Andy got to chill with his fellow towhead, Dori.  Aren't they just the cutest?

Cameron's sweet Grandma brought over an insane amount of groceries, cooked us dinner/gave us a cooking lesson, and seriously left us with 10+ meals for leftovers.  We sure love living close to her!

We had a fun outing to the zoo with one of my best friends, Marsha, and her cute kids.  Andy and Ben love each other.  I wish we lived closer so they could play more often.  Completely unprompted, they held hands almost the entire time.

Another zoo pic of Andy and Ben.

Sam (and my sister Christine) came in town! We had so much fun hanging with them around town.  Discovery Gateway was Sam's favorite, so we went there twice.

Cameron had a company party at Snowbird.  We were late and didn't have time to do much, but Andy and Cam rode the alpine slide, and Max and I rode the chairlift.  (A good warmup for Park City the following week!)

We had some wonderful Texas friends come in town.  We miss Cami and Jen! We had a fun playdate at Andrea's. And we had Cami, Juan, and their kids over for dessert one night and has soooo much fun catching up. There may have been "I miss you too much" tears shed.  Sniff, sniff.

Rachel and I did the Deseret News 10K on July 24th.  We had a blast and were happy with our times! I did it in 52:42, averaging 8:29/mile.  I don't have pictures of the rest of the holiday, but it was a good one. (Other than the fact that Cameron had to work.)  We had a splash pad outing and then had dinner at the cabin with my mom's side of the family.

Sara and Jordon got engaged!  Fun wedding planning shortly followed.  Here are Andy and Sam when we were dress shopping.  Let's just say I don't think my kids will be invited back to any dress shops any time soon.

I'm too lazy to add this pic to the post it belongs to, so here it is.  This is Cameron and Andy on our camping trip.  It might be my favorite picture ever.  There's about twenty more pictures of them making funny faces. 

I had a fun dinner with some of my Winterton girl cousins at Sawadee.  We decided this needs to be a tradition! Don't I have a beautiful family?