Happy Birthday, Momma...

Today was my birthday and Fender will turn ONE on Thursday. As big as he is and as much as he has learned, it seems hard to believe last year at this time he was still in my belly waiting to get his first look at the world. I had a really nice, lazy birthday. My Dad brought by some of his homemade fudge...YUM! My sister came to town for a quick visit. Drew made lunch AND dinner. And I got to watch the Cowboys and Packers win both their games giving them each a 4-0 start to the season. How cool is that? And Texas Tech won their game yesterday by about 60 points...really! So today has been a good birthday with calls, visits, and emails from other family and friends.

We're planning to have Fender's first birthday party this Saturday, Oct 6th from 12:30-2:00PM with lunch and birthday cake for all. Everyone is invited! We'll be watching the Texas - OU game after the party at 2:30PM and everyone is welcome to stay and watch it at our house.

We're also putting together a time capsule for Fender to open when he turns 14. If you want to contribute something, please do. Feel free to write him a note with advice or a memory, or photos, or newsclippings of current events you want him to remember. Anything you want. You don't have to be here for the party to add something to it, just send it to us and we'll include it.

Here are a couple of pictures from today. Our poor boy has had a rough two days of teething. He already had eight front teeth, now he has two top side teeth that have already broken through the skin and two VERY sore swollen gums on the bottom sides as well. I think he has four more teeth coming in at the same time. What a trooper. The last picture below shows how he really feels! :(
Happy Birthday, Ma-ma...
 

Having a snack with Auntie L...
 

Teething is such a pain sometimes...
 

Walking man...

Tonight my mom suggested that I might want to use Fender's walker more so he can follow me around the house a bit, it dawned on me that maybe I haven't kept you all up to date with how fast Fender's walking has progressed. He now tries to break out into a full run. He definitely keeps up with me pretty well walking from room to room. So here's a short video of a very short Fender walk. He can walk as far, as long, and nearly as fast as he wants to. Enjoy.

Cooling off...

Fender doesn't nap much these days, which is saying a lot considering we all know he never has slept much. He did get to a pretty consistant 1 1/2 hour nap for the past five months or so. Now the trend is to try and skip the nap all together, but he typically doesn't make it so he has shifted it to an evening hour nap. He still sleeps from 9PM - 7AM or 10 - 8 depending on how late he takes that little nap. He is doing very well moving from bottles to sippy cups and formula to milk. He only gets a bottle in the late afternoon at daycare most days and his bottle before bed. Those have formula, the rest of the time he gets whole milk in his cups. I'll be 31 years old a week from today. And Fender will be ONE four days later. Drew will be 33 six days after that. :)

Fender finds the fridge.
 

A new way to play the piano.
 

Tunnels...

Fender and I tried our first Gymboree session today and the theme was tunnels...excellent timing considering my "homemade" version at home earlier this week. :) Auntie L came over to play with us too. At the first tunnels, Fender was cautious and wouldn't venture through any until we made our way through the big one. After that he seemed more relaxed and never met a tunnel he didn't like. The most fun to me, was when they turned out the lights and we had been about to enter a teeny tunnel and the flashlight peeked his interest so much that the size didn't seem to matter after that. Intersting note, we learned that even at this age the hearing isn't fully developed and they don't hear in stereo like adults do, so we also tried out several noise makers inside the tunnels to help expose them to all sorts of different sounds. Gymboree was a lot of fun, but due to the closest location being an hour away, or more if the traffic is bad again like it was today, I don't think we'll be going to any more. :( So here are pictures of our boy at his first, and likely last Gymboree.
First, very wide tunnel.
 
Very small tunnel where we learned that flashlights trump tunnel size.
 
Listening to sounds and playing with lights in tunnels.
 
After the class was over, we couldn't keep him from going through yet another tunnel. :)
 

Gymboree part 2...

Fender loves to climb and this slide with grabpoints and footholds was all too easy. He climbed his way (first to his ball) and then to another tunnel. All the kids rolled the big bag across the mats together in the last picture.
 
 
 

Everywhere...

This week I built Fender a tunnel made of cardboard boxes. It took him a little bit to warm up to the idea, but after pushing one of his toys through and climbing through myself, Fender finally ventured through on his own...over and over again. :)
 
 
 
 

College Football Saturday...

Fender played the day away last Saturday and learned all about college football. Note Daddy's FSU cap and his Texas Tech sippy cup. Tough week for the Seminoles. But not the Red Raiders! "Go guns!" :)

 
 
 
 

Fender LOVES peaches...

Here...let me show you...
On the morning these videos were taken, I had taken time to carefully cut up a peach and peel off the skin as part of Fender's breakfast. Apparently, I was wasting my time, as he proceeded to show me how he "prefers" to eat his peaches that very same evening. The first video is shorter, but the last video is worth a watch if you have the time. Slurps up. Enjoy.

11 months old...

Fender is 11 months old now. That sounds so grown up already. At-home-measurements show 30 inches tall and about 25 lbs. I can hardly believe it. Less than a month and he will be a one-year old. He is walking around lots now. Getting more proficient everyday. You can see the determination in his eyes when he wants to walk from place to place. He even started taking his hand down away from mine so he can walk by himself. He is such a sweet boy, but independent for sure. I miss the “baby” days already. I can see them slipping away even more now as we prepare to wean him from bottles and formula to sippy cups and whole milk. I’m most sad about losing my nighttime holding ritual. He gets his last bottle of formula right before bed and I hold him while he drinks it until he falls asleep. I love it and quite frankly I don’t want to ever give it up. But he is getting older now and it is more important that he learns to go to bed and fall asleep on his own I suppose. Oh…my sweet baby boy is growing up so fast. No way a whole year has nearly gone by! Truly blows my mind!

I'm walking...a video...

Here I go. No stopping me now...

A long day part 1...

Saturday began with a 9am funeral for a relative by marriage, and really neat woman. Then it was off to catch up with Fen's Uncle Bobby before the game. Though the pictures don't show him much worse for the wear, Fender somehow managed to lean in and hit his head on the only hard part of a soft footstool and got it right on the vein. In moments, his vein was protruding and all around the spot was swelling...way too fast for my liking. We were calm as needed to be and worked our way upstairs to get some ice to see if the swelling would stop. It was very unnerving and yes, we mentioned a possible trip to the doctor, but as it turned out, that wasn't necessary. Thank God! When we got into the elevator, despite the injury seemingly continuing to grow, the moment Fender spotted the pool out the glass windowed elevator, he was fascinated, stopped crying and had moved on. Drew and I continued to worry, though I knew if he was that easily over it, and he wasn't passing out from the pressure, and the fact that the bump was going out and not "in", that these were all good signs and he was probably going to be just fine. Thanks also, to Uncle Bobby for worrying enough to have his trainer (Brian) take a look at him and confirm a bad contusion. The trainer said he seemed in good spirits, and a doctor's visit probably wasn't necessary, but to be sure to keep ice on it a bit longer and make sure the bump starts going down. Yea. Yikes. And ouch.

Bobby headed for a little rest before practice and we met up with a friend of ours at the Galleria. She and Drew started working at Watson Wyatt at the same time, several years back, though neither are there now. She has three kids now and they are all so precious. Her oldest, girl is pictured below with Fender. She has a boy who is three and a baby girl who is only a couple of months old. It was great to see her and the kids.

After the galleria, we headed to watch DC United play FC Dallas in Frisco. More pics from the day are in the post just below this one. These are from the first part of the day. And by the way...DC got a shut out. Way to go Bobby! And they won 4-0.

 
 
 
 

A win for DC UNITED...

Fender and Dad get ready for the game...
 

Fender and Momma...looks like Fender's had a long day already...
 

Antie L to the rescue...a nap on her shoulder and all is well...
 

Late night crew went to dinner after the DC win. Boys: Alex, Bobby and Logan. Girls: Ahsley and Loren.
 

Rock Climbing...

Okay, well, rock"ing" and climbing...and not so much rock climbing yet. Two more videos...

Fender loves the rocking horse.


In typical "boy" fashion, Fender climbs up the stairs too close to the edge and then wants to turn around and head back down head first. Don't worry, he didn't and all is well. Never dull around here. He is very quick and you never know what he might be thinking about getting into next. :)