Birthday Boy!!

It is so hard to believe that our sweet baby boy is a 1!!  I can remember exactly what happened that day so vividly, it's crazy.  I don't usually have a great memory, but ask me what was going at a certain time that day and I can tell you.  I look back on that and still have a little sense of lose having to have a c-section and not getting to labor, but in the end all that matters is that he was fine and happy and healthy.

Our little boy is so animated!!  He is starting to tell some amazing stories.  And one of his favorite people on the planet is his Poppy.

Playing with other kids is minimal.  He's not a super huge fan of playing with the kids at church and not at home either.  It's pretty cool sitting next to them and looking at them :)

We invited family over for his woodland themed party!  I think I'm going to keep the owl things up in the kitchen, I love it.  He did not love his hat.  It's so cute!  He wore it for a few pictures to humor mama though.

Having family over meant having at 10 kids watch him eat cake.  He LOVED having cake at his cake smash for his birthday pictures, but all these people made him nervous.  He ended up in tears and wanted nothing more to do with the cake.  A few quiet minutes in the bathtub solved that problem and he was back to wanting to have fun.

Not so into presents yet.  Typical he was excited about the boxes, but not so much the actual toys.  Maybe for Christmas we'll just wrap some boxes that he can then play with.

Parties wear a baby out!  (can you see the belly peaking out under his shirt?!?!)

Milestones
crawling all over the place
going from belly to sitting
cruising all around the furniture

Likes
eating more table food, he loves to eat what we eat
eggs are his favorite food at the moment
opening drawers and cabinets
turning the tv receiver off and on

Dislikes
not being able to turn the tv receiver off and on
when the ottoman is blocking the entry into the kitchen (he doesn't care to be confined to one room)

17 pounds 6 ounces
29.5" long

O goodness! Photo dump!

May!  I haven't posted ANYTHING since MAY!  I had such high hopes of being good and keeping up with this so I could go back and remember when Reece learned new things and what our days looked like.  I get a nice big fat F for that!  I guess my hope now is to just play some catch up.  That doesn't make me happy because I can't remember things exactly :(

At nine months Reece is a little guy.  He weighed around 16.5 pounds (about the 3rd %), he was about 26" long (about the 25th %).  Sitting up on his own like a champ.  Sometime between 9 and 10 months he started army crawling.  Army crawling EVERYWHERE.  He's getting quicker!  He shows no interest in eating food yet.  He'd rather stick to mama's milk.  He's had some teephers appear :)

Our little 10 month old has really picked up his pace with the army crawl.  We kinda thought he'd be up on his hands and knees now, but he'd rather stick to roughing it on his belly.  A few more teeth this last month.  Still could care less to eat what we are eating.

How are you 11 months old already?!?! The next photo dump will be a birthday bash! At 11 months, Reece has 5 teeth. He has just started to pull himself up on the furniture. There is a bit of cruising going on now. He has decided to put himself up on his hands and knees and crawl. He has decided that it is still much faster to army crawl, but he is doing it a bit up on all 4s. He is also very interested in what we eat now. When meals are made, I have to take into account that he will want to eat what we eat. Meal prep now has baby on the mind :) He's still pretty small, not really gained any weight. He is saying mama and dada reguarly. He makes the sign for milk and sometimes will sign more. Still not much of a sleeper. He will nap some for Grandma Larney, usually 30 minutes in the morning and at least an hour in the afternoon.  I'm very thankful for the fact that he is at least happy even if he's not a good sleeper.  Sleeping at night is pretty much non-existant, especially when there's a new tooth coming in.  Makes for one tired mama when trying to do student teaching all at the same time.  He loves to play and swing and be outside.  Daddy is pretty awesome when he walks in the door.  

7 Months!

I feel like this month has been FULL of new things for Reece.  On the evening of Easter Sunday we tried avocados.  This was his first taste of anything other than breast milk.  It did not go over very well. There were many faces and full body shudders to let us know that he wasn't all that happy about what he was eating.  In the last month he's tried carrots and bananas, all with pretty much the same response. This will be a slow going thing, but breast milk is what's best for him, so we're going with it.  For now :)

The Easter Bunny put a cup in his Easter basket.  We give it to him when he eats solids with water in it.  He gets it at other random times during the day.  He hasn't really figured out that stuff comes out of it.  He's happier gumming the attached lid or using it as a drumstick.

You want me to eat WHAT?!?!  No thanks mama, I'm not a big fan of carrots.

We've had a few days where it actually felt like spring.  He didn't react the way most babies react to feeling the grass on fingers and toes. He's actually pretty ok with it.

Grass is fun to play with :)

This picture cracks me up.  He had this mohawk all day!  Woke up with major bed head and it didn't get better despite what I tried to do.

Gotta love consignment sales.  This swing came from my first experience with a major sale.  I wasn't all that impressed though.  He's pretty impressed with the swing.  Many giggles and smiles are had when he's playing in it.
  

Ready for baseball season to start.  Daddy is helping coach Eli's team and Eli is also playing travel Sunday ball.  Reece is all set for games to start!

Milestones:
rolling all over the place
sitting for a few seconds before falling
reaching for mama mostly but also for Daddy
getting his first taste of solid foods

Likes:
jumping in the exer saucer
swinging outside
watching baseball
pulling mama's hair
bath time

Dislikes:
food
napping for more than 30 or 40 minutes (most of the time)
diaper changes

I'm guessing around 15 pounds
Maybe 27" long

Happy Easter!

A week later, not to bad.  We had a wonderful Easter.  Hannah and Eli are really starting to understand the true meaning of Easter.  We did many more things this year that were all age appropriate to help them with understanding what Jesus did for us and how unbelievably wonderful he is.  I think walking into church on Good Friday was a huge eye opener for them.  Our church treats it like a funeral, people were dressed in black, no lights on, and very quiet. They asked many questions after leaving.
Coloring eggs was on the agenda for Saturday.  Bonus, it was nice enough to do it outside, better lightening and easier clean up.  I wanted to do something different this year.  They are too old to just dip them in color, but still young enough to make it fun for them.  I found something on Pinterest using a baking soda and water "paint."

They would paint on the egg the color they wanted to use.  Then they would drop a few drops of whatever food coloring color they wanted to use.  Finally, they would take a syringe full of vinegar and put it on their egg.  Voila!  You have a bubbling egg!  They really enjoyed this.  Will have to make more than 12 eggs next year!

The Easter Bunny hid baskets and they were blurs of madness trying to find theirs.  Daddy helped Reece find his.  Big boy cups and spoons!

After baskets were found an promptly dumped, the mad dash to find the most eggs hidden around the house began!

He just liked eating the empty egg :)

And then super cute pictures of everyone all dressed up ready for church.  What a wonderful day, message at church, and reason to celebrate!

6 Months

Hard to believe our little guy is 6 months old. I know I say that every month, but I just can't believe 6 months have gone by already.

His personality it starting to come out. He is a bit shy and reserved. Very serious so much of the time.

He got an exesaucer this last month. He loves this toy! Loves to jump when we are holding him, and now he can do that when he plays.

He has figured out how to roll from his back to his belly.  He loves to challenge us now when it's time to get dressed or change a diaper :)
The only downfall of this new trick is that he has forgotten that he knew how to roll from tummy to back, he lets us know when he's done playing on his tummy now.  Mom, Dad, Hannah, or Eli will rescue him when he's ready to be flipped.

Mismatch day at school! (PS, we LOVE Duck Dynasty at our house!)

New Milestones:
rolling from back to tummy
jumping when being held
a little more time playing on own

Things he loves:
the exesaucer
books, storytime with Hannah and Eli before bed
links, rubber blocks, swinging his paci around

Things he does not like:
taking a pumped bottle from grandma (no problems from Daddy)
napping for longer than 30 or 40 minutes

BOO!

Daddy is SO good at making Reece laugh! He does it better than anyone.  He is able to tickle him on his back, under his arms, on his sides, and on his chunky monkey thighs.  Right now, when Daddy says Boo! he gets a great laugh!