Happy Father's Day!

Wishing all father's - and especially

my husband

Pawpaw

Pop

Granddaddy

Brad

and Ryan

a Happy Father's Day!  Hopefully everyone had a great day! 

Doing splits over Ella

Today we were able to hang out with our good friends Ben and Jamie and their adorable little girl Ella.  Ella is around six months younger than Nicholas and this was our first time to meet her.  Nicholas was so excited that he did splits for her...  Literally.  I don't know why but recently he started holding on to a bookcase, coffee table, etc and slowly do a split  (not all the way, but almost) and he just thinks this is the funniest thing!  It is so crazy to watch. I don't know if this did anything to win over Ella, but he has plenty of time to work on that. 

 "Sorry Ella...  Didn't mean to knock you down!"

She forgave him.

Showing off those pearly whites to her

See what I can do!

What's new...

We bought Nicholas a sit-n-spin for his birthday, knowing that he wouldn't really be able to use if for awhile.  Well, Nicholas doesn't need a sit-n-spin, he is his own built-in sit-n-spin.  Nicholas will sit on our hardwood floors and use his legs and just spin himself around in one spot.  It is rather runny to watch.  I'm guessing once he is big enough to use the actual toy, he will probably love it! 

The cutest thing that Nicholas started doing over the last week or so was giving kisses.  Of course we always give him kisses and recently he has been big on copying what we do.  Whenever I give him a kiss, he gives me an "air" kiss back.  It is the sweetest thing!  Now if we can just get him to blow us that kiss!

Unfortunately Nicholas started to have a runny nose a few days ago.  Luckily it hasn't developed into anything else as of yet and hopefully it won't.  His sleep hasn't been too messed up by this and we have been running the humidifier non-stop.  He has, however, shared this sickness with me as I now have a stuffy nose.  My hope is that it just stays nasal and doesn't develop into a full-blown cold.   Fingers crossed!  

Yea Chick-fil-A!

Gabe's couponing skills scored us two free Spicy Chicken sandwiches at Chick-fil-A.  We are HUGE fans - not just because of the food (which is delicious), but also because of the friendly, fast service.  So we decided to cash in our free sandwich tonight and also buy a kid's chicken nugget meal for Nicholas.  They have really healthy options for the kids meal (we opted for fruit and milk).  It shouldn't surprise us that Nicholas loves Chick-fil-A as much as we do, because Gabe couldn't cut up the chicken fast enough.  I'm sure this will be the first of many visits for our little man here.  We can't wait to see him play in the playground area.  Here are a few pics from tonight...

"How much chicken can I fit in my mouth?"

"What?"

"More please!"

 

Status Update

Yesterday was Nicholas' one year check-up.  Go figure that when I signed in at Greenvale, they said they didn't have me in the system.  Luckily we didn't have to wait that long to go back.  Nicholas now weighs almost 22 pounds and is 31 inches long (50th and 90th percentiles).  Dr. Whitaker said everything looked great, unfortunately they had to give him four shots and a finger prick.  Let's just say Nicholas was not fond of any of this.  Our next appointment is at 15 months.  He did however recover with a 15 minute nap while headed to Mimi and Pop's afterward.  Since I didn't update all his current doings/sayings on his birthday here is what Nicholas is up to:

Sleep:  His nap times have been off most of this past month.  It seems like he has tried to drop the afternoon nap, but really he isn't on a schedule like he has been.  He is sleeping really well at night.  Because his nap times seem to have decreased during the day, we have been putting him to bed around 7 instead of 8.  He seems fine with this and continues to sleep until the 6-7am range.  Hopefully he will eventually get on a new nap schedule so mommy can plan her day.  At this point though, I'm just happy he sleeps well (no matter what time it is).

Nutrition:  Nicholas is now completely switched over to cow's milk.  He didn't seem to have any issues with the switch.  We have been slow to drop the night bottle for a sippy cup (especially when he was so fussy recently - as we suspect due to teething).  Nicholas is eating more and more table food.  Any time we give him something off our plates, he really seems to like it and is getting used to the various textures.  His diet now consists of a lot of applesauce, yogurt, bananas, veggies, etc.

Cute quirks:  He will rub his belly over and over (mainly during bathtime, but other times as well).  He throws anything that he gets his hands on.  Very cute when he has toy balls, but not so good when he is holding sippy cups, cell phones or remotes.  Nicholas also continues to point at everything. 

Talk:  Just recently it sounds like he is saying doggy and toy.  When watching Baby Einstein and dogs appear or when Bama is around he says doggy a lot.  It is too cute!  Of course he calls other animals doggy sometimes too, but he'll get there.     

Finally, we have a toddler!  Nicholas isn't super into taking more steps but we try to encourage him to do so.  He has to be in the mood to do this, but it will be interesting to see how long it take before he realizes how much quicker he is walking and just takes off.  Bama - now you REALLY need to watch out!    

One Year Ago

One year ago today, Gabe and I headed to Brookwood for a routine visit and came home Sunday with a brand new baby boy.  Nicholas has opened our eyes to a whole new world, one that is better because he is in it.  We love you booboo and look forward to many more birthdays! 

Friday morning was spent at Portrait Innovations getting his pictures made.  The last time we went was for his 3 month pictures.   I had called to get the earliest appointment, but for some reason when we got there I wasn't in the system.  An hour and a half and over a hundred dollars later, we left with a tired baby (or I should say toddler now) and some super cute pictures (they had to crop my arms out of a few of them).   

Friday evening we had another first.  Nicholas took his first steps!  Gigi, Pawpaw, Daddy and I were all in the living room last night after eating some dinner.  Nicholas was between the the love seat and lazy-boy standing up.  He took one step towards the coffee table and then realized he would be much better off to go to the lazy-boy, which was much closer.  Gigi was so excited she screamed out.  I saw the last bit of it and Pawpaw and Gabe unfortunately didn't see it at all.  He has since taken steps that everyone saw.  So exciting! 

Unfortunately Nicholas had a rough night after that.  He went to bed around 9 but woke up an hour later screaming like he hadn't screamed in many, many months.  Nothing worked to console him (rocking, teething ring, a car ride, etc) until of course we put on Baby Einstein.  It was very reminiscent of when he was just born and we had no clue what the problem was or how to fix it.  This time we suspect that it is teething pain that is bothering him because he has been drooling a lot, but haven't seen any new teeth pop through.  Hopefully it is his teeth and they will soon pop through. 

We had his birthday party today at Leeds First Baptist.  It was perfect with all our family, lots of pizza and beautiful cakes that Mimi made.

Nicholas received plenty of wonderful gifts including:  a baby pool, some cute clothes, a Radio Flyer riding toy, helicopter toy, some building blocks and much more!  Thank you all so much for coming and sharing in this special day.  It was perfect! Here are some pics from today (Nicholas was just a bit tired by the time we got to opening his presents):

Just hanging out at the party

All our family

"Where's my cake?"

"Not sure about this sugar stuff..."

"What's this?"

The girls helping us out

And to finish the day, a special birthday bubble bath

  

Happy First Birthday Nicholas! 

Finally another tooth

Nicholas' last teething episode was in February, so needless to say we have been wondering when that next tooth was going to pop out.  Every time he was the least bit cranky (which really isn't all that often) I would say "maybe he's teething".  Yesterday, Nicholas only napped about 1.5 hours and was extremely cranky.  This time I thought it was just due to the lack of sleep, until I saw this morning that his bottom left tooth had popped.  Luckily he slept really well last night (around 7:30pm to 7:00am). 

His latest development is pointing at everything.  It is the cutest thing!  Mimi has even taught him to point at your nose when you ask him where it is.  It's still hard to believe that his birthday is next Saturday!  All  the invitations have been sent and we are planning to have an awesome Birthday/Memorial Day weekend, which will include having his pictures taken at Portrait Innovations.  It will be interesting to see how this picture session compares to his last one when he was three months old and just learning to hold his head up.  

The weaning process seems to be going really well.  Nicholas hasn't seemed to notice a difference in the milk and I'm very happy to only pump once a day now.  Luckily we had our bonus frozen stash to help supplement. 

I'm so very thankful that everything has happened as it has...  Nicholas has not really been sick at all, the nursing went really well, he sleeps and eats really well.  I just thank God every day for our little guy and how blessed we are!