Happy 13 Months!

Well, no more monthly sticker photos. Boo hoo hoo. I am planning to give brief monthly updates, just for my own memory and documentation. It's amazing how quickly I forget things these days!

Watching ORU baseball

Cheering for the team

At your 12 month appointment you measured 31 1/2 inches and 23 pounds. You can still fit into some 12 mos shorts and pants, but wear 18 mos - 2T shirts. Your shoes are a 5 1/2 Wide. I tried to buy you some sandals this week, but your fat feet either 1) don't fit into the shoes or 2) the fat rolls stick out of the holes in the shoes.

Starting the summer off in his new Crocs

Some of your favorite activities right now include tackling things, rolling in the pillows, spinning around in cirles to make yourself dizzy, walking the dog, dancing, and climbing the stairs. You've also started trying to eat your food with no hands like Karsten does.

Eating Cheerios with no hands

You still aren't saying many words. If we ask what the ducks says, you say "quack, quack." If we ask what the cow says, you say "boooo"....close.You love to talk and recently started using Daddy's cell phone to pace all over the house while carrying on a serious conversation.

Unfortunately, you aren't interested in any important words or phrases. We've been working on please, thank you, I love you, milk, juice, and of course, your grandparents' names. We also worked on "hey, batter, batter, batter, swing" at the baseball game, and you repeated that better than you have any of the other words. Sigh...we'll get there. You've never been one to ease into things, so I'm thinking that one day you'll just sit down and start a conversation using all of the vocabulary words we've been constantly repeating.

Learning to use a straw. You can tell by
his shirt that it is not going well.

Monkey see, monkey do. That's the best phrase I can use to describe you right now. We have to be really careful, because you repeat everything that we do. You watch us open the dishwasher, put the toilet lid down, throw things in the trash can, open the doors, etc. It's amazing to us that you can pick up these things at such a young age. I have found several things in the trash can that do not belong there. Yesterday, you spilt milk on the floor, went into the kitchen to get a towel, brought it in the living room and wiped up your mess without Daddy or I saying a word (talk about a proud Mommy moment). You're always watching what I do, even when I don't realize it. This morning, you got your lotion bottle, pretended to pour lotion in your hands and then began rubbing your hands together, just like you see me do. You also like to put my laptop bag on your arm, wave goodbye and blow kisses and then stand at the door hoping that I will let you go to work like Daddy does.

At the risk of jinxing it, you have been sleeping really well lately. You've been consistently sleeping 12 hours a night with 2 naps during the day. You always seem to go through spurts, though. You'll sleep really well for a while and then start waking up in the middle of the night again. But, maybe now that you're a 1 year old, you're over that stage :)

You finally got your new carseat. You've been needing one for a while, but I knew that we were taking a trip out to SC and I wanted one that was easy to travel with. But, shortly after your birthday, we made the switch to a big boy carseat. I thought that you would love facing forward, but you are just getting to where you actually like it. It's nice being able to look back and check on you, but I'm not able to sneak food anymore without you wanting some.

Your head and feet stuck out the ends of your old carseat

Cute face I see when I look into the backseat now

Apparently I'm a wild driver

It doesn't sleep as well as
 the old one, but we'll work on this

Last but not least, your Uncle Stephen asked his girlfriend, Kristen, to marry him. We are so excited for them both and I think you're going to like having a new aunt in the family!