9 months

Posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2012 by Tabitha

Wow, Kyler’s first year is flying by! I can’t believe he is already 9 months old. He doesn’t really look like a nine month old to me. While he is bigger than he used to be, he still seems like a little baby.

Here he is on January 13th:

We went to the doctor for his check up last Thursday. He weighed 16 lbs 2 ounces and was 26.75″ long/tall. That puts him not on the chart for weight and in the tenth percentile for height. Tiny boy apparently, but we can’t tell because of all the fat rolls! I am used to being told that I have children on the low end of size; he is fine. And even if other babies are almost all bigger than him he does fit into the “right size” clothes. He is wearing 6-9/6-12 month clothes. Apparently children who are the norm wear clothes that are bigger sizes. Don’t you think that’s odd?

So, at 9 months, Kyler can:

- still not sit up on his own, though he is getting better at balancing. He could probably do it, but I don’t think he wants to. When I put him in a sitting position he just flops over to rest on his hands or tries to get on his belly.
- stick his legs up underneath him in a crawl position, but can’t figure out the arms…
- tries to put everything in his mouth.
- laugh at his sister and brothers all day and it is such a beautiful sound. His favorite is when they blow those little party horns. He has such a big laugh.
- sleep 12 hours at night, almost every night. This is fabulous!!
- eat cereal, and most of the vegetables and fruits. He has even had a bite of cake and a little ice cream. Shhh, don’t tell! And, he loves those wagon wheel baby snacks, but can’t figure out how to keep the puffs in his mouth.
- wave. At Kody. Sort of.
- has had this weird thing where he spits up/throws up every time he poops, since we started baby food. It’s getting better now, but it has been gross. The doctor and nurses all said they’ve never heard of a baby doing that before, but when checked out he was fine. Apparently he just had some issues with his belly working out the new foods. I’m glad he’s not doing it as much now.
-loves to be held or to play on his belly.
-still toothless.
-holds his feet, one in each hand, when he’s on his back. He is so funny!

He is still the happiest baby around and we love him so much. He rarely gets really upset. I love to get him out of bed in the morning because he is just so happy and he kicks his little legs and smiles because he’s so excited to see me. He peeks over the top of the crib bumper, through the bars, to see if I’m in bed too, which is adorable. (the picture from yesterday’s post was of him looking out while I was folding laundry. Usually the side of the crib is pulled up, but we were playing with him.) I just can’t say enough about how wonderful he is.

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{this moment}

Posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 by Tabitha

From SouleMama: {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

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On Growing Up

Posted on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 by Tabitha

Photo by Makenzie Lynn Photography

Here’s the deal: I don’t mind getting older. In fact I embrace each birthday and new year with excitement. I don’t like my children getting older. Not because I necessarily want them to stay little and helpless forever, but because each year brings them that much closer to leaving me. It gives me less time to make memories with them. Less time to hold them and tell them that I love them.

Kristopher turned 10 today…a whole decade has gone by. I think he’s turning out pretty well. I am a bit partial, but I hope that others agree that he is wonderful. I’m having a hard time believing that he is that old. I thought today about where I was ten years ago. A new mom in a hospital room with a tiny baby boy. So exhausted from 21 hours of labor and then a c-section. Drugged and incoherent. Not knowing at all what to do. Surrounded by family, but feeling like I was alone and not supported. Full of love for the sweet baby I was holding. Ignoring all the people who said they grow up sooo fast.

So much has changed since then. Now I know so much more and I want to be an encouragement to others. I know how fast they really do grow up. I am still full of love for my boy, no matter how big he gets. Throughout the day a book has come to mind pretty often. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch is such a good book and I just keep thinking about how I really will love him forever. When you start on the journey it’s hard to imagine and know how much love you really can give. I’m here to tell you it’s a big bunch!

Okay, enough of a sappy long post. I’ve cried some, smiled lots, sought advice from others, screamed, talked, disciplined, laughed so much and been incredibly blessed in the past 10 years. I am so proud to be his mom and I hope that he is happy to have me. By the way he waves and smiles whenever he sees me I know he is. :) Happy 10th birthday to my big boy who is growing up way too fast!

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Lego Party

Posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 by Tabitha

Kristopher’s 10th birthday is tomorrow. Well, it starts in about 20 minutes. Today, we had his party, a lego party, as requested by him. To be honest, I thought maybe a Lego party was too young for a ten year old and I really hoped he wouldn’t get made fun of for his choice, but everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and he especially did. That’s all that matters! I found much of my inspiration on Pinterest, love that site!

First up, I bought some Lego scrapbook paper [it is even bumpy and has the lego logo on each dot] in red, blue, yellow & green. I made banners to go all over the place by cutting the paper into 6×8 dot blocks. Then I cut up Kristopher’s Lego calendar from 2011. Then I just sewed the papers together on my sewing machine. Easy Peasy and so cute! I used a couple of the larger pictures from the calendar on the walls. Balloons hanging from the light over the table are fun. I put Legos in clear glass containers on tables to decorate as well.

In the living room, I set up this little table to greet guests. I wanted to have each boy sign the card, get a name badge and guess the number of Legos in the vase before doing anything else, but as guests were arriving I got sidetracked and they all ended up doing this in a bunch. It’s much easier to do that sort of thing with adults!

On the wall in the kitchen we also had “Bob”, who had lost his arm. He was drawn by Kristopher and playing that game was completely Kristopher’s idea. He did a great job with the drawing, but he didn’t win. Going first was not advantageous…with the arms the boys just felt for the previous arm and then placed theirs. So the farther down the line the better your chance. Try to make your arms flatter if you play this! Ours were curling up on the hand end. :)

I found a “favor pack” of Lego build kits that came with 4 each of 2 different designs. We had a little contest to see who could build their’s the quickest. The winner got a prize. While they were building they were very serious and it was completely quiet around that table. Totally different than the rest of the party! So funny to see the difference between the kids when they had something to work for.

After all the games I let the boys play for awhile, while I cooked some pizza and finished setting out all the food. My goal was to make Lego pizza like this blogger did. Mine was fine, but the pepperoni’s slid around during the cooking and so the pieces didn’t exactly look like they were supposed to. Still we had small rectangular pizza pieces with round circles. Good enough, right?! I also purchased the silicone Lego molds and we had Lego ice and Lego shaped chocolates. Some of the chocolate men went on top of cupcakes. I made a second cake since I didn’t know how many people I would end up feeding. For that one I used this idea and put marshmallows on top to create the Lego look. Not exactly how I pictured it either, but still a hit. To make the cupcake stand I hot glued some candle stick holders to the bottom of one Lego board and then set it on top of a larger one. The Hot glue peels off easily and it made a cute display. That gray board was actually mine when I was little. :)

Kristopher wanted to blow out his candle on a special cupcake, not on the big cake, so I just wrote 10 on one of the cupcakes. We prayed and then sang to him before eating any of the food. I had ice cream, but forgot to get it out…

After gorging on sugar, it was time for a little present opening. Kristopher got a lot of cool gifts. Several Lego items were included (how could they not be?!) and he got the two things he was most hoping for as well. It was fun to watch all the kids gather around him while he opened his gifts. They were practically on top of him. During this time he said some of the funniest things. He said he could barely breathe because everyone was so close. When he was done opening everything, someone asked him what he wanted to play with first and he replied, “before I play with anything, I want to clean up this mess!” My boy is so funny. This mamma is thankful that he wanted to clean it up though, less cleanup for her!

Near the end of party-time this fellow showed up:

He sounded like Kristopher and he had the same outfit as Kristopher, but he looked a bit older than 10… Boys will be boys. ;)

Everyone left with a little goody bag, containing a Birthday Lego man and some Lego soap, bought on etsy.

He had a great birthday party and tomorrow we are looking forward to a quiet day of church and celebrating his and Kody’s birthdays with a nice dinner and, you guessed it, more cake! Back to talk about how I can’t believe 10 years has gone by tomorrow…

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Cozy Neck

Posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 by Tabitha

Recently, my bff and I went on a little shopping trip. We were at Hobby Lobby and ventured into the yarn section. Always dangerous, this. I had no plans to buy any yarn and in fact haven’t really gotten the urge to knit much still. Anyway, as we perused the yarn I saw plenty that was pretty, but I could leave it there. Then I saw the Yarn Bee Melody Bulky yarn in the Harlequin colorway and I knew I wanted a new scarf.

You see, about a month ago I was getting ready to leave the house and knew it was colder outside. I went to grab my favorite scarf that I knit about 5 years ago. All my scarves were hanging in the back of the closet on a hanger with my other winter wear. As I went to grab it a big ball of fluff fell down and when I saw the scarf it was all chewed up near the hanger. The other scarves were also chewed and my wool peacoat had a hole chewed out as well. The mice had made a nest up on top of the coat rack. I’m not really sure how they had time to do this since we keep traps set year round (out in the country that’s how you have to roll, my friends) and we had just caught several, but they did. They also got into my drawers and ate holes in several sweaters. By the time I was done surveying the damage I was very angry and I was ready to take out some mice. We did get a few more right after that and thankfully no more clothing damage has been done since.

Back to the yarn. When I saw this particular colorway (harlequin) I knew I wanted to replace my fallen scarves. So I decided to buy a skein. Yeah, I thought I could get a scarf out of one skein of bulky yarn. I probably could have if I’d made it skinnier, but I want a longer scarf that will wrap around my neck. I used the entire skein and I am halfway to where I want to be. So, somehow I’ve got to acquire another. I really don’t want to pay shipping for it, but will if need be, so I can have a nice cozy scarf for the cold time ahead. It has been so nice for the past week that it almost seems like winter is leaving already, but I’ve lived here long enough to know that now is about the time it starts to get really cold. I know it’s coming and I know I want a good scarf around my neck when it gets here!

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