Nashville weekend

We went to Nashville last weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday. My mom, Chad, Andrew and I went to the park Saturday morning -- and they were having an Easter egg hunt! So Andrew went on his first Easter egg hunt. He picked up on what to do really quickly... picking up things and putting them in containers is one of his favorite things to do anyway (yes, he is probably the most organized of the 3 of us at the moment). Anyway... he was SO cute! He is a little afraid of the Easter Bunny... not as scared as he was of Santa but still not wanting to let go of Mommy or Daddy! He did give the Easter Bunny "five" though! :) Then we had fun hanging out with my mom and my sister Nina and her family. Enjoy the pictures!

Kid's Kingdom & Egg Hunt

When I grow up I'm going to take pictures like Mommy... and I'm growing up fast!

The picture has nothing to do with this post... I just liked it and knew Heather would want a picture with the blog entry (we love you Heather!)

Just wanted to post an update on new things Andrew is doing. First of all, he is starting to RUN! He has to keep up with the big kids at daycare, you know! He is talking up a storm (well, maybe not quite but he has new words coming out all of the time). Some new and not-so-new are "uh-oh", which means "Hey, mommy, I'm about to drop this so pay attention!", "bubbles!!!", always said pointing at the sky... even when there are no bubbles :), "splash" because we splash around in the tub... and tonight I think he said "mirror" when we were reading Pat the Bunny. He loves telling people "bye-bye" too and he pretends he is leaving the room (or house!) and tells us bye. It is really cute. Tonight he was really sleepy and told me bye-bye right after I kissed him goodnight because he was ready to get in the bed! He loves playing with other kids. Tonight we went to the park and spent a few minutes on the playground. Andrew slid down the slide and made friends with a little boy named Jorge, who was probably 4 and called him "baby" :). They had fun racing each other down the slide (it was a really wide slide that 2 kids could fit on). Andrew was in awe of the fact that Jorge could use a scooter. Then we walked around, or rather I walked and Andrew rode in the stroller and tried to get everyone else on the walking trail to talk to him. He was pretty successful too. :) He loves daycare now and has big grins walking in the door to daycare... he will even go to the church nursery now without a fuss! Oh, and he loves his puppy and always presses his nose to hear "Itsy-Bitsy Spider". He can even make the spider hand motion. Okay, this was a longer update than I meant to share (and there is more I could share!) but he is just learning so much lately! It is so amazing to watch him learn new stuff!

Outside is so much fun!

We've been taking advantage of when it is been nice weather outside. Andrew loves outside (especially since he got a swing!) :) Here are some pics!

Andrew's week in review...

Our week started off with a bang -- literally! Chad got a call Monday that Andrew fell at daycare and had a big cut on his eye. Andrew was great though -- I think he handled it better than we did, he was still happy and smiling the whole night!



Chad brought home a Grizzlies flag from the game giveaway on Wednesday night, so Andrew had fun playing with it:



And then Saturday, Chad had a game to work again... so Andrew and I watched a Mommy & Me DVD and played. The puppet is from that DVD. Andrew likes to sing "B-I-N-G-O" and he claps along too! It is so cute!



Oh, and this is just Andrew being silly. :) He has drawers in the kitchen that hold plastic containers, old bottles, sippy cups, bowls, etc. that he loves to play with.



And then today, we all went to the circus with Kim and Brennan! Andrew loved the music -- he was bouncing all over the place during the ringmaster's intro. He loved the lights and the animals too. :) Here are some pictures from our day!

He is getting so grown up!

Andrew has learned so much over the past couple of months! Besides words he knew when he turned one , he can say: cheese!, cracker (quack-a?), cookie (cook-co?), mmmmmwwaaah! (hugs and kisses sound... he gives real kisses now too!), baby (baba), kitty (ke-ey), and probably more words that I am forgetting. His favorite book right now is Pat the Bunny and he knows everything he is supposed to do as soon as you turn the page (or before you turn the page... last night he spent the whole book saying "bye-bye!" which is on the last page). Tonight he gave me real goodnight hugs and kisses for the first time. It was soooo sweet! He wants to walk all of the time now and thinks it is so cool that he can walk around outside holding Mommy or Daddy's hand. He's such a cutie... just had to share some things he is doing with everyone! And a couple of pictures of course...

Valentine's Day:

Playing last night (he was apparently *really* tired!):

Life on this end of the phone line...

Andrew was so cute on the phone tonight! Just thought all of you who talk to him on the phone might like to see pics from this end. (Sorry for the upset Andrew pic... he doesn't like it when he has to give the phone back.)

Random update...

I went to pick Andrew up from daycare on Friday and he had a surprise for me! :) So this is Andrew's first work of art to get displayed on our refrigerator...



And just a random picture:

Lovin' the kitty...

Andrew and Oliver adore each other... Andrew hugs on Oliver or Oliver curls up with Andrew all of the time, but this is the first time I've seen them actually play together. Oliver was playing with the string on Andrew's telephone, and then Chad held up the phone so Oliver could play with the dangling string. So this is what happened next:



Aren't they the cutest???

A Great Cut!

Andrew finally got his first haircut today (I know some people out there are really happy about that!). The hair stylist gave him a little Elmo microphone to play with and Chad entertained him while I snapped pictures (of course!). He sat still and was happy and overall did great! The hair stylist was really nice to all of us and she cut Andrew's hair for free since it was his first haircut. We thought that was really nice! Here are some pics of our new haircuts! If you hold your mouse pointer over the picture it will show the caption.

Oh, and a video... but I keep forgetting you can't take videos with the camera sideways...

It's only been 2 weeks?

Two weeks since Andrew's birthday party (and my last blog post). Wow, he has been doing a lot! He is trying to eat with a spoon (and getting better at it), building things (see his castle?), climbing... I guess he figured he should start learning new things fast if he was going to be hanging out with more big kids at daycare! He started a new daycare on Friday. He went a half day and spent half the day with Mommy at work. He had to be the center of attention at work of course... one of my coworkers took a couple of pictures so I'll post them when she sends them to me! He did pretty well at daycare I think... he is in a home daycare and is almost the youngest one there (a 6 month old is starting Monday too). So we'll see how it goes! Oh, and he is getting better at walking too -- I've noticed over the past week or so he opts to walk instead of crawl more often and he is walking a little longer too. He gets excited and tries to run though! :) Here are a few pics!

Say cheese!

Andrew has learned to say cheese for the camera... and later in the day (after this video was taken), he pointed to my camera and said CHEESE! :)

Even MORE birthday!!!

Just some birthday party pics from today! :) (Thanks to Kim & John for taking a lot of the pictures during present opening!) We had a few people over for chili and birthday celebrations and, of course, cake! Thanks to everyone who came and helped us celebrate! We are pretty sure Andrew is going to be wondering where the cake and presents are next week after Christmas and so many birthday celebrations... :)

Too cute video!

Not Andrew related but SOOO cute! Andrew really likes it too!

[

All about Andrew at one year old...

Just some stats and fun facts!

Height: 30.5"
Weight: 20 lb, 13 oz.
Favorite Color: Red
Favorite 2-year-old: Brennan
Favorite 3-year-old: Rachel
Things I definitely can say: hi, bye, momma, daddy, there! or There he is!, no-no, mmmmm, ni-ni (night-night)
Things Mommy thinks she has heard me say or that I've said a few times: kitty, cat, Gran-Gran, good (as in "It's good...), I love you!
Favorite kind of music: Jazz always gets me moving!
Favorite kind of cake: Chocolate!
Favorite animal sound: Quack, quack! :)
Favorite kitty: Oliver-kitty because I can love on him (but I love to chase Abby and Bailey too!)
Favorite movie: The Lion King
Favorite foods: green peas, apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, carrots, chocolate cake... :)
Some things I have learned to do recently: take steps, push myelf on a push toy, climb, quack, give hugs and kisses, play the xylophone, drink from a straw
My New Year's Resolutions: catch Abby or Bailey, climb the stairs before Mommy catches me, explore the entire house...

I am such an easy-going baby... um, big boy! I love people and I love to flirt with and socialize with everyone I see (even that little boy in the mirror)! I like to travel and see new people. I like to explore too but I have to have mommy or daddy close by to check in with (Mommy says this is a good sign!). I am so proud of myself when I learn something new! I think being one is going to be SO much fun!

Happy Birthday Andrew!!!

I can't believe it is Andrew's first birthday! He seems so grown up! Chad & I both spent all day thinking of last year at this time. We had a good day. We took Andrew out to Cracker Barrel for lunch where he proceeded to flirt with and make friends with half of the restaurant. He was SO good even though we had to wait for a while. The waitress brought him his first kiddie cup and he figured out how to drink from a straw! (we've been working on that for a while... it's not really something you can teach!). Then he got to try chocolate milk for the first time and he thought that was super yummy. We went to Target to shop a little bit and then home and did birthday. We had bought a mini cake last night on the way back home and he had some of that for his birthday cake and he opened presents from Mommy & Daddy. He wanted to share his birthday cake with Mommy & Daddy and he is great at opening presents now (and already impatient on waiting for them to be assembled!) :) We took lots of pictures and videos of course. You can see pictures here (for some reason Photobucket posts them in reverse order!) and videos below. Thanks to everyone who has joined us in loving Andrew over his first year!

Christmas at our house

We had so much fun this morning! We let Andrew crawl into the living room and he crawled right over to his presents Santa brought and wanted to get in his beanbag. The first present he opened from Mommy & Daddy was a shape sorter and he really liked it. He didn't like it when we tried to take that and get him to pull tissue paper out of his other bag of presents! So we let him play with it (after all, it can't be much fun for someone to try to take your new toy away when you don't know there are more! Or even if you do know there are more!). He got some books and cd's and onesies and a stuffed reindeer from Santa (that he immediately tried to use the lid from the shape sorter to play peek-a-boo with!) :). He had lots of fun and we did too! Now we are off to Granny's! Here are some pictures !



PS Santa brought me another memory card so I can take even more pictures and videos for everyone!

Merry Christmas!!!

Twas the night before Christmas...

Tonight we went to a Christmas Eve service and then drove around and looked at Christmas lights for a little while. The service was really nice and Andrew stayed with us and did really well (though we did have to take a little break... and then when we got back he wanted to play peek-a-boo with the people behind us). Then we went home so Andrew could get ready for bed. Of course, before we went to bed we had to leave out cookies and milk for Santa (Andrew felt like he needed a cookie too) and Andrew had to open his Christmas Eve present! Here are some pictures from our night!

Peek A Boo!

Andrew LOVES to play peek-a-boo. He will play with anything he can find. He hides behind the curtain, he pops his head up over the top of the chair, we play peek-a-boo taking his shirt on or off... the other day he was trying to play peek-a-boo when I was trying to take his picture! I guess he only saw the camera and thought I was trying to play! :) In this picture he is trying to play with Chad while Chad is outside. We usually say, "Wheere's Andrew???" and then when he looks up, "There he is!". In the last week or two he has started saying "There!" when he pops out or looks up. He's said "There-e-is!" a few times too (we think!). It is just so cute I had to share it!