Present Frenzy

The very last and best part about having a birthday is opening up the many presents that you get from your family.  Our little man just loves to open up gifts and since Christmas I have had to make sure to keep his birthday gifts away from him.  Thankfully today he was finally able to open them all up.

 

This was the first one that he opened and he did it all by himself too.  It was from his grandpa and grandma M.

He got some fisher price little people moon walker with robot and alien too.  He just loves the little people and I know he will be playing a ton with these.  Well once we get them out of the packaging.

He then got two gifts from his aunt ducky aka his AWESOME aunt.  We tried to help him start to open up one but as you can see he wouldn't allow that.  She gave him two bibs and a book too.  We had to read him the book before he would leave it alone and open up more gifts.

Next he open up a gift from daddy.  This one he had to have help with because the wrapping paper wouldn't rip for some reason.  He got a toy pull phone.  I know he is going to love that toy a ton.

Now I had to put this picture in to show you just how funny our dogs are when it comes to wrapping paper.  Hope was so excited about him opening gifts and tossing the paper to the floor that she eventually fell asleep under his high chair after she was done playing with the paper herself.  Faith on the other hand has so much energy that she could play all night with that paper if we let her do so.

Mommy's gift to him was wrapped in the same kind of paper that daddy used so he had to have help again.  Thankfully he didn't mind too much at this point.  From me he got a new suit for church.  I can't wait to have him wear it soon.  He is going to look so stylish.

The last gift that he opened up for his birthday was from aunt K.  It was super sweet of her to send a gift too.  He just loves his stuff animal dog and had to take it to bed with him.  I'm not sure what the doggies name is yet but we will totally think of something cute for him.  Well now I have a one year old and a newborn to arrive in a few more weeks.  Our house may start to get a little crazy but I am so thankful for it.  Happy Birthday to my little man soon to be a big brother!

Birthday Star

I hate cooking when pregnant.  So many smells that I can't stand anymore and to many temptations when it comes to something sweet that I use to love.  I really, REALLY wanted to buy Seth a birthday "smash" cake but we didn't quite have enough money to do that so we I made a cake for him.  Well they were more like fun shaped cup cakes really.  We had gotten two new pan shapes that I wanted to see if they would work or not.  One was a heart, which will probably be used for our little girls first birthday, and the other a star.  It took me over THREE hours to make all of these mini cup cakes.  I'm just glad that I will only have to do this once or twice a year.

 

Thankfully when my sweet hubby got home he made the frosting and covered them.  Good thing too or else they would have no frosting since I was really feeling sick at this point and had to be in a different room for awhile to get away from the smell.

Now I was at least a good mother and decorated the kitchen for my little guys birthday.  I think it is pretty good for the amount of energy I have now a days.  At least he was happy with it as you can see.

He was a really good sport about us lighting up his cake and waiting to get it while we sang, "Happy Birthday," to him.  We tried to get him to blow out the candle because he does know how to do that but he just wasn't up for it tonight.

Here is a closer view of all our hard work.  Such a lovely messy master piece to say the least.

At first he didn't know what to do with the cake which was pretty funny and cute.  He would just keep poking it over and over again with only one finger at a time.

Finally daddy put his hand more into it and that helped him get more comfortable with the idea of being a bit messy.

Once he had squished the cake enough we had to put pieces in his mouth to show him that he could actually eat this.  After that he enjoyed a few more pieces before decided it was more fun to play in then eat.  I guess I should be happy that I have such a health concise boy on my hands.

The lovely aftermath mess of a cake that took me awhile to make.  It was worth it to have him enjoy some special birthday fun time.

Now the best part of birthday cake, the sugar kicking in.  Lucky daddy cause he will be the one to put him to bed tonight.

Balloon Party

Since it was Seth's very first birthday I wanted to do something extra special for him and what is more fun to a kid then playing with some balloons?

 



Okay, maybe a lot of balloons.  We let him pick out a favorite color balloon before we got the rest out for him to enjoy.

He was determined not to lose his special blue balloon when all the others came out of the pack n' play.

Although he had a lot of fun watching daddy pop them up in the air.  It really had his interest for awhile as I'm sure he was trying to figure out how to do that himself.

So many balloons and only one day to play with them all.  I'm sure he was thinking which balloon would be his next favorite toy to play with.

Even though it was just our family we still had a lot of fun enjoying the balloons together and watching Seth attack each and every one of them.

12 Months Old!

Yeah for him waking up happy on his first birthday!  It made it so much easier to get pictures of him.  Here he is in the very last special outfit that I made for him when he was born. I think he has really changed in this last month.  He picks on Faith a ton!  I don't know why she allows it but it's probably because he is her best friend.  Seth has already started to drink whole milk and he loves it.  Sometimes he wants more then what will fit in the bottle.  He has also started to develop a taste for certain foods too.  He loves daddy's special hot dogs and gobbles those up.  He almost said his first word on Christmas morning and has gotten close with a few other words as well so I'm sure that it won't be long before he is talking up a storm.  Seth has also enjoyed going on walks to the mailbox and back.  This has been super nice for me since I am not really allowed to lift him up anymore (he hit my pick up weight limit).  Other then running around crazy and getting some bumps and scraps that a kid normally gets when they can't slow down he is doing great.

 

Finally I had to include this picture.  I told him it was his birthday today and for some reason he was shocked about that. 

3:18 A.M.

My little man was born so early in the morning which I really don't mind.  More happy that he had finally made an appearance and joined our family.

 

This was the very first picture that we got of him at that time.  He looks so small to me now in this picture and when he was born I was thinking he was pretty big.  Well he is finally a one year old and I decided that I wanted to do something special.

I took this picture one year to the date and time that he was born.  Thankfully here he is sleeping and stayed asleep with my flashing camera too.  I still can't believe that I now have a one year old son.  It makes us both so happy because we really believed that we were never going to be able to have children of our own for awhile and then he came along.  He is such a large joy to our family and I am so grateful for him every day too.

Ultra Joy!

36 Weeks and 5 Days

SHE TURNED DOWN!!!  SHE TURNED DOWN!!!  I know words are really not good enough to express my joy about this.  I just now pray that she stays down and we don't have any more issues with this turning business.

This was a pretty big and scary appointment for me at first but once I heard that she was head down I totally relaxed.  Probably a good thing so that when they took my blood pressure it wouldn't be super high.  With my ultra sound she did take her time in warming up to the tech. person but at least she passed that test.  My non stress test she passed pretty quickly but I was still stuck on the machine for 55 minutes.  It was so long because we had to wait for a doctor to look over the results to see if I could really come off of the machine or not.  Then when I did get to meet with the doctor it wasn't my normal one, since she is on vacation right now, so that did make me nervous.  Thankfully once I meet him I thought he was great.  So yeah, I have found another doctor that I like and am comfortable with (really big deal for me).  So with this good news of her being head down she just has to stay that way and we'll be fine.  OH!  Another nice blessing is the fluid around her is back to normal too.  Yeah!

Christmas Eve Into Day

The last couple Christmas traditions we have are done at home.  Which is great because it is really too cold to be outside doing anything anymore.

 

We start our night off with watching the nativity and then reading it in the scriptures.  Seth did a lot better job listening to us read then watching it on the television.  Once everyone, or at least the little ones, are in pajamas we open up one gift.  However, this year was an exception since it was Seth's first Christmas and he had gotten something special from both of his grandparents.

He really likes opening up gifts and has got the hang of it down already.  All we had to do was rip open a corner and he would do the rest himself.  He kind of surprised us that he was actually more interested in what the gift was then the wrapping paper or box like you would see most kids do.  I guess that just shows he knows where the good stuff is at.

Seth's Christmas Eve gifts from his grandparents was a baby's first year ornaments.  I love how he has one from each of his grandparents.  Sorry you can't see the other ornament but he wouldn't let go of the box or even let us turn it around so you could see it either.

For some reason I could not get any sleep on Christmas Eve and I tried really hard.  Santa came to our house pretty early and was nice enough to have out television set to the songs of the season channel that also displays a nice fire.  It was a nice touch to have in our home since we couldn't be with any family this year, again.

Seth was a great boy and slept in kind of late so we had a nice relaxing morning.  When he did wake up we all had some breakfast first and then went to see what Santa had left us.  Seth got some pretty special toys.  This spot center was the first thing that he tried to figure out.  We tried to show him to put the ball in the hoop but he didn't want to let go of it.

The next thing he found that Santa had left him was this learning table center.  It has so many buttons for him to push and makes lots of different sounds that he was pretty content here so mommy and daddy opened up our gifts while he played.

As the morning progressed we would let Seth open up his presents at his pace and if he wanted to play with something we would let him until he was ready to open up more.  As you can see this kid got major spoiled this year.  He got a sports center, 10 books, socks, a wood car that his daddy made, a plastic red car, a firehouse with rolling toy car, 4 soft stacking blocks, some car keys, a shape ball (I LOVE THAT TOY!!!), three outfits in the next size we need for him, a toy bus with three people that go inside it and 6 little Noah's arch animals too.  I told Michael that we may have to leave a note for Santa next year that tells him he can pass over our house because he was so giving this year but I'm sure Seth wouldn't go for that or his sister either.

Santa's Deer

One of my most favorite family traditions we have for Christmas time is seeing Santa's reindeer, Prancer and Dancer.  Michael and I have done this every year since we moved here and I wasn't going to let this tradition go for anything.  Michael has a super big project at work that he is trying to get done before the baby is born so he won't have to stress about it and leave me before I'm ready so he has been working weekends.  Well I told him one weekend he was going to have to go in late because we were doing this together as a family.  I also really wanted to see how Seth would react to such large animals close up too.

 

For the start we let him look from a distance.  I think he was a little surprised at how they are bigger then his two dogs.  He was pretty content to just watch them walk around in the pin.

After a little while we took him to a closer spot so he could see them better.

I just love this picture.  Even though I'm short I was able to get on my tippy toes and have the camera up over the bars so you could see the deer.

Okay, my son is too good looking for his own good, probably.  While we were there this stranger came up and gave Seth some reindeer food to make the deer come closer to him.  At first the animal didn't want to but then the guy that owns the deer made some kind of noise and it came over right away and went to Seth.  He was pretty excited about that.  Now since he is still little, and I want him to keep all of his fingers, daddy was the one who feed the reindeer this time.  Maybe next year we will let Seth do it while his sister watches.

When it was time to go Seth wasn't quite ready so we let him watch the deer a little longer.  I'm glad that he had a good time and that I am raising such a good animal lover too.

Snow?

Since I am getting close to the end of my pregnancy I am starting to have a really hard time getting the motivation to do things with my adorable son.  One day we had a little snow fall but it all melted before Michael got home from work so we couldn't go out together as a family and play in it.  Thankfully though we had just one more day later on this month that we got some snow.  Of course though it was too dark and cold to take Seth outside to discover it so I had to pray really hard that it would still be around the next morning.

 

Thankfully it was...well sort of.  All of the snow had turned to ice so you couldn't pick it up or shape it into a ball or anything.  None of us were even leaving footprints in the stuff.  Seth although had a great time discovering the white stuff.

It was kind of funny but our lawn had no snow on it but the driveway was still covered with it so that is where I let him play for a few minutes.  Oh something else that is kind of funny about this little guy is he is starting to discover shadows and loves to try and play with them.  Super cute!

Across the street from us a neighbor had more snow on their sidewalk so we took Seth over their to play.  It was fun to watch him slip and slide all over the place but he did great for staying up.

I just hope now we will be able to take him someplace with lots of snow when he is older so we can go sledding and build some cute snowman's too.  I also have to add that our resident husky was pretty disappointed with the lack of snow too so of course she will have to come along on the sledding adventure.

Ultra Disappointed

 These last three appointments I have just been wanting to cry and cry because of some news I got.  It really makes me think that this little girl must hate me already or just really loves to be the boss right now and stress me out.

 

35 Weeks and 2 Days

Well to start, only a few days after this girl had turned head down she went right back to her comfy spot and was breached all over again.  When I heard that news I had a hard time listening to everything else they were telling me which isn't a good idea when you are seeing a specialist.  She is doing fine in all other regards so that is a blessing that I am thankful for.  The one scary part was when my doctor told me that I was going to need to schedule to have her turned within my 36 week mark.

35 Weeks and 5 Days

Another difficult and disappointing appointment for me.  This little girl is still breached and being very stubborn about it.  The ultra sound that was done was pretty quick but we couldn't get any picture of her because she was completely hiding her face.  Maybe she was having a bad day too.  Her movements had started to slow down the day before so I'm hoping that she was just tired or something.  She did clear her ultra sound test so I'm sure if something was wrong their they would have said something. 

My non stress test was quite interesting too.  This was the very first time that Michael has been able to go with me so I'm sure seeing what they do made a lot more sense then me just telling him about it.  For this test baby didn't want to do anything that they needed her to do.  She wasn't moving enough and her heart beat was kind of low so they used this black tool thing to shock my tummy to make her move and her heart beat go up.  Yeah, the first time it didn't work so they had to do it again.  The first time I jumped because I didn't know what to expect but the second time I was okay when they did that to me.

Finally when we got to see my doctor we had a very long talk with her.  She told me about our options to turn the baby around.  There was one thing that I could try at home and see if that worked or not for me or that she could turn the baby from the outside.  She explained the procedure very well and let me ask all the questions that I wanted.  She told me everything that could go wrong and that would require an emergency C-section.  She also let me know that if it didn't work I would have to be scheduled for a C-section.  At this point I wanted to cry but was good and held it in. 

I know for some people this doesn't seem like a big deal at all but let me tell you something about myself.  I have to get shots in my stomach three times a day.  I HATE needles (especially when they are coming at me to hurt me)!  So even the thought of someone cutting me open beyond horrifies me and makes me sick.  I have heard a lot of people say you do whatever you have to, to get the baby here but I feel like that just totally disregards my feelings in the matter.  Yes, I know I would have no choice but that doesn't make it any less scary for me.  One good thing is I thankfully have a husband that just listens and lets me cry on his shoulder when I need too.

36 Weeks and 2 Days

Well this appointment we at least got a picture of her.  She is looking strait at us while resting on her right arm.  She is still breached and not wanting to leave that spot.  One good news to me which my doctor wasn't happy to hear about is I have some extra fluid around her again.  It is good for me because it gives her more space to try and turn head down.  Not good for my doctor because he likes me to be in the perfect range all of the time.  My specialist doctor also wasn't happy to hear that the other doctor I see is going to wait until I am farther along to turn her around.  He told me some more facts about what it means to baby to wait that long and how they should be doing it now.  Although that can't happen since my other doctor just started her vacation.  Lucky me I know.  Now to just keep praying that she will turn around before my next appointment.

The Nativity, Shared With Everyone

One of my favorite traditions, or at least it is becoming a favorite tradition, is to attend our stakes nativity display night.  I LOVE looking at everyone's nativities that they bring.  They are all so different but each of them are special and share the same wonderful message of our Lord and Savior being born.  I was super excited to share this new tradition with our little man.

 

He wasn't sure what to think of it at first but he did great a just looking and not grabbing at the nativities.

Each year I find some that I really like and just have to get a picture of them.  I took a picture of this one because I thought maybe Michael will be able to figure out how to make this for our kids so they can have a nativity of their own to play with while we read the story to them.

With being pregnant again for Christmas this year I haven't had a lot of energy.  Also with having an adorable son that is under one and likes to get into things I decided not to put our nativity out since I didn't want him to brake it (we only have one) and I couldn't find a place high enough to display it either.  Because it couldn't be on display in our home I took it to the stake event and put it up their for everyone to enjoy.  It made me feel really good to be able to actually take part in it this year.

Finally I found this really cool way to display a small nativity that I love.  You put lights under an upside down glass bowl.  Who ever thought of this was BRILLIANT!  I am hoping to try it out myself one year.  Other then just looking at the nativities we enjoyed some art that displayed the Saviors birth, life and death.  We also listen to a great Christmas musical performance before we left.  I do with they did this for more then just one night but I guess it gives me something to look forward to again next year.

Blue Racer

Sometimes you just need a few minutes of pure fun and what is more fun then racing down in a special shopping cart in some store?

 

Seth was more then over joyed to be in a shopping cart that allowed him to face forward and actually see where we were going.

To me he looks a little small to be driving already but he is actually a really good driver, with mommy helping him of course.

He did enjoy playing with the steering wheel.  Well, once he figured out that he could.  Took a few minutes for him to get comfortable with it being there.  Thankfully when it was time for us to go he did really well with leaving his car behind.  I know that won't last forever but I'm enjoying it while I can.