It’s hard to believe my little baby boy turned one on August 29th!

For those of you who aren’t around him and don’t know him very well let me tell you all about my baby! 

I nursed him the entire first year and loved it…except when I didn’t.  He also never slept through the night that entire first year and I nursed him in the middle of the night each night…I jest, he did sleep through the night maybe 10 times.  But now that he’s just drinking from a sippy cup he sleeps through the night.  Hallelujah!

He got his first two teeth at 2.5 months and at 1 year (13 months now) he has 12 and is working on the 13th and 14th.

He learned to walk at 9 months and is now climbing on EVERYTHING.  I take him off the kitchen and dining room tables multiple times a day.  It is driving me crazy, but he is obsessed.  (If you tell him not to do something, it becomes a single minded obsession for him.  It’s a fun stage.)

He has had way too many ear infections so yesterday he had tubes put in his ears.  We were nervous of course, he’s our first kid to need medical procedures like that, but he did great and is feeling much better now. 

He has the best smile!  And an even better laugh!  He kisses us constantly.  Big open mouth right on the kisser. 

He loves to climb on us and his brothers and is very friendly.  He loves being outside and heads straight for whatever door is open and will just start walking down the sidewalk as fast as he can. 

Blowing out his candle

Eating his cupcake

Opening his presents

Happy Birthday David!  We love having you in our family and watching your personality emerge.  You are awesome and I’m glad you’re mine!

School started this year on Monday, August 22, 2012.  The bus stop this year is a block away instead of right in front of our house, but I enjoy the extra time walking with Brian most mornings and afternoons. 

As you can see Brian is going into 1st grade

And Aaron is going into 3rd grade

They think they are cool!

And the younger brothers want in on the pictures too!



After school we went to our favorite ice cream shop which is just down the street from us, Ritters Frozen Custard.  Heavenly!  The boys all thoroughly enjoyed it. 
Let’s all hope this is another GREAT school year!

The day after Brian’s birthday our family took a vacation to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas.  We had a great time!  There were lots of waterslides, both inside and out, both for the bigger kids and some for the younger, and lots of things to see and do. 

There was an area just for the little kids where Christian spent most of his time.  Brian could go down these slides too so Paul or I took turns holding David in this area too. 

While obviously David is too young for many of the activities and spent most of the time in our arms, or in the room napping, but I still think he had fun too.

I really enjoyed the Lazy River, but the day I took these pictures I was holding David and Paul was in the River with the other boys. 

There was also a tide pool with water spouts in the shallow end that Christian and David could splash in. 

Aaron was tall enough to go on all the big slides, and Brian was tall enough for most of them.  Paul and I took turns going down rides with them and had a great time!

There was also an outdoor area we enjoyed. 

Fort MacKenzie had the “big” bucket of water which fell every few minutes. 

In the evening they had storytime that the boys enjoyed in their pajamas.

Aaron poses when you take his picture!

Christian still talks often about “Big Bad Wolf Lodge.” We had a good time and would enjoy going back when the babies are older!

Brian’s Birthday was on August 16th, and this year it was a Thursday.  I told him we could go out to eat for 1 meal, and he chose breakfast, so we headed off to IHOP first thing in the morning. 

For his cake he decided he wanted one that looked like a Lego, so I did my best.  I think it turned out OK, but I am NOT great at cake decorating!

He got lots of great present and had a great birthday.  I can’t believe he’s 6. 

Hexbugs (we have quite the collection now!)

The entire set of Captain Underpants books.  He’s read them all several times!

Brian, you are the most loving boy I’ve ever met.  You are super friendly and a lot of fun to be around.  You are so smart and funny and I am so glad you are a part of our family.  You definitely make life interesting!  I look forward to continuing to watch you learn and grow and seeing you become the amazing boy you are.  I’m glad you’re mine!

The one topic I haven’t talked about is our Wednesday – Unit Studies day.  One of my selling points for homeschooling was that we could learn about whatever he wanted to learn about. 

The first week he wanted to learn about….are you ready for this…video games.  Sigh.  So we checked out some books from the library about video games.  We read about the history of video games, which consoles came in what order, we learned about the positive and negatives of playing video games and then he was to write in his notebook about what he learned.  And he drew a blank.  He had no idea what to write.  I kept trying to give him hints and help him, but it was a struggle all day.

So the next week I decided we would learn about cars all month long.  We read books, we looked at different models online, we read more books, I tried to get him to make a poster by cutting pictures of cars out of a car magazine (he cut out pictures of 20 steering wheels…why?), we watched a video about how cars are made, we made reservations at the Toyota manufacturing plant in San Antonio (which got canceled but rescheduled for Wednesday), a neighbor showed him the different parts of the engine and how a car works…theoretically this sounds like a lot of fun things to learn about.  But each Wednesday is still a struggle.

I think it’s because I need things more structured.  I don’t want to abandon our unit studies, but what we’ve been doing has not been working for me.  Next week we are going to start doing a lap book about “Little House in the Big Woods” and it is a little more structured, so we’ll see if we enjoy that better.

There are other things about homeschooling that I don’t love.  In general I don’t feel my house gets as clean.  I don’t think I pay enough attention to Christian.  He watches way too much PBS.  I have a harder time making freezer meals or other things on my to-do list.  I certainly don’t have as much “me” time.  Going out to lunch with friends or visiting teaching is more difficult because I have an 8yo with me. 

But despite the things I complain about, I am still enjoying spending the one-on-one time with Aaron.  He loves learning which makes teaching him fun.  But mostly I just like getting to spend the time with him.

Enough about homeschooling.  Back to posts about birthdays and fun things we do as a family!