Christmas 2013

What a wonderful Christmas we had!

It wasn’t Beckett’s first Christmas, but it felt like it.  Last year Christmas was kind of a blur.  The two things I remember most were how much I resented Kolby every time he uttered the words, “I think he’s hungry” and beginning to suspect that Beckett had broken my tailbone as he entered the world (he had).  What can I say, childbearing is not for the faint of heart. 

But this year?  Christmas was nothing but enjoyable!  Newly one year old, Beckett was such a blast to celebrate the season with.  Kolby had two weeks off work so we loaded the Camry to the brim and went on a 12-day Christmas tour. 

The first stop was a week at Kolby’s parents’ ranch in Wimberley.  (Let me say for the record that Beckett actually did AMAZING on the 4.5 hour drive down.  Kids.  Always full of surprises.)  On the property there is a little studio cabin, a one-bedroom cabin and a newly completed two-bedroom house with a huge kitchen and living area.  We gathered there with Kolby’s whole family.  It was slow and relaxing and we all had a great time.  Beckett loved playing with his two-year-old cousin, Kyndall, and she tolerated him pretty well too ;)

We stayed in one of the cabins but put Beckett to bed each evening at the main house, and one of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to carry him the thirty yards home all bundled up and fast asleep every night.  Sweet boy.

Christmas morning was a big hit with the little ones.  Beckett’s favorite gift was a pop up Sesame Street toy that he got from his great grandparents.  But he loved everything, obviously, and especially liked bee-lining it to everything Kyndall opened and promptly being informed that it was hers (“No Beckett, no. Mine!”  I think my favorite moment was when Kyndall opened her gift from us and as she was waiting for Kolby to get it out of the package she started quietly saying, “I love it… I love it…I love it” with her hands covering her mouth in excitement. 

We had a big family meal that afternoon that included what may be Kevin’s greatest culinary masterpiece to date (and that’s saying something; he’s a wonderful cook!).  Beef tenderloin prepared by baking it in a salt dough.  I have literally never tasted anything so good.  We dined together at Kolby’s grandmother’s table, which has a spot built specifically for it at the new ranch house.

A few pictures:

***

The Saturday after Christmas we moved on to our final leg of the tour, my parents’ ranch near Waxahachie.  I am so grateful that our families both have these amazing properties that can fit us all together comfortably and also provide a ton of fun things to do.  It is such a luxury.

We met my whole family there and pretended Saturday was Christmas Eve and Sunday was Christmas Day.  We did our annual tradition of making cut-out cookies together and watching the movie Rocketman (because nothing says Christmas like a chimpanzee going to Mars).

Santa brought a couple of special gifts to the ranch this year.  The big kids got a sweet go cart and the little kids got a John Deere gator.  I can’t put into words how precious the boys were in the gator.  CUTE OVERLOAD.  The thing says for ages 3+ but we put our two-year-old nephew behind the wheel and threw our one-year-old son in the shotgun seat and they took off and had an absolute blast together.  They rode that thing nonstop every chance they could, every day we were there.  Apparently there was a lot of ranch work to be done!

A few family pictures:

Here's one of about a million videos of the boys doing their ranch work.  Please excuse my awesome camera skills and narration.

Tractor from Kolby on Vimeo.

***

Merry (very belated) Christmas to all. 

Joy to the world

The Lord is come
Let Earth receive her King

Let every heart

Prepare him room

Welcome, Sadie!

Welcome to the family, baby Sadie!

Brad and Remy welcomed their second child, little miss Sadie Ann, on December 10.  She was born happy and healthy and even started making this really sweet cooing sound right away.  Everyone is doing great and big brother Tucker is totally smitten with her!

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken recently and I want to share a few (OK a lot) of my favorites:

Balloon Pictures

Taking these pictures wasn't always the easiest task in the world, but I'm so glad we have this fun documentation of how much he changed and grew this first year.  

I think my favorite part is how you can see his baby hair gradually falling out until about four months old (who is that bald baby?!?), then you can see the progression of his new hair coming in and getting so long!  Also he didn't seem to change all that much physically in months 5-7 but I remember how much he change developmentally during that time... sitting up, crawling, learning tricks, etc.  

Here they all are again:

(I'm not sure why he looks so comically large in this last one.  Giant baby!)

Beckett's First Year in Video

Kolby put a video together for Beckett's birthday.  It's a compilation of some of our favorite videos of his first year of life.  I can't tell you how much this video means to me.  Hope you enjoy it too!

Beckett's First Year from Kolby on Vimeo.

Here's the link if it doesn't play above: https://vimeo.com/81231805.

Beckett's First Birthday

We had such a wonderful time celebrating our boy's very first birthday!  Him turning one was bittersweet for sure, but I tried to focus on the sweet part and what a wonderful first year of life he had!

We wanted to keep his party low key and really focus on enjoying the day with him.  We had just our immediate families over to our house for breakfast.  I had fun making a few decorations so the house would look festive but I didn't do much because it's not like Beckett knows what Pinterest is so the bar was set pretty low.  For food Kolby picked up some stuff from our neighborhood donut shop that he and Beckett take their Saturday morning dates to.  Nothing fancy, but perfect.  I figured who wouldn't want to walk in the door to a spread of chocolate-covered donuts with sprinkles and a pitcher of chocolate milk?!?  Sounded like heaven to me at least, and I was in charge :)

Beckett's first stuffed animal that he really locked on to early on was this little fox that I got at Ikea a few weeks before he was born.  Then somehow he ended up with a lot of fox-themed clothes, books, etc. and it just became his little motif.  So it seemed natural to throw him a fox party.  I know what you are all thinking, and no, it had nothing to do with that stupid song (Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!).  We dressed Beckett up as the cutest little fox there ever was, and we love the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox so we had that playing in the background.  We used Wheaton College colors (Kolby's Alma Mater) but that was really just a coincidence of orange from foxes and me wanting to reuse anything navy from the luncheon we had after Beckett's baptism.  I'm happy with how everything turned out and more so with how stress-free it all was!

Kolby and I made Beckett's cake together the night before while watching the movie I.Q.  It was a little date, and the cake turned out amazing if I do say so myself.  I baked and iced it, and Kolby was in charge of the fox.  He's a wonder with pumpkin carving so I figured it was a good job for him, and he totally nailed it.  Beckett double-fisted his slice so I'd say it was an overall success.

I wish I had more pictures from his party but I just enjoyed it instead.  Thankfully a few people snapped some and I'm so glad to have those.  So, here's a peek at Beckett's first birthday party!

We had invited his little friends over to play the next day (his actual birthday) but it was Icemaggedon and the roads were still iffy for some.  So we just went to church as a family and then took Beckett to the aquarium and let him point at things to his heart's content.

 Then we had his friends over to play the next weekend and they had a blast!

*** 

Happy first birthday, Beckett boy!  You are loved and cherished beyond measure.

Twelve Months Old

Beckett finished his first year of life with a bang!  It was a really fun month for us all.

Here’s a snippet of what’s been going on with our little guy these past few weeks.

If I had to sum this month up in a single word, it would be pointing.  We went through a waving phase a few months ago and now we have officially moved on to pointing.  Oh the pointing.  I don’t even remember how it got started but now all day every day he just goes around pointing at things, in a very “what’s that?” kind of way.  He doesn’t even want what he points at most of the time, he just points and looks at us and wants us to tell him what it is.  We name it, then he points at something else.  Over and over and over again. 

I think it’s just his way of experiencing the world right now.  Which I should be grateful for because I feel like he’s gradually transitioning away from experiencing it with his mouth (although I fished a very soggy dog food kernel out just yesterday…baby steps!).  But it can be annoying at times.  Light.  Light.  Light.  Fan.  Light.  Light.  Light.  Light.  Momma.  Light.  Light.  Still the light, buddy.  I try to be constructive with it sometimes in that if I point and name three different things (like three toys or three things sitting on a table) and repeat them several times, I can then ask him “where’s the X?” and he’s pretty darn good at pointing to the right one.  It’s so fun to see his little brain working!

Speaking of which, it’s become really clear lately that Beckett loves to learn.  It’s a little hard to put into words, but it’s just something that can be observed if you watch him.  To start, he’s such a curious little boy.  He loves to explore things, get into lots of trouble, and figure out how things work.  Because he loves learning we are trying to teach him some new things.  Sign language has been really useful for this.  He knows the signs for more, milk, and water, and he uses them without prompting when he wants any of those things.  It’s so neat!  He also knows and understands the signs for eat and diaper, but he only uses them we say them.  We also like teaching him gestures.  When we yell ‘snow day’ he throws his hands in the air (Kolby's had a few snow days lately).  When we say ‘sweet boy’ he clasps his hands together and brings them up by his cheek (this was so cute… but lately it’s evolved to this move that looks like he’s stirring a cauldron, ha!).  We’re also working on some dance moves :). 

He’s still all about the books.  Give that kid a pile of books and he will just sit there and flip through them all and jabber and point at things on the pages.  His favorite way to for us to read him books right now is for us to point at the respective pictures as we narrate the story, or for him to point at each thing on the page and us say what they are.  Pointing, pointing, pointing.

Kolby invented a new sport called dadcrobatics.  It’s where he essentially does basketball tricks but uses Beckett as the ball, feeding him around his waist, through his legs, over his shoulders, etc. while humming circus music.  He also does figure skating moves while holding Beckett, with the routine always ending with a big ta-da where they each hold an arm out.  Both activities send Beckett into fits of giggles.  Dads are so much fun.

For my memory’s sake, here’s Beckett’s routine these days:

6am                 wake up, nurse, play, breakfast

8:30/9am         nap (usually 1-2 hours)

10:30am          play, run errands, play with friends

Noonish           lunch

1pm                 nurse, nap (usually around an hour)

3pm                 play, run errands

5pm                 Kolby gets home, we hang out for a while then tag team Beckett and cooking dinner

6:30pm            family dinner

7pm                 bath, nurse, bedtime (he’s usually asleep around 8)

What we did this month:

-I took Beckett to his first movie—Despicable Me2—at the dollar theatre. And thank goodness it only cost a $1 because I spent the majority of the movie sitting in the aisle playing with him and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep him from eating popcorn off the floor. We went with some friends and it was still a fun experience though!

-We joined my family at Cowboy’s Stadium to watch Baylor whip up Texas Tech. Beckett had a great time!

-We moved Beckett to a big boy car seat (still rear-facing, but he had gotten too big for his infant carrier seat).

-Beckett and I took a quick road trip to Houston with my cousin and her son to visit our other cousin and her new baby girl.

-Celebrated Thanksgiving with my family at the ranch

Things Beckett loves:

-POINTING

-Pushing big toys/walkers while walking behind them

-Reading books

-Playing on his own a little bit

-Eggs, banana, all types of meat

-Watching construction equipment 

Things I love about Beckett:

-how his hair is starting to curl a little bit

-he has this "stinker face" as we call it where he scrunches his nose up and gives a fake smile

-when he brings me a book to read to him

-he's starting to dance a little and it's adorable

Finally, this is about as good of time as any to jot down his stats throughout the year as well as when he hit some big milestones.

Stats

Age               Weight            Height             Percentiles (weight/height)

Birth                9lbs                21 inches          90/90

1 month         9lbs 7oz          22 inches          25/50

3 months       11lbs 14oz       23 inches          50/50

4 months       14lbs 2oz         26.5 inches       25/90

6 months       15lbs 10oz       28 inches          20/95

9 months       19lbs 3oz         29 inches          45/75

1 year             21lbs 1oz        30 inches          45/55

Basically he started out big and now he's right at average.

Milestones

First smile—6 weeks old

First laugh—3 months old

Lost the last of his newborn hair—4 months old

Started sitting up independently—5 months old

Started sleeping through the night—just shy of 6 months old (switched him to his tummy at 5½ months)

First solid food—6 months old (avocado, then peas, then hard-boiled egg yolk)

Started rolling over—6 months old (his very first rolling over was more like 4 months, but he didn’t keep it up)

First party trick (his tomahawk move)—7 months old

Started crawling—7 months old (almost 8)

First tooth—8 months old

Clapping on command—8 months old

Started pulling up to stand (including in his crib)—8 months old (almost 9)

Waving on command, doing motions to Patty Cake—9 months old

First word—this is a tough one to pinpoint… there was never a “oh my gosh he just said his first word” moment. He started making the dadada sound clearly at around 9 months, followed by mamama, and by 11 months it had transitioned more to “dada” and “mama” and he started to really associate it with us.