Happy Birthday!!!

Andrew is UNO!!!

Hard to believe that our little guy is a year old! We were able to have both of our immediate families over to celebrate, made for a cozy house but it made it more special. Andrew did great with all the extra stuff going on and was so excited when it came to opening gifts.

We are so blessed to have such a sweet boy in our lives!

Here are some of our favorites from the day...

We took a picture of our little guy every day for the first year, the banner above displayed one from every month. Todd put together a movie of all the pictures to display how much he changed over the year.
 

 Andrew is 1

 "I must be cute"

 Andrew is ONE!

  Daddy worked really hard on making my cake. Thanks so much it was yummy!

 

We Are Walking

I am behind on my posting so this is kind of old news but we now have another walker in the house! About three weeks ago Andrew took his first step and has been improving every day since then. It is so much fun to watch him walking around but also scary at the same point. 

Daddy had given him the goal of walking before he was a year old and he did it! What a big boy we have.

11 Months Old

Wow we are now 11 months old! It is crazy to think but you can tell that our little guy is acting less and less like a baby every day. Andrew is always moving and can hardly sit still. He has to see everything that we are doing, especially in the kitchen. He has really started to copy us with noises we make or our actions, soaking up everything around him. He is moving on to become a walker real soon...walking with his musical toy, making easy work of the furniture, and walking while holding onto our fingers, even just one. Soon I will be seeing him running through the house.

He is up to about 22 lbs now and wearing size 12 month clothes, but his arms could use the 18 month sizes...thanks Daddy :)

If you ask him for a hug, most of the time you will get one. The sweetest thing is that if he thinks you are sad he will crawl over to you and give you one over and over until you are happy again...sweet boy.

Say cheez when he sees a camera and gives a toothy smile with squinty eyes.

Still loves his baths and hates to get out of them.

Two days before he turned 11 months he decided that he no longer wanted baby food. Will still eat the fruits we have prepared for him (pears, applesauce, etc) but other than that he wants our food.

Still loves music and is starting to learn to "dance" by bouncing

Can find his tummy. Just ask him where it is and he will pat it with his hands. This also means that he tries to find ours by lifting up our shirts.

He is down to nursing four times a day.

Takes two naps a  nap. One in the morning at about 9:00 for 40 minutes and then one in the afternoon at about 2:00 for an hour and a half or so. Such a blessing! This is the best he has ever done with napping.

He is working on his 5th tooth, giving him some issues like his other top teeth did.  

 They keep saying I look like daddy

We can't get enough of our little guy and I find it hard to believe that he is almost a year old. God has truely blessed us with him.    

 

Happy Halloween!

Todd and I are not ones to dress up for Halloween but we couldn't resist dressing up our little guy. We threw around a couple of ideas for a while but we wanted something unique and that fit him (not your typical store bought monkey or something like that). Todd found this idea, so it was off to the fabric store to buy a pattern and materials - so glad I have taken up sewing!

And so we have....

 

 Andrew the Chef!!!

One of his favorite things to do everyday is empty out the few cupboards in the kitchen that we don't have locked. We have started to leave some kitchen utensils (a wooden spoon, whisk, ladle, etc) in there as well. A lot of the time he will put toys in his bowls or pans and stir them up. 

But it doesn't end there. If either of us are cooking in the kitchen he will be right at our feet begging us to pick him up so he can see what we are doing.

It is so much fun to watch his little mind work and figure out different things like stirring without our help.

We love our little chef!  

 

Pumpkin Patch Time

We took Andrew to a pumpkin patch only about 5 miles from our house and he loved it. They had a cute little petting zoo with some very friendly animals, a corn pit (which turned out to be a bad idea as he kept trying to eat the corn), a pick your own pumpkin patch, and many different colorful gourds to choose from. And the best part...it was free!! I think we may have found our pumpkin patch to go to every year. When he is older he can participate in the other things they have for a little bit older kids.

Our Mini Fall Vacation

Since we have a little guy that doesn't travel the best all the time we decided to take just a quick little local vacation this fall, and we actually split the two days across two different weeks to make it even easier.

We started with going out to our zoo. It had been a long time since we had been there and Andrew never had. This is the perfect sized zoo for little ones as it isn't too big that they get bored but there is still enough to see to keep them entertained.

 Andrew absolutely loved the seals. He could have stayed there and watched them all day.

Those were some silly Monkeys

 It was a great day as a family. Can't get enough of these memories that we are making together.

 






Our next mini trip was to visit the covered bridges in our area. I have always wanted to see them but have never had the opportunity. We were hoping for some more change in the leaves but it was beautiful none the less.

 

 The four different bridges that we visited. There are more but these are

the ones we made it to.

This day was filled with a lot of memories for me and I was so thankful to be able to spend a beautiful (yet chilly) fall day outside with my boys. Andrew did great as I expected...our little outdoor adventurer. 

10 Months Old

It is crazy to believe that in 2 short months our little guy will be a year old, but for now I will cherish that he is only 10 months old (only...yikes).

He has been up to so much and learning so quickly. In this past month he has learned how to clap his hands when we ask, but to make it even more cute we don't even have to ask, all we have to do is tell him good job and he will get a big smile and start clapping. He also learned how to do "Touchdown!" after watching football (slight difference between this and 'so big').

Can we say Go State!!!

Andrew has also now learned how to say more with sign language. I was very excited when he started doing this as it greatly cut down on the screeching that took place at the dinner table.

Todd took some time to build a gate for our deck so that our little guy can safely go play out there and we don't have to constantly keep taking him away from the stairs. And of course he had to help too...

 

Some other things that he is up to now...

• Says "Da" when he hears or sees a dog, this little boy loves dogs.

Playing with our neighbor's dog, he loves them.

• Has a love for animals, no matter what kind.
• Loves most food and is now eating more and more off of our plates. Favorites would include pears, sweet potatoes, and applesauce

 

• For the longest time he would not feed himself. He would hand us his snacks (Cheerios, puffs, etc) and then lean in and eat them off of our hands. But on the 30th while driving home from a weekend away something clicked and he started feeding himself!
• Our little guy gets around the furniture very well now and will let go with his hands before sitting sitting down.
• We had to bump him up to his 12 month size clothes and we have quickly learned that he has Daddy's long arms, one positive is that he doesn't have to worry about them getting in his way while crawling.
• Bed times are a breeze and we are sooo thankful for that. After nursing we take him upstairs sing him a song, Daddy says a prayer, give out hugs and lay him down. Some times he is even wiggling to get out of our arms and into his bed. We usually never hear another sound from him until about 6:00 in the morning.
• Gets very excited when we ask him if he wants to go outside, for a walk, or take a bath. We have had to start spelling these things if we are discussing whether we should do them.
• Getting into our car seat can be a challenge most of the time but he is fine once he is in. We have started to 'bribe' him with a puff or Cheerio, and it works great; there is no screaming or twisting. Probably not the best thing but it relieves a lot of stress and dirty looks from people in parking lots.
• Loves to help us cook. Always has to be in the kitchen with us, usually in our arms so he can see what we are doing. He also has certain cupboards he can get into to play with kitchen stuff.

Mommy's kitchen is never clean, and it is always safest to shuffle your feet.

We are so extremely blessed by this little guy that God has granted us with.

It's Harvest Time

Every year (or almost anyways) Todd takes time off to go help his dad harvest, I have always gone with him to enjoy the time away from work to relax and spend time with family. This year we got the joy of watching Andrew be in awe of everything. 

The first time I took him out to the field to see Daddy he didn't know quite what to think of this huge combine coming out of the field in front of him and the big tractor and two wagons coming up behind us. Mostly he was fascinated by everything going on around him and loved riding with Daddy in the combine.

Watching the corn "disappear" & playing with the moisture tester

 

Three generations of farmers :)

 

Yup, Todd even convinced me to drive a round so Andrew could have some Daddy time.

 

Hard work deserves a good meal.

Labor Day Fun

For the long weekend we headed up north to spend time with family and take part in some fun activities.

We were able to go visit and catch up with some friends, it had been way too long since we saw them last. Since the last time we saw them we have both added little boys to our families. It was a lot of fun to catch up with them. Andrew found their garden interesting...here he is holding a mini cabbage that was picked for him to play with.

We spent a lot of time catching up with our families and Andrew couldn't get enough of playing with everyone, especially his cousin. Monkey see, monkey do...

Andrew and I ran in our first ever 5K race on Monday. Because I had do the majority of my training with Andrew I wanted to find a race that allowed strollers, luckily the one in our hometown did. It was a great morning, not too warm, just a little humid. We completed in 32:53; my best time running with Andrew.

It was a long drive there and back but it was worth it for all the fun that we had. I would say that Andrew is officially done with his car seat for a little while though.