No Big Deal: It's Just ONE YEAR!!

September 3, 2011.

It happened.  He turned one, and I have no idea where the first year went!  Of course we had to have a celebration!  We are lucky enough to have most of our family living right here in the Indy area, so lots of our loved ones were able to join in on the fun!

I have to say, the morning of the party was a bit stressful...Ben decided that "we" should make all of the food rather than buy it, so needless to say I was busy in the kitchen from about 6:30 am until the party started at noon!  In the midst of the madness, Noah snuck into the laundry room, ripped off his dirty diaper, opened the door to the kitchen and threw the diaper at me.  If we hadn't been so busy getting ready for his party (not to mention disgusted by poop flying across the floor of my kitchen - I promise, no food was anywhere near said diaper), we probably would have laughed our butts off, because the little fat man sure thought he was hilarious! I'm learning to always enjoy the little things - even when they're a bit messy :)

Despite dirty diapers and a hectic morning, the party was a success.  We had plenty of sandwiches and other goodies for Noah's guests to enjoy, and I have to give myself a pat on the back for some pretty yummy stuff!

Happy 1st birthday, Noah!! Waking up a whole year old is fun :)

Surprise! The Kenney's came to the party :)

The one big fail: This cake is from Kroger due to the fact that I had an epically failed attempt at making a giant cupcake for him.  I had the special mold and everything, but it didn't cook evenly and fell apart :( Bummer!

Homemade cupcakes decorated by this momma :)  I'm not very creative, so I'm pretty proud of myself!

Cousin Kate, Aunt Mickey, and cousin Lydia

Aunt Renee and cousin Elle

Uncle Tim and cousin Reese - we were interfering with nap time :) This was exit time for Tim and the twins!

All of the kids enjoyed our former dining room - turned playhouse

Great Grandpa Kirkhoff and Grandpa Havens!  It was a special treat for Grandpa Havens to be at the party :)  We were so incredibly excited to have him there!

While it looks like he enjoyed the cake, he didn't.  He literally stuck his hand in it and left it there like it was in cement.  He would eat a bite off of a fork but wanted nothing to do with eating it from his hands :)  I guess he doesn't have his momma's sweet tooth!

Cousins Bryce, Ty, and Kate (tucked behind Bryce) helped sing happy birthday

These two win the prize for traveling the farthest! Paul and Erica came all the way from St. Louis and Houston, respectively.  Even if they were in town for a wedding, we felt pretty special that they came all the way here!

Cousin David Jr, Aunt Mary, and cousin Conor 

"That was fun.  Can we do it again tomorrow?!"

MIA once again!

I blame technology for my shortcomings as a blogger, but thanks to my brand new macbook I have no more excuses for another 3 month lapse in posting!  Let's do a not-so-quick recap:  Noah turned ONE!! And we are now just about to the 14 month mark, but lets back up to 11 months:

At exactly 11 months (August 3rd, to be precise), I switched Noah completely to whole milk from his bottles.  He refused the bottle for an entire week and a half, and I finally gave up and offered him milk.  I had learned that the risk for milk allergy is almost entirely outgrown by 9-10 months of age, so my guilty conscience could rest easy :)  Noah started taking one to two steps on his own just before 11 months, and just before 11 1/2 months he began walking everywhere!  He never had much regard for the safety of his head, so we have had our fair share of bumps and bruises!

Papaw and Nana Schmith celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary on August 6th, and Renee and I left the kids at home to throw a party for our deserving mom and dad!  This was the first time we have ever paid a sitter to watch Noah (aside from his daycare provider, Beth, of course)!  We knew he was in good hands, so we were definitely able to enjoy our night out!

Enjoy some pictures from July and August! :) :)

Noah's first trip to the Indy Zoo - with his buddy Jack Schmadeke

Best attempt at a group shot with little movers! Henry Brown, Lilly Brown, Grace Schmadeke, Noah, & Jack Schmadeke.  It was a fun day for us moms to get together, too :)

Noah and best bud Katelyn Kenney wearing Noah's favorite outfit :)

Loving Nicole's shades!

Big cousin Lily is a perfect jungle gym!

Searching for food?

Having a serious conversation with Aunt Karyn about Bud Light vs Coors Light

Good-bye dinner for Emily before she moved to Georgia! :(

Enjoying the water table during his 1st trip to the Children's Museum with friends!

I don't know what it is, but I love this picture.  And immediately after this was taken my camera died, so unfortunately no pics of our friends the Ludwigs or the Hursh's during our museum trip!

Noah and Katelyn just lounging together :)

He LOVED this swing at the Chen's house!

Lindsay Dempsey with Evan Chen at Evan's house for a cookout!

I realized when uploading these pictures that someone should seriously reprimand me for not taking more pictures of my son!! I'll try to do better :)

10 months and counting!

We are getting so close to his first birthday, and I cannot believe it has almost been a year since I met the little man that has become our whole world.  He changes every day - as soon as I think I know what he likes and doesn't like or have his routine figured out, he goes and changes it all up on me!

For the last few weeks he has been eating all "big people" food and absolutely refuses anything off of a spoon!  Every once in a while I can get him to eat some yogurt or applesauce, but only if I offer it before putting any finger foods on his tray.  He eats just about anything I serve him: green beans, carrots, peas, boca nuggets (meatless "chicken" nuggets), hot dogs, turkey, honeydew, watermelon, canteloupe, peaches, pears, apples, grapes, cheese cubes, crackers, blueberries, black beans, pasta, tomatoes, bananas, kiwi...and of course, the old favorites: Cheerios and puffs!  The list could go on and on.  I'm kind of a freak about cutting certain foods really small, although I'm not sure why I bother when he stuffs fistfuls of food in his mouth at a time!

He is still cruising everywhere on his hands and knees - no walking yet for this guy!  He pulls up on everything and walks along the furniture without any difficulty, but I have a theory that he has no desire to walk since he is such a professional crawler :)

He is still napping twice a day, in the morning for an hour to an hour and a half, and in the afternoon for about 2 hours.  He also still has 8 teeth (4 on top and 4 on bottom) which he has had since he was 8 months.  I am wondering if he may be getting another tooth or two right now, though.  I haven't felt them, but before his afternoon nap he started absolutely screaming and I had to rock him to sleep - which I never, ever have to do unless he is teething or sick.  So I'm hoping for a tooth and not his first ear infection!! :)  I haven't a clue how much he weighs right now, but he wears size 5 diapers and 18 month clothes (same as last month).  He has a few 12 month things that I can still squeeze him into, but for the most part he's graduated yet another size! I think his growth has leveled off, though, and I have a feeling he will be wearing 18 month clothes for quite some time! Let's hope!!

I haven't been great about taking pictures the last couple of weeks, but I've got a few! Enjoy!

Brooks Ludwig came and stayed the night with us! It was so fun having a playmate for Noah, even if Noah is kind of a bully!

Brooks is about 6 months older than Noah, and once I put on a cartoon I couldn't tear him away from the TV! :)

Snack time is a language they both speak :) Normally they sit at the table for this, but I can handle vacuuming up a few Cheerios!

He has been making this face every time I whip out the camera lately.  Such a ham!

It was nice to have a snuggler before his nap times :)





Hi!! And there's that face again...

Ben and I went to Bloomington for a wedding, and on our way home we met my family at an Indians game...Kate clearly was unhappy about her melting ice cream cone!

He looks so old to me when he does this...

He has an obsession with doors right now.  Any doors - pushing them closed, pulling cabinet doors open, banging on them - it's all entertaining to him!

We have graduated from the bath ring - but I keep it in the tub so he doesn't hit his head on the faucet! Creative :)

Happy 1st birthday, Katelyn!

Noah had a great time at Katelyn's birthday party - he happened to turn 10 months that day! Yay!

Kristi and Emmy Powell - Emmy also has a twin sister, Abby, and both girls will be 1 this month!



We call these the "Babies of 2010!"  Left to right: Abby and Emmy Powell, Katelyn Kenney, Noah, and Evan Chen.  We originally had them sitting on the couch, but they wouldn't sit still, so we thought we may get a better picture if we had them stand on the couch...Hmmmm...



Life. Is. Good.

It is hard to believe that my not-so-little man is 9 and a half months already! I've said it before and I'll say it again - time flies when you're in love!!

It has been a busy and interesting month so far.  Ben took his first board exam for med school (there will be a second one during his fourth year of school), and after only one week off he is back to work!  He officially started his 3rd year of med school, which means he is spending the majority of his time in the hospitals for his clinical rotations.  His first rotation is medicine, and he is at the VA downtown.  After 3 days of orientation he has his first day at the hospital today, so we'll see how it goes!

Noah is always discovering new things that he loves about life!  He still loves clapping, yelling, remote controls, opening drawers, the dog food bowls, and is constantly on the move!  He is pulling up on everything and he is such a good climber!  He continues to try to take steps and he can do maybe one or two before he falls down - not quite ready for the big leagues yet! He is such a fast crawler now, and he loves it when one of us crawls behind him like we are chasing him - if you want some belly laughs, that's all it takes!  He is getting better with table food, and he will eat almost anything if it comes off of my plate, but if I stick him in his high chair and try to give him the same foods, let's just say Cooper gets a nice meal if he is smart enough to hang out below the baby!

We have had a pretty rough week so far - Noah has been sick and it is just killing us to see him so sad!  For starters, I ran out of frozen breastmilk on Thursday, and on Saturday he started refusing his bottles and only took about 15 oz.  He woke up Saturday night about 9:30 pm with a fever of 102.2 and was screaming and crying.  I gave him Tylenol and rocked him to sleep for about 30 minutes while he just cried and cried. It. Was. Awful.  I was absolutely broken-hearted to see my sweet baby in so much pain!  Long story short, we continued to struggle with feeding on Sunday (only 6 oz), and by Monday he only took 3 oz.  We saw the pediatrician on Monday morning and he has a viral infection that caused sores in the back of his throat (actually a virus called "herpangina" -which is similar to "hand, foot, mouth disease," minus the rash on the hands and feet- that the doctor said most kids get by the time they are 2).  I can only wish he had an ear infection so we could try to treat it with antibiotics!  The fever finally broke on Monday afternoon and he started acting more like himself.  On Tuesday I was at work and he gave me a scare because he stopped peeing for almost 24 hours, but after Ben worked with him a long time to drink some water things started working again. :) Today is Wednesday and he is still refusing a bottle, but at least he is eating his food as long as it is cold and he will drink some water from a big cup.  You can give me all the tips and tricks you want, but I can probably guarantee you I've tried it.  I've tried it all and nothing is working!  I'm hopeful that once the sores heal in a few more days he will start taking bottles again, and that it isn't just the taste of the formula that he is refusing!

Memorial Weekend! Noah's 1st time swimming at the Owl's Nest :)

Hated the hat, LOVED the water!

He tried to escape his boat, he prefers to be held in the water :)

Water Jogger = Favorite Chew Toy

Ty and Kate came over for a short visit!

This makes it look like Noah snuggles - he doesn't...I lured him in with one of his blankets and got about 12 seconds of cuddle time!

War wound: He fell into a bookshelf after trying to do some fancy walking :) That was the day before his 9 month well visit, of course!

He likes Mickey's hat and sunglasses better than his own :)

 

Mama's big boy :)

His 9 month visit went well.  He weighed in at *only* 22 lbs 13 oz.  While that is still in the 80th percentile, that would mean he has only gained almost 2 lbs since his 6 month visit.  I took him home and weighed him again on our scale, and he was just over 24 lbs.  Normally I would go with the doctor's scale, but ours has been the same as theirs (if not less) every other time.  Either way, it is normal for a breastfed baby to gain lots of weight in the beginning and level off later in the first year - not to mention he has been crawling since 6 and a half months and hasn't stopped moving! He was 29.75 inches long, which is the 90th percentile.  Developmentally, the doctor says he is right on track.  His gross motor skills are a little bit ahead of the curve (crawling, pulling up, standing alone, etc), and his other developmental skills are right where they should be (picks up small objects with thumb and finger, jabbers, but doesn't wave or play "peek-a-boo" with his hands yet).  And "Mama" is definitely his first word, which I was hesitant to believe at first, but now it is clear as day!  He also says "ba-ba" for his bottle, but otherwise all of words still sound like gibberish and Ben is working hard on teaching him "Dada!" I will post some of his 9 month pictures soon!!