Holy crap...

my baby turns one in a month! That is just crazy. In the past year and a half we've gone from this...

(18 weeks)

(22 weeks)

(27 weeks)

(36 weeks)

To this....



(March 31, 2011, the day he was born)

To this...

(9 months)


(10 months)


Blows my mind.

Valentine's Day

Not too eventful over here. Hubby gave me the sweetest card and a box of Charleston Chews (one of my favorites). And even Mr.E participated, he "got" me a card and handed it to me. It was too sweet. I baked sugar cookies, find the recipe here, at cookeatandbemerry.blogspot.com, cut out a billion hearts to scatter around, and made him a little card from me and Mr.E. And in case you haven't tried this before, making sugar cookies, cutting out hearts and trying to make everything look presentable with a baby, is pretty much impossible. Something that should have taken 2 hours max took 5 hours.
Here's just a few photos of our day

Sugar cookies in the process

Bowl of heart cut-outs


And my little "helper." He's a bit blurry because he will not hold still.


And I've just got to do a product shout out. This stuff
is awesome. It's organic evaporate cane juice, a replacement for white refined sugar. It's the same texture, just a tiny bit darker in color, but sweetens the same. I baked with it and you'd never be able to tell the difference. I'm pretty sure you can buy it at any grocery store in the sugar isle, but it can be a bit pricey for a small bag. I bought my 10LB bag at Costco for just under $20. If your Costco has it, I recommend you purchase it and switch over. Anyways, that's my little tidbit for the day.
Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day.
Oh and one last thing, my little guy is starting to walk! What? Didn't he just learn to crawl like 3 weeks ago? Why yes, he did. Little stinker just has to one up himself.

Please ignore my crazy, laugh at the end. I sound like a fool!

The beach.

The hubby got an interview at a school out in CA, so we decided to pack up and head out west for the weekend. And since it was just a short distance from my parent's house, and my sister and her kids were visiting, we decided to make it into a short little getaway. We headed to the beach on Saturday where Mr.E experienced his first REAL feel of the ocean. He wasn't too sure about the sand but he loved the ocean. I couldn't keep him away from the crashing waves.
Here he is crawling towards the sand...

And hated the way it felt.
A sandy little foot print...

Followed by the cutest little, sandy foot...





The girls (my nieces) had my sister bury them in the sand and turn them into mermaids.

It was a great day and a great trip. I just hope that we don't have to endure that 10 hour drive again anytime soon. Unless it's for a permanent move :)
And my very talented sister was nice enough to take some ADORABLE pictures of my baby boy.
Here are just a few, I don't want to overwhelm you all with all the cuteness you're about to encounter :)





Thanks Bree for these pictures! Loving them!

Life as of late.

Nothing new or exciting has really been happening. We're still anxiously waiting to hear back from grad schools. And I've decided that grad school applications are ridiculous and it makes me want to puke. They charge way too much money and take way too long to get back to you. It's really annoying. And that's about all that's really been going on for us.
Mr. E is seriously growing by the second. Over the past 3 1/2 weeks he's figured out something new everyday. Over Christmas he learned "so big." Now he's on to army crawling, with the occasional actual crawl, pulling himself up, walking (assisted of course), clapping, hitting his head while clapping, doing a froggy swimming motion, eating more finger foods, holding his own cracker, screaming if we're eating and he's not, NOT sleeping through the night, playing and interacting with us, and not wanting to sit still...at all. It's been so fun to see him grow and progress. But does he really have to grow up so fast?!

He loves to help me bake

Loves standing now

And to crawl-ish

He's also turned into a little cuddler, and by cuddler I mean he'll rest his head on our shoulder, or bunny boo, for 3-8 seconds


And I thought this was cute. He woke up from his nap and I noticed he had a little hand print on his cheek where he must have been laying on it.


Every Christmas my mom's sister sends her family these awesome boxes filled with goodies. And my mom was nice enough to give me her leftover box so I could transform it into a toy box for Mr.E. Well, after 3 weeks of just staring at it, I FINALLY bought the necessities to finish it. And I'm quite proud of it if I do say so myself :)




Oh, I guess I should add that this was just a plain wood box. I added the hinges, and covered the lid and inside with fabric.
Hope everyone is enjoying their January..it's almost over!! What? How did that happen? Can you believe I'm already planning Mr.E's FIRST BIRTHDAY!!! Ahhhh! I'm freaking out.
Oh, and we finally got some snow!

Edit

Remember when I was rejoicing at the fact that Mr.E was sleeping through the night? Well I jinxed the hell out of that. Ever since I posted that, he's been waking up 2-3 times before 3 am and then after 3 am he continues to wake up crying every hour until 7:30am comes around. It's totally awesome. I feel like zombie mom all day long and dread going to bed because I know I'll be awake in just a couple hours or less. I'm hoping this is teething so I know an "end" is near and he'll go back to sleeping a 5 hour stretch and then a 7 hr stretch. Fingers crossed a little toothy pokes through soon!

Christmas, it really is the most wonderful time of the year

Am I the only one sad to see this time of the year go? It went by way too fast.
This year we were fortunate enough to fly out to CA to spend Christmas with my parents. My sister (sadly) could not be there and we missed her terribly. It was a very nice, relaxing, warm (75 degrees), 10 days there. And it ended way too soon. Our trip was filled with hikes, movies, Christmas sight seeing, food, family, and more food. Can we rewind to 2 weeks ago?
Mr. E's first Christmas was a good one. He got a couple of new toys, clothes and BINKIES! Man, i never thought I'd be so happy for binkies. I'm so excited for him to get older and to really get into it. But at the same time...can he just stay my little baby?
Here are a few highlights from this wonderful Christmas season...are you ready for picture overload?! I'm warning you, there are a lot!

Cute cousins making hand and foot print ornaments




We met up with one of my best friends and Mr. E's future best friend

My mom's house always looks amazing during Christmas. Although I was sad she got rid of her giant tree, her 2 new trees were still just as beautiful.





I found these little "beauties" hanging on one of them. If you look really hard you can see that that's me inside those little ornaments.


We went to Claim Jumper Christmas eve for dinner and that place never dissapoints. Oh and my phone is in Mr. E's hand's 50% of the time...it starts young.


Here's our little guy in his Christmas jammies, playing with one of the Christmas trees.





Christmas morning...



And lastly, the presents. Mr.E had no idea what to do with them so we had to help him out, and like most babies, I think he enjoyed the wrapping paper more than the actual present itself.





One of my good friends from way, way, way back (5th grade) got married. Her reception was beautiful. She was stunning and just glowed. Ah, newly wed couples... :)



And I was able to enjoy the evening with not only my family, but 2 of my best friends from highschool. It was a sweet, sweet reunion.

On the 31st Mr. E hit the big 9 months and I just can't believe it. He is growing up so fast. It really hit me at how old he was getting when I realized that the next time my parents see him it'll be for his FIRST BIRTHDAY!! What the?! How the?! When the?! This can't be.
9 months has been good to us though. He's still not crawling, which I'm okay with. But he did recently (knock on wood) start sleeping through the night. HALLELUJAH! He's still my happy, little mama's boy. He babbles, throws his arms in the air (so big), rocks on his knees, makes funny noises with his hand and mouth, says mama and dada, laughs (at dad not me), and is such a joy to have around. We seriously just adore this kid.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. Here's to a great 2012