Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Looking back: Then and Now



One year ago today we officially became a family of three and welcomed Mr. Ian into this world. It has been THE best year. It's amazing to look back and think about this time last year as we were spending our very first sleepless night as brand new parents...look how far we've come. Ian is now walking, he sleeps through the night, he's got two teeth, and he's about three times bigger than he was this time last year, not to mention all of the countless other things. It's amazing to think about all that he has learned just in this one year. I can't say enough how much I have enjoyed having him in our lives. I feel truly lucky to have been given the opportunity to be this wonderful little boy's mommy.

Happy Birthday baby boy, mommy and daddy love you so much. It's been a wonderful year.

Fall and Firsts

Last weekend we headed to Lyons Family Farms in Tennessee with our friends the Dobbins family to pick some pumpkins and just enjoy the fall weather. We played with the kids at the playground where Ian was able to enjoy his very first time in a swing, admired all kinds of farm animals, went on a hayride out to the pumpkin patch and picked a few pumpkins/let Ian toddle around the pumpkin patch and inspect everything from pumpkins, to vines, to rocks and sticks, and enjoyed some music from the bluegrass band. I hadn't been to a pumpkin patch since I was a kid and I definitely enjoyed going again and being able to take my own child. I'm looking forward to the coming years and making this an annual event for our family. Fall is my absolute favorite season hands down so I'm all about any event that gives me an excuse to go outside and enjoy it.

Today we took Ian to get his very first haircut. I debated whether I should wait until after his first birthday or go ahead and cut it now but decided that I didn't really want it hanging in his eyes for his Christmas pictures that he will have made in a couple of weeks so now it would be. According to a girl I work with you aren't supposed to cut a child's hair before his first birthday because it'll stop growing so I guess we'll see very shortly if there is any truth to this. I figure if it does stop gr owning it'll save me a little money on the next cut so best I figure I can't really lose on this one.
We took him to a kids salon here in town called Spoiled Rockin Kids which turned out to be a really cute, fun place. They had an airplane, train, and pink mini cooper as chairs for the kids to sit in and a cool area for doing makeovers. Apparently this place does manicures, pedicures, and facials as well as haircuts. You can even have parties there. They also had kids clothes, hair bows, and all kinds of cute,fun kiddy stuff you could buy. The girl that cut his hair was very sweet and patient with him and did an awesome job. I was afraid he would spend the whole cut crying since I have heard so many tales of kids doing this but he actually did wonderfully which is really surprising since he didn't get much of a nap prior to the haircut. He did cry at first right after I put him in the plane seat and practically jumped out, thankfully his daddy caught him, but after I calmed him down and gave him a few toys to distract him he calmed right down and let her cut his hair without much fuss. He did squirm around quite a bit though but the girl cutting his hair didn't seem fazed by it. They also took before and after pictures of him and at the end of the cut they gave me a nice printed copy with both pictures on it as well a little plastic bag with some of his hair attached for the baby book. It's not a huge change but his hair is now out of his eyes and no longer hanging over his ears and I'm happy because his hair is still long enough in the front to have that baby look. I'm not ready for my baby to look too grown up yet.






He was so exhausted after his big day that he fell asleep on the way home with a death grip on the balloon.


We're also very excited to report that a couple of weeks ago Ian finally cut his first two teeth. We are now trying to figure out just how in the world to get those little teeth brushed. He loves to suck on the toothbrush and it has proved to be quite a challenge to get through that tongue of his to the actual teeth. If anyone has any tips for me I would greatly appreciate it. I hate to turn him off of having his teeth brushed so I would like to find a way to do it that doesn't end in him screaming and crying.

He has also been sleeping consistently through the night for about a month now. I love how when I was pregnant people would tell me that he would be sleeping through the night by around 6 weeks. Then after 6 weeks hit they would tell me 3 or 4 months was the magic age. After three or four months passed and he still wasn't sleeping through the night people started coming out of the wood work telling me that they had 2 and 3 year olds that still didn't sleep through the night. I'm glad he picked something in the middle of all of that to do. I'm not sure how I would have done with 2- 3 years with no complete nights sleep. Being a parent is wonderful but sleep deprivation is definitely not.

Only one more week until Ian's very first Halloween!!

Pensacola

This past week we headed down to Pensacola for both a family beach vacation and to see some old friends from college get married. I was thrilled to be able to take the whole week off work and just spend some much needed quality time with both Ian and Kirk without having to worry about the hustle and bustle of the normal day to day grind. My only complaint is that it wasn't nearly long enough. The trip was definitely a bit different than I had originally envisioned since Ian decided to start pulling up just a few short days before we left meaning he was very busy the whole time we were there. Needless to say it wasn't a very relaxing trip but it was a lot of fun. We got to introduce Ian to both the pool (which he loved from the very start) and the beach (which most definitely took some warm up time). The first day or so that we took Ian to the beach he cried both when I tried to put him down in the sand and when I tried to put his feet in the ocean so we gave it up and just headed to the pool where he had a great time splashing and playing around with us and watching the older kids. After that we just took him out to the beach and gradually introduced him to the sand and water very slowly by first letting him sit in my lap then letting him sit in the sand on a baby float and gradually sneaking him onto the sand before he could realize where he was. By the end of the trip he was sitting in the sand playing happily and sitting at the edge of the water with me watching daddy swim in the ocean. After spending the whole week just having fun and spending time with my sweet baby boy it's going to be very hard to head back to work this week.
Family Photo


Asleep in the Cabana





How did I get here?



This picture was taken during an early morning walk on the beach. The sound of the waves lulled him to sleep before we could get back to the condo.



Sand Discovery


Loving riding on daddy's shoulders

Last but not least I had to share my favorite moment of the day. As I was running water for Ian's bath tonight he decided to pull up on the tub beside me and observe. Could he be any cuter? I think not.

9 Month old Busy Body

Last week we took Ian for his 9 month check up with the pediatrician and he is now up to 21 lbs 7 ounces (75th percentile for his age) and 29.5 inches (90th percentile). The child continues to grow like a weed right before my very eyes. It's hard for me to believe that we will be celebrating his very first birthday in three short months, so bittersweet.

Ian is EXTREMELY active these days and is doing something new it seems daily. He has been army crawling for quite some time now but is now finally starting to get up on his hands and knees and rock around and has even done some traditional crawling though it only lasts briefly and is usually prompted by us putting him on the cold tile floor in nothing but a diaper. Nothing like a little self preservation as a motivator. Just last week he started pulling up on things and has now become obsessed with perfecting that skill. Unfortunately for him his balance leaves a little something to be desired so I am now officially not able to leave him alone for even a second because I am constantly having to "spot him" to keep him from wiping out. Around the same time he started pulling up he also became very interested in trying to climb things as well. He shocked us last weekend by deciding to climb a couple of the stairs in the house, check out the video I took of that.

Untitled from Tabitha Williams on Vimeo.

His other favorite activity of the moment is taking steps while holding onto our hands, this has also become an obsession. He loves doing this so much that he doesn't really want to sit anymore which makes trying to get anything done interesting. I will try to sit him on the floor and he straightens his legs out to stand almost every single time. It's pretty hilarious to watch this since he's not that good at it yet and is extremely wobbly but he always has THE biggest smile on his face and looks so very proud of himself while he's practicing, pretty stinking adorable.

We're currently working on introducing more table foods since we have been given the okay to give him pretty much anything, though I am a bit gun shy due to his complete and utter lack of teeth. He is becoming very independent and lately has decided he doesn't want anyone to feed him which has made things interesting. He is great with his pincer grasp and is getting better everyday with things like cereal puffs but when it comes to soft foods the end result is a lot of smashed food all over the place. Sometimes the boy eats so much that I'm afraid he's going to eat us out of house and home then other times I can hardly get him to eat a thing. You just never know from one minute to the next what you're going to get these days.

Here are a few of my favorite more recent pics:
Sleeping Babe

Meltdown

Laundry Basket Fun


Aflac spokes baby

Happy Boy

After trying for several weeks now to capture Ian giggling on video I was finally successful this weekend! Kirk was entertaining him while he was strapped in his highchair waiting for me to fix his dinner. Usually he stops giggling cold turkey when he sees me standing there with the camera and becomes so "mesmorized" by what I'm doing that he forgets about all the fun he was just having. This time he was so amused by what his daddy was doing that he didn't even pay me the slightest bit of attention. Kirk was the first one to get a giggle from him and continues to be the best at getting him going. You've gotta wonder how we come up with some of these silly things we decide to do to get this kid laughing.

Silly Daddy from Tabitha Williams on Vimeo.

Weekend in "the 'Ham"

This Saturday we packed up and headed down to Birmingham to help celebrate Miss Abbie D's 3rd birthday. Since Abbie absolutely loves the Disney princesses Jamie threw her a princess party and invited everyone to wear their "royal attire". Even though Ian is still pretty little we thought it would be fun if he could participate in the party's theme so after doing a quick Internet search Kirk found the cutest "heir to the throne" costume on amazon. Since it was both cheap and adorable we decided to go ahead and get it. It was supposedly a size 12-18 months so I figured it would be big on him and maybe he could wear it for Halloween. Turns out the costume fits pretty much just right so I'm thinking by Halloween it will probably be too small. Oh well, at least we did manage to get one good wear out of it. Kirk, being the crafty one that he is, also made a little fake sword to go with the costume which Ian thought was the best thing EVER for him to chew on. He also managed to break it within 2 minutes tops of playing with it, go figure!!

Prince CaspIAN


Yummy sword


The party was really cute with all of the little girls running around in their finest dress up gowns, jewelry, slippers, (the works). Little girls this age are the CUTEST and so much fun!!

Pretty birthday princess


After the party Abbie was able to practice her big sister skills with Ian. I can tell already that she is going to love being a big sister and is going to be doing all she can to help with baby Carson when he arrives. Luckily for her baby Carson will be a bit smaller and easier to handle when he arrives and will hopefully not take up her whole lap and then some!!

Cinderella Abbie holding Ian
Notice this is Miss Abbie's second outfit of the afternoon, such a girl!!


The rest of the weekend we got to spend lots of QT with Kirk's family. Suellen, Marlee Sue, and Garrett were all in town and luckily since no one managed to get sick this time, at least not ahead of time, we were finally able to get all of the cousins together. For having all of these babies and kiddos in one place I'd say things were remarkably calm. Somehow I doubt it will be the same when all of these babies become mobile. Something tells me we have some wild and crazy get togethers in store for us!!

Marlee Sue and Ian checking each other out


Cousins: Marlee Sue, Garrett, and Ian
We gave the babies the corn to play with and they were absolutely fascinated. Ian, of course never one time put it in his mouth either. Swords are much better I guess.


Cousins: Garrett, Ian, Marlee Sue, and Miss Daisy

Half a year

Ian celebrated his "half birthday" this month. Unfortunately the celebration was short lived as he came down with something this past week and we had to turn his six month checkup into a sick visit. Tuesday when I showed up to pick him up from daycare the teacher notified me that she had contemplated calling me since he felt warm to her and upon inspection she noted that he had a slight fever, not quite high enough, though, to warrant a phone call. When I got him home I took his temp and it was around 100. He seemed fine at that time, in good spirits and playful. At this point I wondered if the low grade temp might be a result of teething, we keep looking for teeth but so far nothing. It was a gorgeous day here so I decided to break out the fancy jogging stroller and head out for a walk. All seemed well until that night around midnight when he woke up burning up hot with a 103 temp. I knew the poor kid didn't feel good at all when I just could not get him to go back to sleep and had to actually bring him to bed with us to get him to settle back down. The high fever continued on until the checkup appointment where the poor kid had to have blood drawn, get catheterized for a urine sample, get an antibiotic shot in the leg, and a chest x-ray. Needless to say after all of this activity he was DONE with the doctors office. We then had to spend the next couple of days making repeat trips to the pediatricians office since the fevers continued to rage on until thankfully a blood draw yesterday revealed that he finally seems to be back on the mend. The culprit of all of this activity has been ruled a virus since all the tests that were run came back normal. I have been so worried about my sweet boy this week and am so glad he finally seems to be getting better. Don't think I could stand one more minute of seeing him feel so awful. Having a sick baby has got to be one of the worst most helpless feelings there is.

On a happier note other than this sick spell Ian is doing well and continues to grow like a weed. He is now up to 19 lbs 7ounces and is 28 inches and some change long. He is now proficient at rolling both front to back and back to front.
We are now working on sitting up which he is doing great with. He can sit up by himself unsupported for a pretty good while and is getting better at correcting himself at times when he starts to lose balance.

Sitting up like a big boy



He is also now enjoying sampling different foods. So far we've tried carrots, peas, squash, bananas, and of course rice cereal(which he does not seem to be a fan of). Seems the carrots have earned their spot on the top of his favorites list so far. Every night now he sits at the table in his highchair and has dinner with us. I'm also working on having him join me for breakfast in the mornings now on the weekends. Kirk really seems to be enjoying his new role in helping out with mealtime now that it's no longer only up to mom to provide all the food. Ian seems to be enjoying trying all of these new and exciting flavors as well as making a huge mess of course.

Enjoying peas and carrots

Mr Independent helping