So Over Purees

I knew this day would finally come, but it has now come and gone for a few weeks so I know that there is no turning back: Nathan is SOOO over purees!

Now that I'm finally expanding my menu of finger foods that I can whip out quickly for snacks and meals, I'm pretty excited about this new phase!  Its nice to be able to eat with Nathan and actually be able to eat myself!  The only spoon-needed holdout that I'm still serving is yogurt.  Yesterday I tried giving it to Nathan in a bowl suctioned to his tray, and he did ok feeding it to himself with a spoon.  The spoon was upside down the whole time, but he would stir it around in the yogurt and get a little bit on the end and then straight to his mouth!  I know he's got to learn sometime how to get food onto the spoon, so we might as well start now!

Nathan is also becoming much more proficient with his fork.  When Brian or I put food on his fork for him, he always gets it in his mouth.  There have been a few times where he's actually been able to stab food with the fork by himself!  Sounds like he's ready for a knife now (just kidding!).

So some of his favorite foods these days are avocado, peas, homemade mini banana muffins (I have to tear these into pieces because he likes to shove the whole thing in his mouth!), mini salmon cakes, blueberries, raisins, cheerios and any type of pasta (the current choices I have in the freezer are pasta with tomato sauce or with cheese and carrot sauce). 

I still am feeding Nathan a different menu than Brian and I are eating, but soon I'm planning on changing that as well.  The only thing that I'm worried about it the salt factor.  I don't feel like I heavily salt our food, but I definitely add salt to taste.  Maybe I'll just start having Brian and I add salt at the table to our portions or something.   I'm sure I'll figure it out!

A Surprise Birthday Present!

Actually, two surprise birthday presents... both of Nathan's upper lateral incisors have broken through the gums and Nathan now has 5 teeth!  He still only has one lower tooth, so maybe we'll have a few more coming in soon!

UPDATE:  "Soon" has come way more quickly then expected.  Nathan has also cut his second bottom central incisor (its a rare day that he lets us see his bottom teeth, allowing it to fly in under the radar!)  Make that 6 teeth for our little boy!

First Birthday Weekend, Part 2

Here we go, to wrap up the birthday weekend pictures (I still need to go through the MANY minutes of videos Brian took of the weekend... it may be a while before I share any highlights if I ever get around to it at all.)

Thank goodness for all the help I had in the kitchen and around the house on Saturday afternoon. I left more of the party prep for the last day then I had planned on, but the whole family eagerly jumped in to help wherever they were needed. While the grandfathers entertained Nathan out in the back yard, the ladies were in the kitchen decorating cupcakes and prepping all the other party food.

And the party decorations...

Nathan got his own number 1 cake.  I thought it turned out cute!

Since we had planned on leaving the gate to the sunporch open in case people wanted to spread out to eat, Nana was helping Nathan learn how to go up and down the step.  Nathan made some progress, but still was mainly trying to go down the step face first.  The coming up part went a little better.

Nathan's adorable 1st birthday shirt that Kiera made for him!

And then the celebration began!!  I tried to balance getting pictures of the evening with just enjoying the party, so I ended up with fewer group pictures then I thought.  Here are most of our friends who were able to celebrate with us!

Nathan wasn't into grabbing handfulls of his first birthday cake.  In fact, he was more interested in poking at it then eating it.

Playing with Aunt Karen was also more fun then eating cake!

But he finally got cake and icing on his face (and on his eyelashes!)

Nathan's first birthday weekend ended up being fantastic! Thanks to everyone who helped it be extra special! Thanks for all the great presents and help with food and everything else! What great memories we Brian and I will have of Nathan's first birthday celebration!

First Birthday Weekend, Part 1

So I'm finally recovering from this past weekend.  It was wonderful!!  But it was also a little more exhausting then I anticipated, mostly due to the pressure I put on myself because I want everything to go smoothly.  Which it did, thanks to all the help from all my wonderful family!  So, to recap...

Aunt Karen was the first to arrive early on Friday afternoon.  Nathan and I had a blast hanging out with her, and she also helped us run some errands that I had been putting off, but needed to be taken care of.  Nathan was so happy to have Aunt Karen holding him rather that being stuck in his stroller while we cruised the mall!

David and Carroll arrived after Nathan was asleep on Friday night, and then my parents got into town even later, going straight to the hotel and to bed.

Saturday everyone convened at the house after breakfast, and we got right down to visiting.  Nathan did great adjusting to so many "new" people in such a short time, and he was willing and eager to be entertained by anyone for most of the weekend.  I was especially glad to see him warm up quickly to his Papaw, who he's been a little hesitant around during previous visits.

I will say that one small bummer for the weekend is that I have not yet replaced my broken camera lens.  The one I used all weekend is great for taking individual and small group shots, but it doesn't have a wide enough angle of view to get good group shots.  But here we are all eating lunch, the only group shot that I got of the family!

 

We interspersed the opening of presents throughout the afternoon and evening.   First up with Gran and Papaw's gift.  We were all amazed at how long Nathan played with his blue bowl helmet...

 ...then he and Princess both enjoyed inspecting the gift wrapping.

Later in the afternoon we did gifts from the rest of the family.  Nathan really enjoyed pushing around his music maker (although we could tell it was almost naptime when he started getting angry when people/objects impeded his progress rolling around the room !)

Nathan and Oreo then had fun playing peek-a-boo with the big box that Karen gave him for his birthday!

Nathan was a big help to Granddad and Gran as they put together his new dump truck!

"Umm, Granddad? I think the screw goes here!" (I had to take this one at an angle to get Gran in because I couldn't back up far enough otherwise!)

Nathan LOVES his dumptruck.  It drives like a dream!

More to come as I continue to sort through the remaining pictures!

Up in the Sky! Is it a Bird? A Plane? No! Its...

the Ceiling Fan!

We have a new challenge to contend with for Nathan's attention during mealtimes: the ceiling fan and/or light fixture.  I haven't figured out why he's pointing at it.  It could be "Look Mom! The lights are so bright!" or "Mom! The ceiling fan isn't turning anymore - why?!?" or I guess it could be "Mom! I really need to do some stretching right now!".  What Nathan's truly thinking is anyone's guess!

Buttons, Knobs and Switches, Oh My!

Buttons

 Nathan loves to push buttons!  He LOVES it when I hand him my kitchen timer, because with every button he pushes, he is rewarded with a cool beeping sound.  He turns it this way and that, fingers sliding around the beeping keypad - minutes of fun to be had!

Nathan also has developed a fascination with the red release button in his carseat.  In previous months, as soon as Mom or Dad would open his door, he would begin arching his back and doing everything in his power to launch himself out of the carseat.  That has now all changed.  We'll unbuckle his harness, then we have to wait for him to examine the red button, try to push the red button, consider the deeper meaning of the red button, before FINALLY he is ready to be taken out of his car seat.

As we are slowly working to arrange furniture and whatnot in the playroom, lately we set up a stereo in the bottom of the TV cabinet.  I was excited to listen to some music while Nathan and I were playing downstairs, so I turned it on and tuned into my favorite radio station.  I didn't even get to enjoy it for 5 minutes before our son had scooted over and started pushing random buttons.  For the most part these buttons don't make noise (unless you're changing the radio station) but they do light up and/or flash when pushed, so he loves that as well!

Knobs

I think Nathan thinks knobs are buttons that he hasn't figured out yet.  He'll stand at the upstairs TV cabinet and push the knobs on the front.  Nothing happens, of course, but Nathan can be persistent!

Related to knobs are the door and drawer pulls in the kitchen, bathroom and on other furniture around the house.  Although the kitchen drawers are too hard for Nathan to pull out on his own, he loves to open and close the cabinets and drawers in the bathroom, the laundry chute (which also makes a great loud noise when you bang on it), and the drawers in my desk.  The drawer pulls in our master bedroom don't pull easily, but they have a portion that hangs down that's fun to play with as well.

Switches

Light switches.  Nathan thinks they were invented just to entertain him.  He loves for Brian or me to pick him up and walk around the house turning light switches on and off.  We haven't taught him yet how to do the ones in our bathroom (which are turned 90 degrees from normal switches) and he doesn't yet have the strength in his hands to push in the switches on the vent fan in the kitchen, but its only a matter of time!

No More Booboos, Please!

Brian took this super cute picture of Nathan and me the other day.  Adorable!

Last week I accidentally scratched Nathan's face (above the right corner of his mouth, you can still kind of see it in the picture).  I was sitting on the floor with my legs straight out in front of me and Nathan was trying to climb over them.  He was doing a good job, but then abruptly toppled over and was about to face-plant on the kitchen floor.  My hands shot out to try and catch him. I didn't.  And I scratched Nathan's face in the process, drawing a little blood.  Way to add insult to injury, Mom!  Needless to say, Nathan cried after that double whammy. 

The scratch now has healed and I thought to myself today "I hope that nothing happens this week to Nathan's face, I want him to look good for pictures this weekend."  But while playing at the park, Nathan took a lightning-fast nose dive off the first step of the playground equipment into the mulch.  Mulch all over his face and in his hair, and some nice scratches on his forehead.  Perfect!  But the scratches aren't too bad and should look OK by the weekend.  And yes, he cried again and had a hard time shaking it off, though the fall wasn't very far and I knew he didn't seriously hurt himself.  Thankfully I gave him some raisins that I found in his carseat (just one day old) and everything was right with the world again!

Nathan's Drawer

I had been planning on doing this for a while, but last week the perfect opportunity presented itself.  I knew that having a dedicated drawer or cabinet in the kitchen for Nathan's kitchen playthings would be a huge blessing to keep him occupied while I worked in the kitchen.  One day I accidentally left one of the drawers open (the second from the bottom) and Nathan crawled over and pulled himself up.  The drawer held the plastic baggies, aluminum foil, etc, so there was nothing dangerous, but plenty of items for Nathan to pull out and make a mess with.  I quickly made sure that the drawer would support Nathan pulling up on it, and it would when pulled about half way out.  So I stopped what I was working on and assembled a variety of kitchen items for Nathan and replaced the drawer contents.  Now whenever I'm doing work in the kitchen, I open Nathan's drawer and he scoots over, pulls up and digs through to find something fun to play with!  Both Mommy and Nathan are happy!

Learning Little Bits

Nathan keeps us guessing with what his next new accomplishment will be.  We've been trying to get him to wave "bye-bye" for months now (with the open and close your hand kind of wave) and out of the blue on Sunday, he started doing a whole-hand wave!  Now waving is one of his favorite things to do (along with clapping).

Sunday afternoon, Brian was at the hospital doing preops, so Nathan and I were hanging around the house together.  He kept opening and closing his mouth for some reason, and it made me think of a fish.  So I seized the moment and exclaimed, "Nathan, that's what a fish says!", then opened and closed my mouth a couple of times to demonstrate what I meant.  After I demonstrated a few times, Nathan "got" it, and that night we eagerly performed our new skill for Daddy!



I already posted about going to the children's museum on Monday, but what I didn't mention is that G really enjoyed climbing up and down this little staircase at the museum.  While I tried to encourage Nathan to climb up at least one stair, he wasn't going for it.  But that afternoon I took him to the park and showed him how to climb up the playground equipment, which had nice wide steps.  This time Nathan caught on pretty quickly, although he still needed me to give him a little extra push as he brought his second leg up to make sure he didn't fall backwards.

During the day on Monday, I was working at the computer while Nathan was playing on the floor and looked over to see him climb up and sit on the hearth.  He was SO proud of himself, as you can see in the picture!  Although I was pretty worried that he would fall backwards and bust his head, thankfully that didn't happen (this time)!

The other skill that I've been trying to work with him on is blowing, so that he could possibly blow out a candle on his birthday cake.  I haven't been having any luck yet, but we still have a few more days to go until the party!

Our Buddy's Birthday

On Monday, Nathan and I got together with our friends G and C to celebrate G's first birthday!  We began the fun by meeting up at a local bakery and C treated everyone to yummy treats.  We got white on white cake squares for the boys, coffee and treats for us moms, then took all our goodies outside to enjoy.  The boys got down to business eating cake in their strollers. 

What is this amazing stuff?

Nathan can't shove it in fast enough!

As you can tell, G enjoyed his birthday cake!

Time for a drink after such a yummy treat!

I just gave Nathan cake, not the icing, which I realized helps with that cute messy-cake-face look.  But I'll know for his birthday party pictures!  I figured the cake itself would be more then enough sugar for Nathan since he's not used to eating such decadent goodness, especially first thing in the morning!  

After finishing our treats, we were off the the children's museum.  Nathan and I had never been, so I was super excited to see what the museum had to offer.  The boys had a great time and so did the moms!  I can definitely see buying a membership for us after Nathan starts walking.  

Oh, the bad news of the day was that I broke both (yes BOTH) of my camera lenses while at the museum, hence no pictures.  Brian, my hero, fixed my favorite lens (for the second time - sheesh, I really need to be more careful with my camera, expensive electronics and small children don't seem to mix well), and the other less used lens is waiting for him to have a little more free time. 

But other then that bummer, we had a really nice day!

Rear Differentials and Playtime

This past weekend, Nana and Granddad came to visit! While Brian and Granddad worked on replacing the rear differential in Brian's truck (to change the gear ratio for better acceleration - are you impressed with my car knowledge? I actually know vaguely what this all means!), Nana, Nathan and I spent a lot of time playing together. We had a great visit, as usual, and are looking forward to seeing them again in two weeks for Nathan's birthday party. Can you believe Nathan's almost a year old? Incredible!

Two Days at the Park

Nathan and I have had lots of fun at the park during our last two visits!  A week ago Friday, Nathan and I hit the park while we were waiting for Brian to get off of work and start vacation.  I took this first picture of him on the swing, which I have to say, is much more difficult with a DSLR than with a regular point and shoot camera (unless there's something I'm missing - maybe I should google it to make sure), but I was able to get this good shot.

Nathan is so much more excited about swinging these days!  He giggles and kicks his legs and just has a wonderful time!

Then we headed over to the playground equipment, not sure that we would find anything interesting for Nathan to do.  Boy was I wrong!  Nathan had a blast standing up and sitting down at the bars, making sure to keep tabs on all the passing traffic.  He was very interested in watching all the cars that drove by, periodically pointing to them to make sure I didn't miss the excitement (it's looking like he may have inherited the Kornrumpf car loving gene!)

 

Nathan and I headed back to the playground this afternoon, again loving the swing and watching cars from the playground equipment. Then we tried the slide again...

OK, I have to go off on a sidebar story here, because its a funny memory that I never posted.  A few months ago, Brian, Nathan and I went to this park for some family fun time.  Brian and I took turns pushing Nathan on the swings while the other swung next to him.  Then we headed over to the playground equipment, where we "helped" Nathan slide down the little slide.  Nathan didn't get the concept of sliding and was trying to stop himself using his feet.  So I got the great idea of going down the slide with him.  But I wasn't content to go down the little slide, oh no, I wanted to go down the big slide with Nathan!  The big slide was one of those covered slides, and when I sat down at the top, I realized that I was too tall to sit up while sliding down.  No matter, I grabbed on to Nathan, lied down and off we went!  On the way down, I remember thinking "We're going much faster then I expected!"  Then we got to the bottom, and I SHOT out of the slide.  Not able to get my feet under me fast enough, and with my arms still securely holding Nathan to me, I landed SMACK on my back and bottom and REALLY knocked the wind out of myself (I may have said a bad word too).  Brian ran over and took Nathan from me, then helped me brush all the mulch off my back side.  Nathan was fine, but my back hurt pretty badly.  We called it a day after that, and I learned not to underestimate children's playground equipment.

Back to today.  After learning my lesson, I slid with Nathan down one of the little slides.  At the bottom, he had a big smile on his face.  I slid down once more with him and then let him try on his own (with me supporting him, of course).  He had a huge grin on his face at the bottom!  He slid down quite a few more times, until my arms started to hurt too much.

Then I sat him down at the bottom of the slide, and he played in the mulch for a good 15 to 20 minutes.  He would inspect the mulch to find the specific pieces of wood he wanted, then would hold them up for my approval, or hand them to me, or put them on my feet or on the bottom of the slide.  He started to accumulate quite a collection of wood pieces on the slide and I was reminded how both Brian (growing up) and my mom (currently) are big rock collectors.  Nathan may also be genetically doomed predisposed to collecting nature like his dad and Gran. We ended up staying at the park for almost an hour and a great time was had by all!

Cruising with Papaw and Gran

Gran and Papaw came by our house for a quick visit last weekend on their way up to DC.  We spent a lot of the evening in our newly renovated playroom in the basement.  Nathan wowed the family with his super-fast scooting-crawl and enthusiastic playing with his toys.  We also let Nathan have a go at walking with his little car toy and (as you can tell from his face in the following pictures), he was having a blast!  The car wasn't as stable as we would have liked, but nothing that a pair of 10lb dumbbells couldn't fix (at least I finally found a use for them!).  

The Toy Graveyard

As evidenced by Nathan's love of (trying) to throw his food or sippy cup off his high chair tray, he's very interested in the effects of gravity these days.  I know its a learning stage that all kids go through. In fact, he has a little friend two weeks older then him (we'll call him G), and G's family calls him "Isaac" (as in Newton) when G drops things on the floor.  We met G and his mom, C, through the medical resident's spouse's association.

Right now, Nathan's favorite place to drop toys is off the step down to the sunporch.  He sticks the toy under the baby gate, gazes at it for a moment, then drops it.  His arms aren't long enough to pick it back up, so then he must go in search of another toy.  The picture shows a morning's worth of dropped toys, so if I don't pick up the toys a few times a day, Nathan quickly runs out of toys to play with!

Dare Me to Do It?

"Dare me to do it?"  That's what I think Nathan's thinking when he starts doing this at meal times...

We are working on teaching him that its not ok to throw his cup and/or food when he's eating.  He doesn't always listen as well as he does in the video (he also doesn't try to test me as many times either - maybe he was performing for the camera?).  But it is working, we have much less throwing then we did a few weeks ago... though I desperately need to wash the wall near where Nathan usually sits!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I thought it would be fun to remember the old header collages from months gone by.  I know that some of these pictures are repeats from the slide show on the side of the blog, but oh well.  Thinking ahead to this post, I finally got smart when I made this month's header I put the date on it!  Enjoy these old pictures!

Here's what we started off with sometime in January...

Towards the end of March I finally got around to a new header...

April

Mid-April

May

June

July

August

September