Wednesday, September 17, 2014

11 Months Old(a couple weeks late)

 Reed turned 11 months old on the first of September.  I'm really freaking out about it now.   It seems impossible, but then I look at him sometimes and notice how big he's getting.

He's still so active, so it didn't surprise us that he only gained a few ounces this month, despite being as good an eater as ever.  He was up to 21 lbs, 10 oz, so 69.2%, and was 29.75" long, which also put him at 69.2%. 

A few days after turning 11 months old, he took a few steps to me!  JUST before Jess came home from work for the day.   I was on the ground in the living room with him.  He was holding on to the couch, when he let go, stared at me for a few seconds, got the cutest glint in his eye, and I knew he was going to try.  He started to step toward me, and his momentum carried him all the way, about 4 steps, and I caught him as he started to lose his balance.    We all got excited and loud, and he looked proud of himself, so he kept trying.  He was too excited by then, because of all our excited shouts, so he kept kind of bouncing (Sort of doing a quick paced set of mini squats) and losing his balance.  Jess says from my description that it counts as his first steps, but I don't usually put it down as their first official steps until they do it with total control, staying balanced the whole time, so I don't know.

If we use MY definition, he did it this last Saturday, Sept. 13th.  He was holding lightly to the chaise part of our couch, and let go and walked diagonally across to Jess and me, who were sitting at the other end of the couch.  He was proud, and did it a few times that same day.

He still loves his family lots, and thinks he's pretty big, playing with them and laughing when they laugh.
 He also will stop what he's doing any time he hears someone crying, and look back and forth from the crying sibling, to me and Jess.  Then he usually follows it up with fake crying himself.  Ha!  Sometimes he even works up some real tears.
Some of his favorite things to do are play catch...
...push toy cars all over the house..
  ...pull books out of the shelves and onto the floor...
 ...put things in and out of boxes, or baskets, or in this case a ball in and out of the bumbo...
 ....and cuddle.  With people usually, but also in the stuffed animal pile.
 
 
 
 He LOVES his mama and daddy, but daddy gets a little more special attention since he leaves most days for work.
We made the mistake of laughing in the past when he smacked us in the head for fun, so now we have to try and get him back out of that habit.
It's usually for fun, but there have definitely been moments when he's mad at me and starts trying to smack me.

His favorite foods are avacados, berries, and scrambled eggs. 
 Neely loves him, and now that he's taken some steps she says he's a kid, not a baby, so he can play with her now.
He has such an awesome personality, and a cute sense of humor. 
 
 He's down to one nap most days, but occasionally he'll take two shorter ones.
 He says mama and dada regularly now.  There was never one time I was COMPLETELY sure he had said mama with purpose.  It just gradually became apparent that he was meaning me.  Makes me a little sad that I don't have a specific memory to write about in his baby book in that spot.  

He said his first official word on Sept. 4th.  He was holding a ball and I asked him "ball?"  He looked down at it, back at me, and said "ba".  Since that day he's said it several times, and has clearly started copying sounds we say to him.  Paige was telling him to say "puppy" one day and he kept saying "Pupupupu".  I don't think that was with any meaning, he was just mimicking the sound she was making.

He's so smart.  You can tell he's always thinking.  He'll play with something for such a long time, turning it around and examining it from different angles.
 He's so active most of the time, but likes me to be near him.  When he is sleepy during the day, and of course at night, I still get plenty of cuddles from him.
 So do the rest of his loved ones.
 Every day at the bus stop he gets so excited to see Paige and Cason coming.  Cason usually runs.  Reed will be looking in that direction, and when he first sees them he stops moving and kind of tenses up.  Then he'll start flapping his arms excitedly and making these cute little shrieks of excitement.  
 
 He loves them, and it's mutual.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Cason Turned Six!

Cason's actual birthday was on Monday after his party.  We got them up a little earlier for school, to have some chocolate cake pancakes for breakfast, and let him open a couple of little presents we'd saved. He was pretty happy about it all, and about being six.

When they got home from school, he and Paige ran up and Paige started excitedly telling me he was the first kindergartener to learn all of his popcorn words.  He was pretty proud.  

It's the goal for the school year in kindergarten, so it's pretty awesome that he had them all down after a week or two of school. 

Jess came home from work with pizza for dinner.  Tyra stopped by too and we got out the cake, sang to him and let him open the last few presents from us, and the ones Tyra brought.  He was pretty excited to have kind of a second birthday party. 
 He's got quite the dragon collection going, but all the Night Furies are of course his favorite.
 
 (Neely and Reed enjoy having them while Cason is at school, too.  Haha!)
 
Cason is still so sweet, and tender-hearted.   Sometimes I worry about him as he grows up, because I know how easily he can have his feelings hurt, and I can't keep protecting him from that.  So far so good though, thankfully he's a likeable fella, and so far everything's been great for him at school.

 He wants everyone around him to be happy at all times.  There's just no way to explain him properly, so I'll just say he's the kindest person I've ever met.  I don't deserve him but I'm so grateful for him and proud of him.  

I can remember so clearly the day I went into labor with him, and holding him for the first time.  Cannot believe this little guy....
..is a six year old!
 

Sunday, August 24, 2014

A Toothless Party

Cason will turn 6 tomorrow!  So crazy.  I've been working on his party for weeks, so for once I wasn't super stressed out the day of his party.  I started preparing almost TOO early, getting us all excited for the party but we still had weeks to wait.  They've had fun with some of the stuff though, like Cason's viking helmet.  :)
He originally wanted a party at the bowling alley, but changed his mind once he found out that at home he could get a bounce house and a pinata!  :)  So I looked up some ideas for the party online, and found a few things that looked fun.  One was a "feed the dragons" game.  I just had Jess buy a big foam board, and asked Cason which three dragons he wanted on it.  He told me Toothless of course, and a Whispering Death and a Monstrous Nightmare.  So I drew them on the board, had Jess cut out the mouths, and then painted it. 
We bought some little rubber fish for the kids to throw in the mouths to "feed" them. 

I worked on the pinata as much as possible on Friday, when Reed was busy playing.  (thought it was going to break apart really easily, but at the party I found out this was, in fact, way too much tape)  I only found a couple Toothless pinatas online, and both were too expensive, so I just made one and it was pretty easy, if not quite as good looking as the ones that inspired it.
The morning of his party was also the morning of opening ceremonies for soccer, and his first game. He was excited, and just like last year he played hard.  He was a little rusty, so no goals but a few close attempts.  :)  He hustled though and I saw him steal the ball from the other team quite a few times.  
After his game we hurried home to do some last minute stuff to get ready for the party.  Neely was SO happy to finally be allowed to get into the party favors.  She put on her party viking helmet and her beloved Ghostie had to have one too.  She was SO excited to see how cute he looked in it.
 The people ended up calling to ask if they could drop off the bounce house early, since they were already out delivering another.  Of course we said that was fine, and the kids were QUITE pleased to have it to themselves even longer than expected.
 Pretty soon people started to arrive.  We kept it fairly small, at least as small as you can with as much family as Cason has.  :)  It was a very nice party.  
I LOVE this picture of Neeliam.
 The "kids" had SO much fun with the bounce house. 
Eventually we got them to take a break for the "feed the dragons" game.
 It didn't go TOO smoothly, since we underestimated the difficulty in telling little people to throw from behind the line, and that they only get a certain number of attempts.  Jess was in charge and didn't have the heart to tell the littlest ones, so they just stood where they pleased and threw as many fish as they wanted.  Jess would make a terrible carnival worker.  Haha.  The winners claimed their prizes and went back to bouncing.

After a while I heard a knock at the door and realized I'd have to break all the kids' hearts and tell them the people were here to take down the bounce house.  There were only a few tears, and thankfully we had the pinata to distract them with.  Jess took down the swings and we hung it from the swingset. 
I always hated when I was little and the first couple kids got to take like a million swings and ended up breaking the pinata so nobody else got to try.  So we ended up limiting them to about three swings.  
The birthday boy went first, and then we went from youngest to oldest(tried to anyway).
 
 
 
 
 
Paige was obviously a big cheater, peeking under the blindfold, but still couldn't break it.
 Colin's attempts were adorable.
Pinatas make me nervous, so Dan held Reed for me so I could hang out near the kids in case a bat went flying.  Ha.
 
 Apparently I made a pretty heavy duty pinata, so the kids all went through the line about three times, and were destroying it very gradually.  I think in the end Paige finally punched a hole in it.
 Neely and Liam had lost interest when it took a long time, so they were a tad late to the candy collecting.  This picture cracks me up-Neely sulking about not getting much, and Liam finding out the problem is.
We did cake next.  We got sandwiches and the cake from the Walmart deli/bakery, and Cason loved the cake.  Paige even got to eat it since it was peanut free.  She is always so happy when she gets to have the same cake as everyone else.
 Of course gifts were next.  
Cason gets pretty shy when he's in the spotlight, but I could tell he loved everything.  
He opens everything pretty slowly and carefully.  Most of the kids lost interest and ran off to play while he opened them.
The party wound down after that.

This morning Reed and I woke up first I thought, and I went out to the living room with him, planning to let Jess sleep in.  Cason was already up though, enjoying some of his new toys.  :)
 He suddenly remembered the dragon egg from the Cassons, that he'd put in water overnight.  He ran to the bathroom to see if it was hatched yet.  It was super soft but not opened up, so he just tore it open.  He was so happy to see he got his favorite.  It was really tiny and REALLY cute.  
We may have to go back for a few eggs with some of his gift money, so some of his other dragons can have babies too.  :)

He had a great party and told us he "loved it so much".  This morning he told me "It miiiiiight have been the best party EVER."  Haha.