Drake - ONE YEAR!

I am almost a month late in posting about my sweet baby boy's first birthday. I should really be fined, it's that embarrassing.

We did too much for Carter's first birthday (as all first time parents do...) so we decided to pair things back but still make the day special for little Drakey. We had a little party at home with just family, some yummy food and of course, a smash cake.

^^ the face of defeat


^^ "ya, i'm done"


^^ "over itttttt"

At one year, Drake...

-Loves garbage trucks almost as much (maybe even more) than Carter does.

-Says MAMA now!!!!! Took the kid a whole year but he finally did it! And a few days later he spat out "truck." Dada may have taken first place, but I'm so relieved I at least beat out truck!

-Has way too much testosterone. He wants to rough house allllllll dayyyyy long and loves getting thrown around. It's so cute when it's with Daddy, not so cute when it involves him pulling my hair and smacking me in the face.

-Has had a pretty drastic change to his personality. He used to be my "sweet" little boy and now he is 100% mischief.

-Wants to be outside all the time. If we have to go outside for whatever reason, we have to either move him to another room or distract him with a toy because he will BOLT after us to try to get out too.

-Still loves his brother and is noticeably sad when they're separated.

-Is a pretty picky eater. Unless vegetables are covered in some kind of sauce, he wont eat them. I guess I got spoiled with Carter who eats vegetables without even a trace of salt....but ugh. I guess this is karma for me, since I'm not the biggest veggie fan myself.

-Has lost interest in his binky and bottle. I still give him a bottle most of the time because I just haven't bought new sippy cups yet but Drake has no attachment to either one anymore. I think when he got a bad cold it was difficult to breathe while using either so he kind of just self weaned.

-Is at the 92% for height and 95% for weight. Still enormous, but definitely a difference from his "off-the-charts" days

-Is starting to like reading books a bit more now, but unfortunately likes ripping them apart even more. He's probably destroyed at least 10 books now. However, his current favorite is the Very Hungry Caterpillar

-Flirts with everyone when we're outside. Smiles and waves for days to everyone. The old ladies at Target love us.

-Is still OBSESSED with dogs. Nothing makes him happier than dogs and garbage trucks

-Is so so so busy, as you can see from these photos. I have never been so tired (ha!)

Drake, this year with you has been an adventure to say the least. You make my hair gray but melt my heart even more. I have a feeling I will always have a special soft spot in my heart just for you, my sweet baby blue ;)

Carter is TWO!

My cute, fiesty, smart little boy is TWO! Although, he will still forever be "Baby Carter" in my book. I was going to do a big photo dump on here of pictures of him from the last year, but I don't think I can do that just yet. I lost my phone last week and I don't fully want to realize how many pictures I didn't back up on my computer. I know if I start looking through the ones that I do have I'll notice memories that weren't saved and it's just "too soon" for that. So I will just do some pics at the end from this last week or so and hopefulllyyy do a separate post on his party and on our birthday zoo trip. Without further ado:

At 2 years old, Carter...

-Has gone #1 on the potty about 10 times and #2 once! We haven't really been initiating anything just yet. I think he sees that saying "I have to go potty" gets him out of nursery at church haha. But, when we take him, he goes! So we're not complaining.

-Says "Looooooook Mommy" and "Waaatch Mommy" when he's doing something he wants to show off

-Has been doing pretty good in his toddler bed. I got such good feedback before we made the switch so I think my expectations were too high but YIKES that was not an easy transition. He would get out of his bed at least 5-8 times a night initially and I would sometimes have to rock him to sleep. We're still not 100% there, but it's getting better. He'll also wake up about once a night in the middle of the night and try to crawl into our bed before we put him back.

-Is still a very good, healthy eater. He's good about trying almost everything we give him and loves fruits and veggies. His favorite meal is grilled chicken, green beans and blueberries. LOVE IT. Sometimes we'll have pizza for dinner and it always cracks me up when we catch ourselves saying "Carter you need to eat your pizza first before you can have your blueberries" ...

-No one reading this will understand, but the way he pronounces "beeee-d" when something is really BIG is so, so funny.

-Is now in the totally typical 2-year-old-boy "truck phase." He is obsessed with all things with wheels especially firetrucks and (daberduts) garbage trucks. For his birthday we took him and a few of his little friends to the fire station to play inside the fire engine and he had such a great time. However, garbage trucks are hands down his favorite. He freaks out whenever he sees one out and about (and wants to "chase them") and still begs to watch videos of them on Youtube all day long. We know that our garbage man comes at 10:30am and 2:00pm on Thursdays and look forward to it all day long. The 2:00pm guy is so sweet and will wave and drive by really slow so Carter can get a good look. We gave him an orange Gatorade the other day (Richard's idea) as a thank you :)

-Along those same lines, he loves to "drive" cars and also begs to do that multiple times a day. This consists of him just messing around in the drivers seat but it brings him with so much joy. He has now "driven" my car, Richard's car as well as both sets of Grandparent's cars.

-Is excellent at riding his tricycle. He wasn't super into it for the first 3 weeks or so and couldn't seem to figure it out. However, once I pushed him down a small hill with it and he was able to feel the momentum while he pedaled then he started to get pumped about it.

-Has lost his bow-leggedness. He still runs kind of funny but I think that's just because he's being a dork, not because of a physical handicap haha

-Will do basically anything for an otter pop. Just like his Dad ;)

-Can talk in 4-5 word sentences now and picks up any word after we tell it to him once. I always get comments on how well he talks and about his vocab. My favorite word that his knows is brontosaurus. We still need to work on practicing our last name :)

-Has a killer memory. It's crazy how I'll explain something to him in passing but that it totally will stick in that little brain of his and he will bring it up later.

-Loves all of his extended family so much (grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins) and it makes me happy that we live here so he can build those relationships.

-Still loves basketball and baseball and playing catch with Dad. However, he would much rather spend his time with his trucks now.

-Is still such a sweet, gentle brother. He will give Drake hugs and kisses multiple times a day without being prompted and loves to play peek-a-boo with him. There has never been an ounce of ill feelings coming from him and I am so grateful.

-Very favorite book is "We're going on a bear hunt" as well as "Thank you Nicki" which were both actually hand-me-downs from Richard's family. We read the Bear Hunt book every night before bed.

-Loves being outside and you can really tell a difference in his mood when he hasn't had outside time yet in the day. I'm the same way though so I can totally understand.

-Knows almost all of his capital letters if I ask a certain way. For example when I ask, "which one is the letter ___" he will be able to pick out every one. However, if I pick up a letter and ask what it is he would probably only get about 2/3s right. Still pretty awesome for a 2 year old though if I do say so myself!

-He also knows all of his basic rainbow colors (as well as black, brown and pink) except for the fact that he gets red confused with green sometimes. That might be a color blind thing? We'll have to keep checking.

-Can count to 15 without a problem. After 15 though he starts to get a little random. 15, 19, 13, etc...

-Still really enjoy helping me with chores. His favorite is mopping with our steam mop. It's a job he can actually do on his own too since it's just steam and no chemicals. I highly suggest it!

-Has been going through his "terrible twos" for about 6 months now. He is very very stubborn and likes to ignore us which drives us absolutely cray cray.

-Besides his "moments" he is generally a really happy kid. The other day his nursery leader made a comment that I think really describes him well. She said "he seems pretty jazzed about life in general!" Which is true. When he's happy he is so fun to be around because he is enthusiasm personified.

-We tell him only "happy boys" get to do fun things so after being put in time out/or sneaking out from naptime he will proclaim that he is a "happy boy" so he can get out of doing things he doesn't want to do. Such a little con-artist, that one.

-Is 36 inches tall (3 feet!) and 35 pounds. 92% for both.

I'm probably missing so much but I think this will suffice for now. I can't believe I have a two year old. I remember I used to ask my friends if it was weird to have a kid that could full on talk to them...and now we're here! I love you my sweet first born boy. Thanks for making me a mommy 2 years ago.

ONE YEAR!

(I totally wrote this post like 3 days after his birthday, but JUST got the photos today! I have good reasons for being way behind, promise! The onesie is definitely stained from a tangerine but Richard pointed out that he was in fact wearing a white onesie today so I jumped on the opportunity to snatch a few pics!)

A very happy birthday to my favorite baby boy.

At one year (ahh!!) Carter...

Is walking like a champ and has been for the last 6 weeks or so. After taking steps since 10 months old, it just seemed like one day he woke up and decided it was time to stop crawling! He is soo fast and I am constantly chasing after him but you can tell how happy his new found independence makes him.

Knows who Jesus is! We will always ask him "Where's the fan", "Where's the clock" etc and the other day I asked him where Jesus  was and he turned around and looked at the picture we have on the mantel of Him! Can you say proud parent moment?!?

Also knows who Dontrell is. Let me explain. He has this stuffed giraffe that he loves (that's also in a lot of his monthly photos) that I let Richard name. Aaaand Richard chose to name him Dontrell haha. So yes, when we ask Carter where Dontrell is, he gets his stuffed giraffe lol.

Is beginning to understand so much, it's crazy. If we tell him to grab a certain toy or book, he will pick up the correct one. We can tell he totally understands what we are saying..now we just need to work on o b e d i e n c e lol

Weaned himself from nursing about 2 weeks before his birthday. Whenever I would nurse him, he would nurse for maybe a minute tops before goofing off and wanting to run off. I knew my supply was pretty low anyways so we went down to just nursing to sleep but I'd have to top him off with a bottle anyways. Eventually I would just nurse him when he would wake up around 5:30am but then he started sleeping all the way through the night. Because of that, I don't distinctly remember "the last time" he nursed, which makes me a little sad, but it's okay. He weaned himself and besides one night of tears for me, I was ready for it also.

Favorite breakfast is scrambled eggs (with ketchup) and strawberries

Finally sleeps all through the night now (for the past 6ish weeks). He will go to bed around 8:00pm and wake up around 7-7:30am which has been awesome. He is still taking two naps a day. The first around 10am and the second begins anywhere from 3 to 4 pm. The naps both last at least an hour (but never longer than 2)

Loves to go for walks in the stroller. He won't be as content when he's in a store (typical guy!) but if we are walking outside he will be happy as a clam forever.

Has 8 teeth with more on the way! He has 4 at the top (with the Rindlisbacher gap!) and 4 across the bottom.

Still eats all of his food really well. Since he's turned a year we've let him have a bit more naughty food and his favorite treat so far has definitely been ice cream!

Can now climb onto everything. Our couch, laundry baskets, chairs, into his stroller, our bed, his rocking chair. It scares me to death and I can't leave him unattended anymore, but that's part of toddlerhood!

Still loves Dad so much. I can't blame him, Richard is the most fun Dad ever.

Is in size 12-18 month clothes and size 5 diapers. His feet are still pretty small for his age though at a size 3.

Brings books to me and climbs up on my lap to read, it melts my heart. Even if he wants to read the same 3 books over and over, I will never say no to a book for him. I love his love for reading.

Is still hands down the busiest kid ever. He is go go go all day long.

Has started to dance which mostly consists of him waving his arms in the air and "dropping it low" Not sure who he learned that from, but we'll blame it on Daddy ;)

He also loves watching the chorister at church during sacrament meeting and waving his arms along with her. It's the cutest.

Is literally the biggest basketball fan ever. He will watch it intently on TV, he screams whenever he even sees a net on our walks, and tries to run onto the court when we go to parks. He figured out how to dribble before he could walk, and now knows how to shoot. As Richard says, "ball is life" with this one.

**For good measure, here is a little "12 Months of Carter" Collage. Thanks for making it the best year of our life Carter, we love you so much and are so happy we get to keep you forever :)

The Big 2-5

Richard took me to Shaver Lake for my big 2-5. It's a bit of a tradition for the two of us summer babies to flock to water for our birthdays. We did paddle boarding last year so we thought we'd do the same this year. Unfortunately, the boards were rented out for the day so we decided on paddle boating instead. It was actually harder than it looks to steer that thing and we felt like big dorks. Thus the dorky pictures....

  

 I had to end with this golden nugget of a photo. In the words of my dear husband,

"My selfie game is strong."

...what am I going to do with him?

P.S. Shout out to the Rindlisbacher family for watching Carter! 

P.P.S. Mental note to bring Dramamine next time! That drive is no joke.