Happy Birthday Connor!!!

Today my baby is one year old! When did this happen? It can't be! How did we go from this:
To this?

We have a party planned today, so there are lots of pictures to come. I did forget to post about his first haircut though. It was last Wednesday, and we went to a place called Cool Cuts for Kids in Bakersfield. He absolutely HATED it, but the woman who did it was super fast so it was over with quickly. Here's the before:

And a few during:

And here are a couple after shots:

Looking forward to summer

Things are still moving along around here. I work in a public school that did major layoffs this year, and I was one of the unlucky ones to get a pink slip. BUT our program (after school) was approved for a waiver that gives us full funding next year, so I do have a job after all! So now I can go back to looking forward to summer for the vacation, instead of worrying about it as the end of my job.

Connor is a regular pro at pulling up and cruising now. He can even get back down on his own! (That was a big challenge for a while) We're getting closer and closer to his first birthday, and I'm not ready at all! I think we're going with a Mario Brother's theme, which should be fun.

I am really looking forward to this summer. We want to go camping at least twice, maybe three times if we can make it work. Nights are usually warm enough by the end of June, so that will give us a good two months free for camping. There is also a family reunion in June, which should be a lot of fun. Connor loves car rides and meeting new people, so I'm hoping he has a good time.

And of course, here are a few new pictures!

Connor decided that he hated his playpen, so we went to Amazon.com and turned it in to a ball pit! Yay! Now I can cook breakfast in peace!

Happy Birthday Megan!

I'm a bad mommy. I totally forgot to post on Megan's 14th birthday! But missing it wasn't so bad, because now you can get a picture of her chowing down on her birthday cookie!

Here she is at around 8 years old or so:

And here she is on her birthday, last Saturday (the 25th)

Happy Easter!

We threw conservative parenting out the window and let Connor have a chocolate bunny for Easter. It was a huge mess, which of course means it was a ton of fun!

February? Man, I'm bad at this blog thing anymore.

February? I haven't posted since FEBRUARY? Oh my, I'm not very good at this, am I?

Well, today is Sara's 16th birthday. It's not as scary as it sounds. Sara is a good girl. The filter between her brain and her mouth is a bit too thin sometimes, but she has one of the kindest hearts I've ever had the honor of meeting.

Happy Birthday Sara!

Here she is circa 2003, and about a month ago. Yes, that is Connors beanie on her head.

As for Connor, he is growing in leaps and bounds. He is 21.5 lbs (63rd percentile) and 29.75 inches long (86th percentile). He is army crawling all over the house, and just started pulling up a few days ago. He's not too good at the whole getting down part yet, but he's getting really tired of falling, so I'm sure he'll figure it out soon enough.

He has also officially gone on a baby food strike. He will only eat finger foods for a bit over a month now. It's fun, but frustrating also. It was so much easier to get a balanced diet inside of him when I could feed him with a spoon now and then. I'm having to get much more creative now. Mealtime is also MUCH messier now, as you'll see in the pictures I'm about to upload!

Oh, and of course I have more pictures of my fancy cloth diapers and his very first head bonk, as well as a few shots of those first teeth!

Bathtime!

Mmmm... Carrots!

We love Mr. Bubbles!

Big toothy grin!

Eli Monster All In One Punk Rock diaper

Yay for kitties!

Oh yeah, I'm that cool.

I love to brush my teeth! I even give Mommy a turn once in a while.

Pat-a-cake is my favorite game.

I feed myself... sort of.

Hanging out with Daddy

The first bonk.

Watch out world, I'm crawling!

Mommy wanted a photo shoot for Earth Day, but I didn't think that was a good idea.

Where's Connor?

Peek-a-Boo!

Almost there...

And I'm standing!!!

First mess

I almost forgot! We had our first "Mommy turned around for a second and Connor made a mess" moment. He got ahold of his yogurt melts and shook them out all over the floor.

I'm going to have my hands full!

Teeth!!!

Connor went through another milestone spurt these past couple weeks. He can sit up on his own for longer and longer now. He's still not to the point where I can just leave him sitting up (if I let him fall he gets VERY angry with me) but he's really getting the hang of it. He is also rolling all over the house now, and trying very hard to crawl.

And and and? He cut TWO teeth this weekend! The first, bottom right, showed up Valentines Day morning, and the one right next to it was there the next day! Wow!

His favorite game is still peek-a-boo, but gimme-five is very popular as well.

This is my favorite shirt EVER.

And here is a pair of pants I made all by myself! They are fleece too, so they double as a diaper cover! Woot!

And here is the newest diaper to our stash. This is a dyed Drybees Gone Natural. The woman who makes and sells these was trying out a new method of dyeing them, and needed testers, and we got on the list early enough! Yay! It is made from Organic Bamboo Velour and Organic Bamboo Fleece and is absolutely the softest thing I have ever put my hands on.

And no, part of the deal for testing was not advertising. I just LOVE this diaper!