Strawberry picking.

This morning we headed out with my dear friend Anna to pick some strawberries.  I was extremely excited because this is Leeland's 1st time picking. So exciting to see his reaction to new things, and seeing him get into so many more activities as he is growing up. And after I got home this afternoon and started thinking on it a bit, I'm pretty certain that this was my 1st time actually picking strawberries too. At least I can't recall ever picking before. Sad, huh?
Anywho, other than the fact that it rained yesterday and we got a little muddy, it was pretty perfect.  Leeland got into it, and had fun picking the berries off the vine and collecting them in his little red basket.  And of course the part he really liked was the fruit of his labor, literally. We were trying to take a few photos at the end, and he was munching away at the sweet berries before we headed out.  Of course picking the biggest berries in the box to eat. He's a smart one that kid!

 Now it's on to cleaning, chopping and storing all of these delicious strawberries! I do believe we have some tasty smoothies, and strawberry bread in our future! :)

Dying Easter Eggs

Yesterday, Leeland died Easter eggs for the 1st time! And come to think of it, it's Daniel and I's first time dying Easter eggs together as well.  We waited until close to bath time to do it because we knew there was a big chance it could get messy.  We also put a disposable diaper on him, and no other clothes (not risking dying one of my fancy cloth dipes. Haha!) And of course, we kept everything outdoors on our balcony.  Leeland had a lot of fun! He liked to dip the eggs in all of the colors, making some new interesting colors-- we thankfully only had 1 egg turn out brown. And he also insisted that the eggs, be in dye at ALL times, when Daniel and I would declare one finished and put it back in the carton, he would pick it back out and throw it in another color.  It was a lot of fun! See here:

Happy St. Patrick's Day

From Saint Patrick's Breastplate...

Christ be with me
Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ in me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ on my right
Christ on my left
Christ where I lie
... Christ where I sit
Christ where I arise
Christ in the heart of every man
who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of every man
who speaks of me
Christ in every eye that sees me
Christ in every ear that hears me

Salvation is of the Lord.

 

 

Hayden's birth announcement.

I discovered a really awesome shop on Etsy.  It's sara luke creative and she sells all kinds of neat invitations and announcements.  We ordered Hayden's birth announcement from her last week, and then loved her stuff so much, we also ordered Leeland's birthday invitations from her.  (Because next month we'll have a 2 year old.)  So I already posted Hayden's cute newborn pictures, so here's the adorable announcement!

pool fun?

The water is beginning to grow on Leeland!!! Praise the Lord! He is gradually getting a hang of this whole pool thing for recreation and the fact that he must have a bath every night. I've probably mentioned before that my Mother-In-Law says Leeland has the personality of a cat-- he also isn't a huge fan of water just like a cat. My fear with the pool thing though is that by the time he starts to get the hang of it and eases up, Summer will be over and we'll have to start all over again next year.

My Mom hosted a Pampered Chef party the other night, it was out on the patio, and the hostess made grilled pizza, so Leeland and my nephew Tyler played in the baby pool while the women shopped and ate. Here are some photos of the cuties!

Though we made great strides in the water department this weekend, I am sad to say that Leeland is still terrified of swings.

You win some, you lose some! Happy weekend all! :D

pool party.

We were invited to a pool party today at a friend's house. I was SO stoked! Leeland got in a pool once last year while we were at the beach-- an indoor pool, he was 2 months old and it was a brief instant of me holding him in his onesie and he splashed a little.

He enjoyed it then... I guess enjoyed it as much as a 2 month old could comprehend that he was being held against his will in a pool. He smiled at least!

So today was going to be Leeland's 2nd time getting in a pool ever in his life, and I was pretty stoked! Though Daniel wasn't coming to the party because he had to work, he was pretty stoked too! We thought he was going to have a blast... I mean, he loves bath time! And another bonus is that I would get to show off his new swimsuit! It's from I-Play. They make baby swim suits with built in cloth diapers, they're SUPER cool! And they are on sale here.

I got him all decked out in his gear....

And I even put entirely too much sunblock on him, because I don't take any chances!

I promise that's sunblock.... he doesn't always look so ghostly.

So after the 20 minute routine of getting him ready for the pool, inflating his float with my very own lungs, we walked down to the pool and.... he HATED it! He cried, balled up into fetal position and clung to my bathing suit with a grip I have never seen before.  From a 1 year old's perspective, I can see why the pool would be a little intimidating but I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. We'll keep trying though-- isn't that what toddlerhood is all about? Trying new things, some days they like it and some days they don't-- at least that's how it goes with Leeland and food.

Any tips to make Leeland's next pool experience go smoother?

The Great Cloth Diaper Change

   On Saturday April 23rd, Leeland and I along with my friend Dusti and her son drove an hour out out of town to participate in the Great Cloth Diaper Change!  It was SO exciting! The whole thing began as increasing awareness of cloth diapers and it developed into setting a Guinness World Record for most cloth diapers changed at one time. Originally, the diaper change was only going to be a U.S. thing but it ended up being open to the world. You can find the current numbers at The Great Cloth Diaper Change website-- there are still numbers coming in but as I am writing this post, they are showing 221 hosts and 6,363 participants!

Ready to change!

Distracting my boy with a spray bottle-- check out that beautiful BG (bumGenius diaper)!

Group shot! Just having a little fun :0)

Did I mention that the first 25 people to get there got awesome SWAG bags full of samples?? Yea, we were the first TWO to get there!

The birthday party!

  Yesterday evening our family got together and celebrated the birth of Leeland. I officially have  a ONE YEAR OLD! I like that, I like that when strangers ask how old he is, I can reply ONE! So cute. Anyways, the birthday party was a small affair, because that's how we felt most comfortable. We just invited our parents, grandparents and all of our siblings. Kind of weird that we had it on a Thursday evening and a bit inconvenient for some but it was his actual birthday and I have to work on Saturday.

Birthday shirt from Etsy

As mentioned before, his party was at Chick-Fil-A, we ordered several trays of chicken nuggets and chicken tenders, with lots of honey mustard and a couple gallons of sweet tea. If people wanted more than that, they had to get it themselves (we aren't made of money) and as you already know, I provided the cake. We started the party out digging into the chicken which Leeland of course LOVED.

nom nom nom chicken!

After chicken, we moved on to presents. He got SO much, a lot more than I ever expected or that I even know what to do with. Our families were so generous to him and truly spoiled him. Once the presents were opened, very quickly because babies aren't really into opening presents, and he was beginning to get a bit over stimulated, it was time for the CAKE! And drum roll.......this is how the cake turned out........after much stress and hard work.........

As you can see in the photos, he LOVED the cake. With all the stress of making the one dinosaur cake, I didn't make him his own personal cake so we just cut up half of the cake to disperse to everyone and then Leeland got to mess up, play with and eat the rest. Once he was done with the cake he was pretty much beyond tired and started to get a little whiny. We cleaned up as best we could and headed home for a bath, put him in his bed and he was passed out within a couple minutes. I think it was the perfect birthday party for him. It was casual and quiet which is more our style and it was just the right amount of time with just the right amount of people to suit him.

Today we went to the doctor for his 12 month check-up and he weighs 19 pounds, 15 ounces and is 31 inches long. This whole year he has remained very low on the percentile charts for his weight and very high for his height. He's just our skinny little boy. I have no idea how his weight remains so low, he eats ALL day long, I like to call it grazing. I wish that I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain weight. Between his last visit 3 months ago and this visit, he only gained a pound and a half.

Well, one year behind us and many more to come-- Happy birthday to Leeland! Your Mommy and Daddy and "goggy" (dog) love you very much. You have grown into the cutest, sweetest little boy. We can't wait to see what's in store and to watch you grow into a fine man of God. <3 Love you!

12 months=1 year!

My sweet little boy is 1 year old today! Can you believe it? I sure can't..... but I have said that every month when he gets a little older. Last year at this exact time I was in the hospital preparing to give birth to our 1st son. He was born at 6:10pm, 8 pounds 6 ounces and 21 inches long. I fell in the love with him the moment I saw him.  He's grown and learned so much over the past year! Here are some changes from the past month....

--We are still working on weaning Leeland from his bottle, and I must say that he has made it SUPER easy. He doesn't complain at all about milk and doesn't seem to notice the difference between his organic whole milk and his Enfamil AR. We are down to only 1 bottle a day and that happens just before bedtime. Once we are done with our last can of formula, there will be no more. He also calls his sippy cups his "ba-ba" which is his word for bottle so I guess he doesn't mind the cup either.

--There seems to be no such thing as walking anymore, Leeland now prefers to get around by RUNNING! He has a cute little run too. His only issue is he doesn't always look where he's going and will trip over toys, and often the dog.

--He is now riding around in a convertible car seat, or as I like to call it, his "big boy" car seat. It looks super comfortable and from what I can tell, he seems to really like it.

--Recently he has turn into a picky eater when he has NEVER been picky before. I think it is mostly due to the transition of solid table food. I guess when you're used to eating pureed green beans, a real green bean would be weird in your mouth. Trial and error, he tries some things and spits them out and I just keep trying them. I wish that he was completely off of baby food but we're not there yet.

--Lately he continues to refuse his 2nd nap.... I think we may be down to just 1 nap a day. Sad to see that 2nd one go but I think it's pretty typical for a 1 year old to only take 1 nap a day.

That's about all I can think of that's changed for now-- I'm too anxious and excited for his birthday party to think. I will surely post once the birthday party is here and over. We also go to the doctor on Friday for his 1 year check-up and I'm excited to see how much our boy has grown. He feels super heavy now to me but that could just be because I've been so tired and weak lately.

Friday, fun day.

Today was a rather interesting day-- a day of new things. I'm off work on Fridays which is FABULOUS! I get a nice 3 day weekend where I can solely focus on the house, Daniel and Leeland. This morning we woke up and Daniel had a doctor's appointment and then he had to go to work, so it was mostly just Leeland and I, though I did get to eat lunch with Daniel which was nice.

So back to the story, apparently today was a day for Leeland to show off and try new things. This morning I left him for maybe 2 minutes in the living room playing with his toys- I headed to the potty and to grab a bib for him to wear while eating breakfast. When I came back he had somehow managed to climb onto the couch and was walking around on the couch. As I mentioned the other day, he is walking now all by himself, well apparently he is also climbing. Praise the Lord he didn't fall from the couch. So I get him down from the couch and he proceeds to explore the living room.

The boy is spoiled rotten and has SO many toys and yet he chooses to play with other items around the house. So he also discovered today that drawers open, I guess it was bound to happen eventually. We have a desk in our living room and it has 3 drawers, those are the ones he was playing with. Luckily I was randomly in the cleaning and organizing mood last week so I cleaned out those desk drawers pretty well. He found my stretch bands for working out and he walked around the house with them ALL day long. It's the little things that amuse kids. People told me that it was "all downhill" once he started walking, but I didn't realize he was going to learn all of these things in the same week. The boy is on the move and into everything-- no more breaks for mommy for a while.

So after our eventful morning we had lunch with Daniel before he had to head to work. Chick-Fil-A of course.... Sadly we've become pretty predictable, we're a Chick-Fil-A obsessed family. When Daniel headed to work, Leeland and I headed to the grocery store because it's super-double coupon week.  Can I get a hallelujah! So once groceries were put away and the nap was over, it was time for Mommy to have some fun and try something new.... SALSA!

I got an email the other day about "Salsa Babies", it's a mommy and me style dancing class where the women wear their babies in a carrier and dance. The babies were given maracas to jiggle and enjoy while the mommies were taught the steps. We learned the basic steps to salsa, the meringa and the cha cha. It was a 45 minute class and it went by so quickly. I worked up a sweat and hopefully burned some serious calories and Leeland REALLY enjoyed the dancing and bouncing around. He's very into dancing and music right now. Such a neat idea to dance while wearing your baby! A lot of fun and I would definitely do it again. Happy to say that because I was very nervous going into it. Not sure when I became such an introvert. Daniel says that it has only been since Leeland was born and that it's probably just me trying to be protective of him-- I don't know if that's good or bad? Maybe more on that later.

That is all for now, we just had dinner (grilled chicken caesar salads) so it's time to spend some time with Daniel before he zooms off to his 2nd job. Another busy day in store for tomorrow- hitting the Farmer's Market in the morning (craving some goat cheese) and then I have a bridal shower to go to tomorrow afternoon.

Happy weekend all!!
By the way-- Praise be to God that Leeland and I are both 100% over our sicknesses!! YAY! It only took 2 1/2 weeks, but we feel great!

Toddler!

I have a toddler now! Your child is considered a toddler once they start walking supposedly and Leeland has been furniture walking FOREVER now, but just in the past couple weeks he has really started walking a ton. Each day he gets more and more confidence-- he started with just a few steps and now he's walking pretty much all the time. When he first started walking he had to pull up on a piece of furniture to get started and now he can stand up all by himself in the middle of the floor. It is the most adorable thing I have EVER seen! Each day he is growing more and more into a little man... or little boy. He's not my baby anymore, he's a toddler!! I'm just in shock, I can't believe that I have a toddler.

Pardon the snotty nose in the pictures, we've been sick as I said before-- but he's still SO cute! :0)

11 months!

Leeland will be 11 months old tomorrow!!!! Wahoo!!! Party planning is in full focus, I've already got the dinosaur plates and napkins along with the cake pan for the dinosaur cake. I will be ordering the dinosaur birthday invitations in the next week along with his birthday boy t-shirt. In the meantime, I took Leeland out for a little photo shoot today at the Bicentennial Gardens. It didn't go as well as I thought it would, 1. He's sick and is having a hard time breathing, and 2. He hasn't been outside much because it is just now starting to warm up so he was very distracted by the grass, mulch, rocks, trees, flowers.... and tried to eat it all.

--Leeland is walking somewhat now! He still does a lot of furniture walking, but walks some on his own taking anywhere from 5-10 steps. He still finds that crawling is faster so it just depends on what he's after and how quick he wants to get there.

--We are gradually weening him off of formula and off of his bottle. We are down to only 2 bottles of formula a day, one in the morning and one at night. The rest of the day, he is eating snacks or drinking organic whole milk from a sippy cup.
--Also should mention that after lots of hard work, he is getting the hang of the sippy cup. We found a sippy cup that he likes and has a good flow for him that he can keep up with. The package said that it was spill proof but we are finding that it's not entirely spill proof so that is the only struggle we are having at this time.

--Leeland is a GREAT eater and is doing really well with his solids. He really likes to eat all sorts of chopped up fruits and vegetables. He also tried chicken tenders for the first time this past month and fell in love with them. (Hence why his birthday party will be at Chick-Fil-A)

--He is such a little sponge these days and enjoys reading and learning. He repeats words after us, some sound clearer than others. Some words that he knows are.... doggy, cup, bottle, ball, bear, baby.


I say this a lot, but we truly are in awe of how fast he is growing, and he is becoming more and more adorable each day. Next month we will be celebrating his 1st birthday and I absolutely cannot wait! We are so in love with our baby boy and we are enjoying every minute, moment, and milestone.

Party planning.

    We've got 1 month to go until our little man turns ONE!!! Can you believe it? Because I sure can't! The party planning officially began last week. We made reservations at Chick-Fila for his birthday party. Isn't that AWESOME!? Daniel and I absolutely love Chick-Fila and Leeland actually tried chicken tenders for the 1st time a couple weeks ago and loved them. Just FYI, he hasn't had them since, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea that we are in the habit of feeding our kid junk or anything. But when's a better time for him to eat junk than his birthday! Chicken nuggets and cake!!!
   So his party them is dinosaurs and I started gathering things for the party today. I ordered plates and napkins online that have cute dinosaurs on them and say "Roarrrrr!". Once they come in the mail we are going to head to party city to get matching utensils, balloons, table cloth and cups-- I'm thinking solid colors from the plates like bright blue, green and orange. Then I went to AC Moore today to pick up a 3-D teddy bear cake pan which I will transform into a dinosaur.... sounds weird but I found the directions online and it works. I've even picked up a few presents for him already, dinosaur PJ's, a dinosaur t-shirt. I'm SO excited, it is going to be such a good time!!


For those curious, here is the picture of the teddy bear and picture of the dinosaur--