Where have you been?

Ahem, I guess I mean where have I been?! Well I guess I have been busy chasing a one year old, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, working, resting, NOT getting on the internet, and the ongoing remodeling that is happening in our house! Well I am happy to say that projects are coming to a close. My eager to keep going husband is working on a new list of things to do: paint the living room, paint our bedroom and re-tile our bathroom. AAHHH! It's never ending!! Those projects will not be started immediately but he is on a roll and is eager to keep going. I am definitely not complaining, I am loving all the upgrades, just getting tired of the messes! Thanks Clark for all your hard work :) The basement is pretty much finished, we need a vanity and would really like to find one less than the ones at Lowe's/Home Deopt. We are patiently looking, after all the room is only being used for toys at the moment. Clark also laid new tile at the bottom of our stairs (was linoleum) and it looks great! I promise to post pics but I really want it to be a wow moment... so I am waiting for the couch to come in... ordered it today. Gonna have to wait 6-8 weeks.

On to more important things... Max.



A couple weeks ago Max and I took a trip to Great Grandma and Grandad's. We left on a Monday and stayed through Thursday. We had SO much fun hanging out with them, Aunt Becki, Brice and Rider. Brice loved to play with "Paw-Paw," Rider loved to eat and sometimes sleep, and Max loved to get into EVERYTHING. He opened every cabinet, got out every toy, found sharp objects and cut himself, crawled into empty end tables that Grandma cleaned out for such purpose, stole Rider's binky, and ate like a pig. Brice hung outside a LOT, ate lots of fruit, slept well on a blow up mattress, always let Max have the "car," got stung by a bee, took a nap on grandad's lap, picked okra, pretended to eat cherry tomatoes, and was a very helpful "big boy." Rider ate cereal, took bottles/boobs, got his binky stolen, slept, laid around, cried, was the only one held by Grandma, and was a peaceful sweet, cute boy. All in all it was a blast. We ate great food (catfish and okra!), learned to can tomatoes, shopped a little, and enjoyed the company. As long as we are welcome we plan to make these trips at least every other month. Enjoy the slide show pics!

Saturday we went to the NICU reunion at OPR. We saw a lot of our favorite nurses and a lot of the families we met last year. It was so amazing to see all the babies so grown up. Really we didn't get much chance to meet the babies while we were in the hospital, we spent a lot of nights in the parent room with the other parents. It was fun to see everyone in a MUCH better element and to see all the healthy kiddos. We met up with our great friends Michelle and Billy with Hunter for lunch at Friday's (yum) before we went. We miss them since they moved out to the country! We will never miss our time in the NICU but we met some amazing people and it was a great day to reconnect. Sunday is Biker's for Babies and while we no longer have our beatiful Harley we plan to go out, eat some pancakes, look at some nice bikes, and support a very important cause that made our 2008 summer have a pretty darn good ending.

Headed in, If you look close you can see Hunter, he looks so cute!



Max on Daddy's shoulder



Walking to Miss Kelli. We loved her!



I love his face in this picture. Hmmm, I think I remember her...



Playing in the ambulance



Moms and their boys



Boys playing



(I didn't take many pics after walked in. I wish I had one of Cassie, another fave nurse, because she is adorably 29ish weeks pregnant!)

Now that Max is 15 months old (+5 days) here is what's happening:

He is walking VERY well. Our only hold up is when he falls down he doesn't get back up. He will walk and walk and walk though for pretty long distances.

He has his first pair of Nike's. First Chief's hat. And a growing fall wardrobe.

Drinks from any kind of sippy cup. All milk and water, I'm mean and never give him juice. Sometimes he gets diet dr. pepper and coke zero, though :)

Eats fairly well, sometimes throws a fit until he gets what he wants. Just when I say he is picky he'll eat something odd like okra (he loved it). Finally ate red meat the other day- porcupine meat balls. They were pretty delicious!

Says lots of things. Lots that I don't understand. Sometimes I think he says "thank you," he says "da-ee" instead of "da-da," "mama" is heard minute-ly, please sounds like "chsske" and he smiles huge when he says it, "aahhuughha" means one of two things: "no that's not what I want, figure it out or I'll make the noise again" or "you guys made me mad and are going to let me have my way or go crazy." He instantly waves when he hears hi, bye or night-night. He understands bye-bye, hungry, eat, cookie, and milk. I'm sure there is more...

Has a "blankie," a brown and white striped one that I got long before he was born. In fact it may have been one of the first baby things I bought. He never really cared about what he went to bed with, besides his binky, and one night I put the blanket over my shoulder on the way to bed and he laid his head down on my shoulder and closed his eyes. The snuggling continued every time I would hold the blanket and he did it with anyone holding the blanket. Now we fight over who holds it because we want the snuggles!

Well, sorry for the "time off" but I'm back and with good intentions of being a better blogger. Enjoy the pics, I'm off to bed!