No more "baby-baby"!

Congrats to us! Us three have made it through Hunter’s first year of life!! I can’t believe that the time has come for my little baby boy to turn 1 year old.  I admit, it's been a little hard to swallow now that he is turning 1 but I have shed my tears about it and I am ready!   Not that I’m unhappy for the upcoming year of new experiences and seeing him grow, but my newborn baby will not be a “baby-baby” anymore. 

First picture taken with Daddy.

We've seen him grow so much from those little booty socks and newborn diapers to size 5 shoe and size 4 diapers.  We saw him smile for the first time around 2.5 months and it lit up our whole world. Then around 3 months, Daddy got him cracking up with him. He didn't take a pacifier until he was about 4 months old (thank God for that one!) and did not really care for any solid food until he was about 8 months old where he really started eating alot.  He first rolled over at about 4.5 months old from tummy to back and then at around 5.5 months he rolled from tummy to back and then back to tummy.  7.5 months old he was crawling and about a week later he was already pulling up on furniture.  We made our breast feeding journey until 10 months where he decided he wanted to stop when we went on vacation (sniff sniff). This little guy has become me and Sean's whole world and wouldn't have it any other way. He has started walking unassisted about 3-4 steps and has started to stand up on his feet from the floor on his own and  stand there for a little while until he decides to take the few steps or plop back down.

Not only is he into everything but he has learned how to move stuff (aka boxes or anything of that sort) to a location where he wants to climb up to and stand.  For instance, he will push the little step that I use to kneel by the tub for his bathtime over to the toilet, then stand on that in order to climb up onto the toilet lid and then from there he will get to the back of the toilet and even sometimes reach for the sink! Yikes! There is no way that I have time to snap and photo of this because I only turn my head for a second and he’s already up there! Yep, the toddler-ness has officially started. So, the step is gone until we need it for when he can brush his teeth at the sink.

Bye- bye.

I hate even mentioning this but for his 1^st birthday he is going to have a "shiner".  I feel absolutely horrible about it too.  He was walking with his Fisher Price walking toy (which btw, is perfect because the wheels don't roll too fast for him while he's pushing it) and for some reason he missed his footing and nailed his eye brow/head into the coffee table.  Ugh...I hate even talking about it and of course on Tuesday when I went to drop him off at day care I was thinking that they would raise suspicions about the bruise around his eye but nope, they said that when they start to walk that this happens A LOT.  Of course, I think, "Great"....more "shiners" to come.  Anyway, I guess this is something else that I have to look forward to no matter how closely I watch him.  Hopefully, we won't notice too much in his pictures on Saturday.

Bad toy.

Hunter has already has been displaying some tantrum-like behavior these days.  Take a look at one of his rare moments.  He was pushing the chair around in the kitchen and it got stuck on the rug:

Here's a video of him in the first few days of moving in and after getting his room pretty much set up, we put down a new rug for him.  This was right before bedtime and he was just acting so silly:



Either way, Saturday, September 8, we are ready for our little boy to turn 1.  We love you, Hunter so much and hope you have a wonderful day!

This past week...

Now that we are in our new house, I wanted to share with you our disaster of hoarding that has taken place from the past 4 years.  Yes, my husband has a problem. I have been trying to have a homeade intervention for him but I guess I haven’t been very effective to him.  Haha.  Seriously, I really do not know where all of our stuff came from.  Moving is the only way for you to see how much stuff you actually have.  It took us 2 of the largest U-Haul truck loads to get everything here! Then a few of Sean's truck and my car of stuff! We thank everyone that was here to help us. It was a lot!

Moving Day: Our living room.

Hunter loved that the T.V. was on the floor.  This was such a "baby hazard" for me. I snapped a photo and quickly got him away from it. =)

Moving Day: Other side of living room.

Moving Day: Den. Marley was somewhere in here for the rest of the day.  I had to bribe him with the sound of food in his bowl to get him out.  Poor cat.

One tuckered out dog.  Millie was even exhausted from the move.  She hardly moved from her bed for 2 days after.  LOL.

As part of Sean's "intervention", we have decided to have a yard sale/give-a-way at our house in the upcoming weeks so that we can get rid of the stuff.  As of today, the kitchen, Hunter’s room, most of the clothes and bathrooms are all in order.  Everything else is still in a box or shoved some place for the time being until we can free up space to move it to where it goes.  Plus, its so hard to arrange stuff with a 1-year old! Hunter is all over the place and wants to be in everything that we are moving but at least it makes it fun for us but also time consuming.  Nap times is where the progression of unpacking has been made.  Thank goodness that we have a long holiday weekend because we have a lot to do before all of our guests come over for Hunter’s 1^st Birthday party! My little guy is becoming a big boy and I’m so excited for him.  Like I said before, we will have a few friends come over along with Sean’s family.  We are planning to meet my Mom, brother and sister-in-law the weekend after in Myrtle Beach in celebration for his birthday.  Mimi (my mom) has asked me to only bring his bottles/sippy cups and his blanky’s.  She is planning to provide all of his necessities as well as his toys (can we say spoiled?).  Fine by us. It will make our traveling a lot lighter! We are excited to see everyone. 

Also, Hunter has been adjusting very well to his new day care.  The first day that he was there, I called them 3 times and each time they told me that he hasn't been crying, he just ate something, and has been playing with the other kids. They also told me that he was taking a few steps on his own! Other than him not taking his usual 2 naps like he does at home, he was pretty tough with getting him to relax and take one.  This didn't concern me because he did the same thing at his old daycare so I just told him that he is just very stimulated and doesn't want to miss anything.  I gave them a few tips on how to calm him down and he does take about an hour and half long nap now.  At least its something! He is right in between staying with the infants and moving on to the Toddler room depending on when he will be officially walking and they were telling me that when he moves to the Toddler room that he has to sleep on a mat! I was like, good luck with that one! He can't even take a nap in the crib that he has at daycare! This is going to be very interesting when it gets to that point.  I can see at the age of 15 months that I am going to have a Parent-Teacher meeting regarding Hunter and him not sleeping on a mat.  LOL.  Me and Sean just crack up about this one. Who knows, maybe Hunter will surprise us when that times comes.  Oh and Hunter is getting his year old molars in already! Yikes! Poor baby..he's had a few miserable nights this week.  Hopefully, his teeth will all come in at the same time.  =)

P.S. - Just kidding about Sean and the hoarding but yes, he does keep everything!

This has been the longest road ever...

We have finally found out that we can officially close on our house tomorrow. We were originally supposed to close last Friday or wait maybe that was 3 Friday's ago whichever we are FINALLY going to be able to close.  OMG. Our file was stuck in Underwriting and I'm sure lost somehow.  I have to say that this has been pretty stressful taking care of all the surprises that occured along the way but I am proud to say that we overcame the challenges and will soon be homeowners to a new home.  This week we are going to be between two houses.  Sean will be working very hard this week with getting the floors done, getting the rooms painted, moving boxes and basically trying to juggle a schedule with the people helping to finish the house up.  (BTW, thanks, Sean - you're doing such a great job =)) 

In the meantime, I've been switching over all our bills to the new address (we forwarded our mail also), getting the internet, cable, and alarm system set up.  Hunter hasn't officially started his new day care yet which his current day care is super excited to keep him for another week until we get everything officially finished. He will start next Monday ....yes I am super nervous! There is no way that I want to try and have Hunter at our new house this week because there will be paint fumes and wood flooring mess everywhere so we've been hanging at our pretty much emptied current/old house.  No T.V. just Gigglebellies, which I am so over right now so I've been working on Sesame Street or some Disney Movies for Hunter to keep him a little entertained while I pack up the last bit of the house.  So far, they don't even come close as entertainment as the Gigglebellies.  Hunter doesn't even giggle or point at anything else, other than the Gigglebellies.  Hunter is very close to walking but I know one day he will just start doing it.  Right now, he stands by himself (unassisted) and will take two steps and will then fall.  Sean says that he Hunter is waiting to walk when we are in the new house and that he is saving his steps for then.  Haha. We'll see.  He does a lot of mimicking of noises.  For instance, on the way to day care in the mornings while I will start making sounds like "Baaaaaa-boooo-gooo" and he will then come back and say the same sounds.  He's so cute.  Sometimes he will throw and extra sound in there and then I will say it back to him.  Also, Hunter's mealtimes have become quite entertaining lately. Hunter is wanting to use him own spoon and feed himself lately and will get mad if he doesn't have his own spoon to try and gather up food on his highchair chair. He thinks that just by letting the spoon touch food is the same with having it on there.  So, in the meantime while he is trying to feed himself I am trying to find a clearance for me to shove a bite in his mouth without him noticing that he is letting me feed him.  If not, he gets mad.  Haha. Then, if he notices that I am feeding him, he will throw his spoon and then look for his sippy cup and cry - which I do not even allow in his view at all but its the only thing to get him to forget what he is mad about.  Then the process starts back over.  Sometimes its not as bad as other times. Sometimes, I just feed him the whole time while he makes a mess on his tray.  I don't let Hunter have any juice of any sort at all.  Those juices have so much sugar in them that even if I gave Hunter a drop of it, I'm afraid to see what will happen and how much more energy he will have! It's enought to keep up with him now. So right now, unless they make a sugarless juice, none for him.  He does love water though. 

Don't even think about taking my sippy cup or spoon, Mommy!

I learned how to pucker up and give kisses this week! Muah!!!

I can't believe Hunter will be 1 year old next month.  I'm ready to start planning the little bit that I want to do. Nothing huge but I do want it to be special for him for the 4-5ish hours that he can tolerate everything. 


Cheese!



Posing for a picture for my Grandma Foxy with my new toy!

We bought a house!

I am finally proud to say that we have officially opened a new chapter of our lives.  We are now living 46.69 miles north of where we live now which is about an hour away.  We now live in Fort Lauderdale near the beach, downtown and the airport. We are so excited! I'm not sure if we are more excited that we are living in a really neat location or for the space that we needed but either way it's a great feeling.  I am officially signing the closing papers on August 10th.  Saturday we are going to take a look at the house again to get some measurements of the windows and to get a quote on re-doing the floors in the bedrooms. 

Here are the specs on the house:

One story

4 bdrm/2 bath

2,010 sq. feet

Pool

Has room for Sean's boat on the side of the house

Boat launch is in our neighborhood

10 min. from downtown and airport

3 min. from beach

I especially love the neighborhood because all of the street signs are named after the street signs in Key West and they're so cute! When you drive into our neighborhood you instantly feel like you are at the beach.  It also has a neighborhood park where Hunter can play and we can walk to it. 

The inside needs a little work like I said with the flooring in the bedrooms and some updating and painting so I'm going to spare you the inside photos right now.  I will take before and after photos when we get to that point, I'll post them.

We have so much to do before we move but the good news is that we don't have to be out of our house on the 10th.  The buyers of our house have given us some time in the month of August and if we wanted to we could move out at the end of the month. So its not a complete rush which is great so we can slowly move our stuff in and get organized.  We still have to find a day care for Hunter which we are looking into that this week.  Oh and we still have more boxes to pack! Looks like Daddy will be busy for the next few weeks...=)