Cabin Fever

We've had a whole lot of sickness going on around here. It started with Miles, then went to Charlie, then me and finally Max. But for some reason, the boys are pretty much better and the sickness has been lingering with Max and Me. It's been kind of miserable, Parents don't have time to be sick, Anyway, On Friday the boys were acting a little wild. After I had already had to dish out multiple timeouts to Charlie I decided that we needed a change in environment. As not to spread any germs, we ruled out the children's museum and opted for our favorite forest. 

This kid just got really big all of a sudden.

I was also super excited that Miles can get out and go down the trails a little better all on his own. 

He's really a toddler now. I truly love this age. It is fun to see him explore everything as if it's brand new to him.

I think he got mad because I was too far away from him. A wild toddler on the loose!

This kid is thirsting for knowledge too. He is constantly observing the world around him. He was just noticing that the plant on his right matched one that is in our yard.

We took a new loop through the forest that we have never done before. I was so glad because we found this excellent jungle gym root!

Before leaving we stopped on a bench for snack time just as the drizzling rain started. We finished our snacks, then went home for naps. And yes, I got both boys to nap at the same time. A rare treat!

I love my little explorers.

Milestones

And here is a third and last installment of my "Miles turning 1 posts" 

So the stats are as follows:

Weight 19.5 pounds (23rd Percentile)

Height 28.5 Inches (9.5 percentile) 

He is little and looks like a little bald baby but he is acting more like a toddler every day. He really caught onto walking 3 days after his first birthday. And now walks quite a bit. He likes that he can hold toys while moving. 

Remember this little guy? Wasn't that just yesterday?

It seems that Miles has been part of our family for much longer than 1 year. Charlie doesn't seem to remember his "only child" life.

One Month

Miles is a jokester. He likes to make us laugh, especially Charlie. He usually does this by bonking or shaking his head or making funny noises. 

2 Months

He is trying hard to communicate. His words include mama, dada, ball, and balloon. And he has a whole bunch of other words that he will say if prompted including all done, fishy, Jesus, Hi, and Bye, And then there are all the other sounds he makes where we are sure he's trying to say something.  

3 Months

He loves his mommy and is much more clingy than his big brother was. I think I'm going to blame this on the nursing. We're working on weaning but I think that kid would nurse for every meal for years to come. I guess that's what we get when we worked so hard and tirelessly to get him to be able to nurse. I'm just hoping he's done in the next couple of weeks.

4 Months

He smothers me in kisses, usually on the lips.He then gets aggressive and I have to be careful we don't chip teeth. He also thinks it's hilarious to head butt me. Which also reminds me that he likes to sit under the piano and hit it with his head and laugh at the echo it makes. 

5 Months

Miles gets excited about eating and says "MMMM" when it's a food he likes. He has recently really been enjoying throwing food too. 

6 Months

Miles loves his big brother and likes to be in the same space as him. I often see Miles being a bit of a bully by hitting Charlie with books or there was the time Miles continuously ripped of Charlie's band aid from his knee. Oh, and the daily grabbing of Charlie's glasses or pulling his hair. I guess I'm glad they have each other to practice being nice. 

7 Months

Miles still wakes up about once a night, but then sleeps until 9ish. If he sleeps through the night, he wakes up at 7. I'm not sure which one is better. 

8 Months

His favorite foods include blueberries, bread, raisins, crackers. There are a lot of other foods he likes too but as with most children, he only likes them on certain days. Last time I went grocery shopping I walked down the baby food aisle and realized I didn't need to get anything for him because he eats like a big kid now.

9 Months

I think that's all I can think about so you can continue to enjoy these photos that you all have already seen if you look at my blog.

10 Months

11 Months

1 Year

Thank you Miles for being part of our family and tolerating us in our imperfect parenting. You teach us more than you could imagine.

Under the Sea

I had a lot of fun planning Miles' First Birthday party. Partly because Charlie got to be so involved with the planning process, he would get so excited about the details. It was harder for me to plan Charlie's 1st birthday because I didn't know if I was aiming it towards the adults or a one year old that wouldn't remember it. Anyway, we chose an Under the Sea theme because "fishy" is one of the first words I heard Miles attempt to say...so I took it and ran with it. Oh yeah, and he LOVES bath time!

We had the party nearly a week after his real birthday because of the busy weekend his actual birthday fell on.

The party was supposed to be in our backyard and I had it all planned out but Lo and Behold the weather report said it would be rainy and a high of 50 degrees. Our living room is too small for all the people that we invited so we decided to move it into our church gym. It ended up still being a lot of fun with plenty of room for the kids to run and play, the only thing that I was disappointed with was the pictures and my inability to get the correct white balance indoors. Oh well, as long as everyone had fun. 

All we needed was this dollar tree table cloth to feel like we were under the sea.

We had fruits, veggies, pizza, and some oceany treats.

And of course we had to have a pinata!

The moment the treats were set out on the table August and Charlie were right there taste testing.

There were gummy sharks and Swedish fish in Blue and green jelly bellies.

We made a little photo booth, and we had fish face masks, but it turned out the the eye holes were placed much too wide for any human being.

Oh and we got this pretty huge fish balloon that happened to match the pinata.

You can't even tell he's not really under the sea right?

And Miles decided to walk right out of the photo shoot.

And Lexi followed him but still posed. :)

My dad was able to take some photos too.


                        
                        

We needed bubbles of course!


One of the main attractions was the "digging for Sea creatures and treasure" area. This had to be modified a bit when we switched our venue but it was still a hit and not as challenging to clean up as I feared.

Kaden found a lobster

We're glad Isla came, she was really the only kid that is close to Miles' age. Everyone else was a friend of Charlie's

Okay, so I have made very few cakes in my life but I thought I would try to attempt a fish cake. It looked simple and oh so cute. It may qualify as a pinterest fail, but I was still pretty proud and it mostly got eaten.

In case you need to laugh about it, here is the model that I was looking at, too bad I didn't have many of the right tools.

Also, I sent a picture text to my friend Marissa who is an amazing cake decorator, and she kindly reminded me that no matter how tricky the frosting can be, you still have a tasty cake.

And then it was time for the pinata. Miles was the first to go since he was the birthday boy. He circled his opponent before taking any action.

The kids started with the cardboard tube. I didn't get photos of everyone since I was holding Miles back but here are a couple.

After the first round we handed out the heavy bat. Candy started to fly out of the fish's mouth. Luckily my dad was there to get a pic of Miles' turn.

The pinata was filled with fish tattoos, jumpy frogs,candy treasure and fruit snacks.

And then it was time to break into my gorgeous cake. 

I didn't intentionally make the same cupcakes with the same frosting for both of my boys' first birthdays but that is what happened and they even ate their cupcake the same way. Precious right?

Then there was more sand play, and more "under the sea" photos 

We had games for the grown ups too. Like put these photos in order of age. I'm pretty proud of my poster board art project :) Also, I found out after the party that I had accidentally switched the 4 and 5 month photo in my answer key. Whoops! I hope I didn't mess anyone up too much. Anyway, if you are feeling so inclined...see if you can put them in order. There is one from each month of his life and including a newborn one and an almost 12 months one.

And a "caption this" game.

Auntie Lisa was kind enough to let Charlie pull her hair.

Our little family....

Lisa kept the sleepy birthday boy entertained while we were able to finish up the cleaning. She must have been teaching him a special dance here?

All in all it was a fun party and we're happy so many friends and family could come to celebrate with us, and even if Miles doesn't specifically remember this party, I know he enjoyed himself and that's important!