Our Little Junebug

June has flown by. I can't believe it will be July by the end of this week! I'm trying to not have the "mental countdown" going until school starts, like last year (I cried every single day at the thought of leaving Reid in just a few weeks), but to be greatly thankful for the time off that I can spend with him. Here are some of the things we have done so far this summer.

"Pleeeease, Mom...can we go to Italy?" Reid loves to fling magazines off of the coffee table. I have had to rethink my childproofing and put LOTS of things away for now, but I don't want him to think everything is off limits, so he gets by with that...



"What?? I need a haircut? And Daddy's gonna do it??" (and please note the onesy 'Hello, I'm Mr. Adorable'...couldn't pass that one up at Target last year!)



Oh, and Mommy's favorite (do you sense the sarcasm?)... Throwing food! Of all things, he managed to get a hold of an entire container of prunes, which ended up all over the floor, the tile, the fridge...you get the picture. Senor El Pruno:


And his mess! (No the carpet did not clean up well. Looks like our first casualty ala baby.)


Sporting the new haircut


And who could forget about all the cat terrorization? Reid is becoming a master of annoying Dixie. She just stands her ground and hisses (thank goodness for declawing!) Jason discovered that Reid has been saying their names (and we're not sure how long he's done this because Dixie is "Di" or "Dix" and Samson is "Sa" or "Sas") Here's what Samson does...and we're pretty sure he actually enjoys the torture.



And his newest trick? He can't walk yet, but he taught himself how to do the stairs! I showed him (one time) how to put his leg up onto the next step, and he was off! I couldn't believe how fast he went the very first day--tried to film it, but it was hard to do one handed so I had to wait for a day where Jason was home. I have tried to upload it for three days, but it won't :(

The Evolution of Crawling

So I was totally and completely worried that my son seemed to be the only 10 month old around who wasn't crawling. I probably wouldn't have worried too much, but at Reid's 9 month well check, our normally very laid back doctor informed me that if he wasn't crawling by 10 months, I needed to call and get the number for ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). Of course the teacher in me panicked once 10 months rolled around. I actually called about a week before he hit ten months, and it took an entire month after that for them to come out for an evaluation (my only complaint about them at all--the ECI program and people have been absolutely wonderful!!!). He did show a gross motor delay at that time, so he qualified. They come twice a month to "play" (at least that's what Reid thinks we're doing) and the best part is that it's at our house so that he's in his own familiar, comfy environment. Here's how the "crawling" started off, back at 10 months. I called it his "funky" crawl.



And then it progressed to this a few weeks later...




And became the "inchworm" about a week after that.




And finally, voila! Army crawling.



A few weeks later, the traditional crawl! At first, he would only crawl traditionally if he were going a short distance and he'd army crawl everywhere else. Now, he traditionally crawls everywhere unless he's on tile/wood floors (army crawling is still much faster sometimes, he's realized) or is really tired. And just as of this week, he can put it into "hypercrawl" mode if he's feeling pretty spunky, such as when he's chasing one of the poor kitties or being chased by Mommy or Daddy. So fun! Haven't gotten that on video just yet. And looking back...yes, I am thankful he wasn't mobile until later. He is now into EVERYthing!!

Reid's First Birthday Party

Still not sure where his first year went, but I have been busy planning this little guy's first birthday party for a week. All the cutesy "party packages" were very tempting, but being that he won't remember any of this later on, I decided to invest in the trusty ol' dollar store for decorations. Turns out that I should have gotten the balloons there, too, instead of going to the ghetto Kroger in Conroe (took a good 30 minutes and the balloons were deflated the next morning even though they were a dollar a piece!). But who can have a kids' birthday party without balloons? I was happy Reid enjoyed them so much...

The birthday boy's throne:

I couldn't scrimp on the cake... It HAD to be Randalls :) I was slightly disappointed that they had no white cakes with the yummy, crusty white icing, so Papa French lucked out with his fave--chocolate with white icing. It was delicious, though!

The birthday boy and Mommy

Our little family

Adding the final touch (a birthday bib) before chow down time...

3...2...1... Ick!! Reid didn't enjoy his cake at all! He whined when he realized it was sticky and stuck to him...


...so I tried spoon feeding it to him, thinking that would be more enjoyable. But apparently he doesn't have a sweet tooth (yet, anyways!). Still not a fan of cake.


Cousins Alex and Ben were so cute and thoroughly enjoyed the "Happy Birthday" song as they waited very patiently for cake.


The whole crew. It was fun! Hopefully, next year he will enjoy it a little bit more :)

1 Year Old!!!

So our little guy is one year old as of Friday!!! I had quite a shock when I opened up my weekly Babycenter email and it said, "Your toddler, week 1" instead of "your baby..." like always. Eek!




He's grown up soooo fast, and I feel soooo guilty about having to work and missing out on so much his first year. It's crazy to think back to June 3, 2010 at 3am, when it all began! I missed the last day of school, so the very end of this year was kind of surreal. Here's a look back in pictures... (and I couldn't resist this first one since it says how his first b-day went! Hopefully his little party will be better) I tried to get them all lying down, but it got increasingly harder as he became more mobile. That's why some of them aren't the best ;) From about 7 months on, I also got one of him sitting up, but you can't really compare the leg length as well that way.

Not a single day goes by (and they go so quickly!!) where Jason and I don't count our blessings. Reid has not been the easiest baby on the planet, by far, but we wouldn't change it for the world! We love our little gift from God :)