Party Pics

Definitely some cute pics captured from Breck's Mickey Mouse Birthday party!!

Breck is enjoying the back yard before all the guests arrive!

 Proud parents!!

 Mickey-themed decor everywhere!

Lots of fun for the lil ones outside!

 Breck enjoyed his smash cake - round 2!

 Breck mostly crawled in and out of his Lightning McQueen car his Grandma and Papa Hill sent him while I had to open all the presents instead. Later, he enjoyed playing with everything with Wake.

One Year Old!

Can it really be? A year has flown by already? How can you be sad and ecstatic at the same time? I cannot believe how different our lives are from just a year ago and the year before that seems like such a distant memory that it is hard to believe anything existed before our sweet boy. Have I taken the time to mention how humbled and blessed I feel? I go to bed each night and this sweet sadness overtakes me just because my lil man is asleep and away from me. I miss him so much even in those moments he is asleep. And nothing compares to a full day at work away from him. I get filled with such excitement at 4pm because I know I get to see his face light up when I walk through the door of his school. I will admit that dropping him off at school has been so much harder this year - between him getting older and spending the whole summer with us, the drop off experience has been traumatizing (for me!) more days than not as his eyes well up with tears as I say goodbye. I know he loves it there and has fun all day but the transition back to being away from us has been difficult in the first few moments of every day.

This past month has been so exciting. I think we have had the most fun so far. Breck is older and more adventurous as a result. He loves to play and have fun so every waking moment is full of nonstop action. Walking has been our biggest development this month. Breck has been in the cruiser phase for a while so he stands readily and will happily hold our hands and take steps. We started practicing with him taking a step or two on his own and would position ourselves a few steps apart to give someone behind him and in front of him. Breck would get so excited at the look on our faces that he would take a step or two, enjoy the praise and turn around to try again. We caught the first real walking on video (an earlier post) when he took more than a handful of steps. Within a week of the timid penguin waddle, he just stood up on his own and started walking from here to there. By his birthday when the grandparents arrived, they were surprised to see him walking circles around the living room, happily showing off his new skill. As the weeks have progressed, he now has a bit of a run to his walk and can really move. I will look up and have no idea where he has gone off to within seconds! And Breck is so proud of himself that he just smiles and laughs the whole time he is off exploring.

Breck enjoyed the end to summer by going with his MeMe and Papa Gammon to the circus - he even stayed awake for half of it! He and I got to spend lots of time together with summer school ending and just soaked up every minute of fun in the back yard, pool, play room and out and about. We bought season passes to the local waterpark since they gave you the rest of this season with the same price as buying a season pass for next season. We were going to get one next year since I thought Breck would be older and enjoy it more but after seeing the fun he had at Sea World, I thought I would take him to the waterpark as a goodbye to summer. Just a one-day pass was a third the price of the season pass so with 2 1/2 weeks this year included with next year, we went ahead and got one. After sending Brian a text and a picture of us having so much fun in the covered splash area for little kids, he got a pass too and we went back several times in just a few days. It was funny to watch Breck in the splash area because that boy loves to have water spray him in the face. Most kids hate that but he is fearless when it comes to so many things with water.

With food, there's not much that B hasn't tried or doesn't like. He even enjoyed sweets for the first time in the form of his smash cake. A friend who is a photographer came the week before his birthday (those are all the shots you see above) so we could capture some fun birthday pics. I made him a Mickey Mouse birthday cake with the funfetti cake mix and it was hilarious to watch him with it. I set it in front of him and you could just see his eyes light up. He gingerly touched it to begin with but when he realized I wasn't going to tell him no, he started to dig in. Soon, he realized that since we were taking pictures, I wasn't stopping him. Before I realized it, he ate a third of the cake! And boy did we pay for it the next three days in the diaper department! I can definitely tell Breck's personality is coming out more every day. He decided he wasn't really in the mood to cooperate for his pictures, so I don't think there's even one with him smiling. I love the moments she captured though because I feel like they are true to who he really is. A few shots even reveal this boy that seems so much older - like I'm looking into what the future holds for my handsome man.

For Breck's birthday, we threw a big Mickey Mouse themed party. We had tons of fun with friends and family. We had the backyard set up with the inflatable bounce house Brian and I bought Breck as his present, the pirate ship water table Grams and Papa Boydstun got him, his swingset, two inflatable toys filled with balls and a splash pool. We rented a sno cone machine and had hot dogs, nachos, pasta salad, grape salad, goldfish and four kinds of delicious cupcakes (a bit overly ambitious for the day but yummy nonetheless). I am so grateful family came in early and helped get things together for the party - I quickly became overwhelmed with how much there was to do when the day arrived and Brian was busy with football. Thankfully, with seven people happily doing any and everything to get the last-minute details together, everything came together perfectly and the day (though quite warm) was awesome. I know Breck won't remember it but we have tons of pictures and video to show him someday. And I know I'll never forget how special the day was for us.

So, I am officially the mom of a one-year-old little boy. Even with as amazing as this year has been, I think our best days are ahead. I am so excited to see what the future holds!

It's Official - Breck is Walking!!

We are no longer talking about a step or five now and again. Today, he has walked a ton!! He doesn't just stand up and get going but if you put him on his feet, he will stand with great balance and walk from there. And we caught it on video - even better!

Unbelievable Days

It seemed like an unbelievable moment of deja vu Monday evening as Midnight started acting strange. Hours later, she is still panting loudly, will not sit in one place for more than a few moments and has started to convulse if you touch her. By midnight, I made the all-too-familiar drive to the animal ER by our house only to hear that our sweet girl was in congestive heart failure. Her tongue and gums had turned purple from lack of oxygen so they immediately put her in an oxygen chamber. X-rays showed an enlarged heart (about twice normal size), an enlarged liver and fluid filling her lungs. We knew days like this would be in our near future because Midnight and Tigger are turning 13 this year but I never expected that four days after losing Winnie, I would be saying goodbye to my baby girl that has been here since the beginning of our life together. It is unbelievably sad around our house - way too quiet. And poor Tigger is just lost completely without the friend she's had since she came into our lives. Tonight was the first time we both left the house since Monday evening, so it was the first time Tigger had to go to her cage by herself. I was so nervous the whole time we were gone because she's never been alone and she is already anxious about going to her cage, even with Midnight and Winnie right there. She seemed to be ok when we got home - thank the good Lord! So we are definitely hugging our baby girl tightly and cherishing whatever time with her we are blessed with. We sure feel the hole in our hearts left by the passing of Winnie and Midnight though. I liken it to the story, Where the Red Fern Grows. The young boy loses his dog unexpectedly and within days, he loses the other dog from a broken heart - she just wouldn't eat and moped about. I always pictured that's how things would go with Midnight and Tigger because they were so close. I never expected the passing of Winnie to have the same effect. It makes me smile to think of Winnie and Midnight running around heaven together though. Sure miss my girls!

Look how little she was when we first got her in 1999.

Wow - we were definitely a young family starting out 12 1/2 years ago.

 Midnight made the transition to a Texas girl pretty easily.

 Such a funny relationship Midnight and Winnie had. Some days they were friends and other days they just seemed to live to annoy each other.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of me with my sweet baby. Brian bought her as a wedding present for me. Best present ever! Of course, Tigger was his wedding present but really they both turned out to be my babies!

 I imagine this is what Midnight looks like when smiling!

What a great baby girl Midnight was. When my heart felt so empty from not having a baby for so long, these girls were always there by my side loving on me and being my children. I feel so blessed to have had such a full life because of them in these past 12 1/2 years. I know my life will never be the same without my little black and white Chihuahua. Love you Midnight!

Heartbroken Days

I can't even put into words how heartbroken we are. We suddenly and very unexpectedly lost our sweet Winnie girl Friday night. In the matter of a few moments we went from having one of our best summer days outside with Breck and Winnie splashing around and playing as they have so often this summer to rushing Winnie to the hospital. After emergency surgery, we expected a full recovery but she just never woke up. We are all struggling to make sense of this sudden loss. It is so sad in our home right now because her presence and life's energy infused our home, our lives with so much love that we feel so drained without her here. The saddest thing is thinking about how much Winnie loved our little boy and what a great friend she had become to him. You can see from the pictures how inseparable the two were from the very beginning. I am so sad to see him crawling around saying dog over and over again and not finding his best friend. We miss you so much sweet girl!

This was our first family picture together. She was so small!

Here are the girls together in the nursery just waiting for her best friend to arrive!

Even when B was tiny, she would watch over him.

Winnie and Tigger enjoyed Breck's early days when he liked to nap as much as they did!

Winnie shared many of Breck's firsts with him. Breck is sitting up for the first time and Winnie is right in the spotlight. As Breck discovered the fun of his splash pool, Winnie discovered a new place to splash around and enjoy water.

Even riding around the house with Mickey mouse, Winnie was sure to be close by.

Breck and Winnie shared a love of the back yard too. He especially liked to watch her chase after tennis balls. Often they would have a competition to see who could reach the ball the fastest. I think Winnie taught Breck the art of crawling fast!

This was taken Friday morning in their last few moments together. Wherever Breck was, you could be sure to find Winnie right in the middle of it. The back yard will never be the same without her splashing right along with us.

11 Month Update

We've had so much fun this past month - probably because this entire month took place during our summer of fun! We were able to go back to OK to see family during the fourth of July weekend. At Grandma Hill's house we discovered Breck's secret love affair with cars. Of course, that weekend we went with the Boydstun fam to see Cars 2 - we've taken B to the movies once before but he was much smaller and slept a ton those days...we were a little nervous about how this would go since he has been asserting his independence more and more every day and it seems his "sit still" span is 20 minutes tops. He did pretty well during the movie though. We watched half, he slept some and then Brian and I spent the last part in the side aisle letting B crawl back and forth between us. Like I was saying though, we went to see his Grandma and Papa Hill the next day and she had tons of boy toys since my brother's kids practically live there. Breck was having so much fun with the cars that could move by themselves that we took a few of those home with us. He hasn't stopped playing with them since! During the course of that weekend, Breck also cut another tooth - a lower one to the left of his middle two. This brings our grand total to seven now!

I continued to work summer school during some of these past four weeks and you can definitely tell B has gotten comfortable hanging with his daddy. They enjoy music time daily when Brian grabs his guitar and Breck finds his and sings along to the music. Everybody that sees those two together continues to comment how much they look like twins and now Brian's "mini me" has taken on some of his mannerisms too!

We have started to plan Breck's first birthday party - we are very excited about it! It will have a Mickey Mouse theme - of course - since this is Breck's absolute favorite thing. I have started trying out new cupcake recipes for the party and I think our friends and family who have been around the past few weeks have enjoyed the trials so far. As summer school wrapped up halfway through July, I have been able to enjoy tons of fun little outings with B as well. Of course, with this ridiculously hot summer, our options are rather limited. We have discovered Breck's love of people watching at the mall - perfect since it is air conditioned and has a cute little play place for kids. Breck had so much fun when we went there. I think he has missed his interaction with kids since being away from school this summer. He just sat and watched the kids around him having fun and smiled and giggled at them all. Eventually, he joined in the fun too!

As part of a mini-vacation (something to look forward to at the end of summer school), we went to San Antonio for an overnight stay. We shopped a little in San Marcos at the outlets, toured the Riverwalk and then enjoyed a full day at Sea World. Breck seemed to really enjoy seeing animals and water combined! I think his favorite part was the water park though. He played for the longest time and didn't want to leave at all. It was great because the little kid place had soft foam to crawl around on and tons of little toys to climb all over in the very shallow water. Breck got to feel independent without me worrying about him every second in the water. We have gotten into a routine in the evenings of going outside around 7pm and playing in his splash pool and on his swing set. We also have enjoyed an early birthday present from his Grandparents Boydstun in the form of a pirate ship water table. He loves that thing and plays for hours with it. It is at the perfect height so he holds onto it happily and splashes around with water and toys while we just hang out nearby and watch.

As far as mobility goes, we are still at the cruiser phase. He is more confident barely holding onto anything and has even stood by himself a couple of times before he realized he wasn't holding onto anything and squatted down. He has a little toy that pops up and looks kind of like a walker - he walks independently everywhere with that. With food he has definitely started to assert the fact he has favorites. He has moved away from the "try everything" phase and now wants chicken nuggets the most. He happily eats pizza and ravioli and mashed potatoes, bread and pancakes but just about anything else he will only pick at. We have tried yogurt with fruit add-ins and cottage cheese but neither are in his "must have" category. As we near his first birthday, we are slowly making the transition away from breastfeeding. It has been such a wonderful thing that I truly believe has been the best thing for Breck. It hasn't always been easy or convenient but knowing it was the best for him gave me the motivation to keep going and live life for two years now without caffeine or much of any medicine. I am still pumping for a few more weeks but last week I stopped nursing him and he went to straight bottles during the day. I thought he might have a hard time with the change but he didn't seem to notice at all. I have to say that having to pump instead multiple times a day has brought me to the point I'm ready to be done altogether! It is annoying!!

Breck has struggled with a regular sleep pattern this summer. We don't know if it is the change in his naps - at school with the lights on and kids all around, he never slept soundly during nap time and now in his room where it is dark and quiet, he can sleep up to hours at a time twice daily. This means he doesn't always want to sleep all night long and we've had a few times where we didn't get to sleep either - though we stand firm at not going in there and getting him just because he is crying. We have a 20 minute rule - mostly because he usually goes back to sleep well before then - but perhaps lately he has clued into that! I think he might have been going through some growth spurts too because he has gained 4 pounds since last month (though you couldn't tell from looking at him since he must have shot up a few inches as well). There were a few nights he was starving and sucked down another bottle happily at midnight. Then, this last week, he has barely wanted to eat anything all day long. It's crazy! Thankfully, he hasn't been sick or had any more ear infections this past month. We are hoping that means we won't have to get tubes after all.

He regularly says Momma and Daddy but has added door to his list. We bought a screen door with a dog door - finally! - and since we have been training the dogs to use it by repeating dog door quite often when they go to the other one, B has picked up the phrase too. He also happily says Bye-Bye! He has learned the art of fake coughing and fake laughing as well - it's pretty funny. You can tell he is a little too smart for his own good sometimes because he knows boundaries and tests them regularly. One day he just made a circuit from one thing to another that he knows he gets in trouble for messing with. I think he was going for a record. He has a good heart but we've seen a strong will emerge as well. We've had more instances of "active ignoring" as he flops down on the floor and throws his little tantrum over being told no. We've also experienced a few more bumps and bruises as he gets into more things. Thankfully, even when hurt, Breck has a pretty quick recovery time.

10 Month Update

This little boy is full of personality - as can be clearly seen from the pictures he took! It seems that time is starting to fly faster and faster - maybe because he keeps us busier and busier! Breck loves to fly through the air like he's superman (that's what he's doing in the picture on the left). He also dances all the time and even tries to sing - he has the cutest little voice. In this past month, he has definitely gotten the crawling thing down and NEVER STOPS! He's been wearing his daddy out as he takes lap after lap around the living room. In the past month, he has become more of a daddy's boy - partly because they are spending so much time together while I work summer school. Those two are so much alike. It's funny to see Breck's personality start to come out and notice how much it reminds me of my husband. As a side note - it is super cute to see us out and about and have so many people constantly comment how much he looks like his daddy. I know that warms his heart!

Breck is up in the air with his naps. He has days where he naps just like he always has, for two hours in the morning and afternoon. Then there are some days that he barely lays down for 30 minutes and he's up and into stuff again. For a couple of days last week, he skipped that afternoon nap altogether and just kept playing hard. Of course, he crashed hard earlier than usual as well.

Breck has discovered a whole new world of wonderfulness in food. On vacation, we really started branching out in what we were letting Breck try. Now, he eats any and everything - nutritious that is! He loves to gobble up mini eggo pancakes, potatoes - cubed or mashed, wheat bread (loves Grams' homemade bread), pizza, ravioli and sauce, fish sticks, hot dog, hamburger, Mexican food - just about anything but the chips and salsa from that menu!, sugar-free jello, baby goldfish crackers, and chicken nuggets. I think Mexican food and chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes are amongst his favorites. For a couple of days, he enjoyed chicken nuggets for lunch or dinner and then when he didn't get them the next day, Brian said he just cried and cried. When Breck went to get his 10-month pictures with Daddy, they went to the food court at the mall afterward. This is where Breck experienced the tastiness of Chick-fil-a for the first time. I think those nuggets just don't compare to McDonald's or the ones in the freezer section. For fruits and vegetables we have tried giving him pieces of the real deal but so far, he still likes the Gerber vegetable and fruit purees instead. He still gets mixed grain cereal or oatmeal as well so he is sure to get some good nutrients and minerals. We have been working on sippy cups in the past month too since the time is coming to a close very soon on breastfeeding. I'm thinking in the upcoming weeks, Breck will know only breastmilk from a bottle so that he can get past needing me. Our next step will then be to get him to not be so picky about his milk temperature. He likes his bottles really warm and that is going to be a difficult transition from warm Momma milk to cold cow's milk. In his sippy cup, he loves cold ice water. He gets such a big grin on his face when you give it to him like he realizes what a big boy he is. Now if only we can make the move from milk and snacks to milk with meals only and water with snacks...but that is this month's goal!

As far as playtime goes, Breck has continued to play hard every day. We will be in the living room and he will just take off down the hall to his playroom. He gets in there and will play for hours. Brian has cable added to his playroom and now we have whole-home DVR so we can record several of his favorite shows and watch them at any time. Breck's idea of a good day is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on in the background and toys at his disposal. We continue to swim quite often and I think that will remain one of Breck's favorite things about summer. We were going to go to Schlitterbahn and Sea World in July but Las Vegas taught us a valuable lesson - we have a small window of being outside in the sun at the pool. With that in mind, we have decided to scale back our San Antonio weekend and just go to Sea World this year. We look forward to this being one of those fun things we do every summer where Breck doesn't know it's coming but he just wakes up one morning and the car is packed and we hit the road. (Brian had a similar surprise day growing up where they would wake up and his parents would have their swimsuits on and the cooler packed. They knew it meant going to the water park - a once-a-summer treat.) The cool thing about going to Sea World is that they have a water park as well. This way we can see animals - which Breck loves to do - watch shows, go indoors at times to escape the sun and still get to swim! I think it will be a good compromise these first few years until we can really enjoy Schlitterbahn with him (one of my favorite childhood memories!).

As far as progress goes, in this past month, Breck has not only become a little speedster with his crawling, he has gained more confidence in standing up and "cruising." Cruising is the term they give to toddlers who will hold onto something as they take steps. Breck is definitely pulling up on everything and using it to get him from one thing to another. I think being around friends who are walking has motivated him to get a move on it. I am happy just to enjoy the stage we're in though. I'm pretty sure we'll never sit down again when he is able to just get up and run!

I have loved seeing how much he has changed and grown just in the past month happening during the summer. It definitely spoils you! And to know that by the time we go back to school he will almost be a year old is awesome!