Happy First Birthday Fredrick

From February 2009 to February 2010!!!!

I can't believe it's been a year since we had Freddie, and what a year it's been!!

This little guy is a trooper - We still can't believe he had his surgery only 6 months ago!! He never skipped a beat after having his head opened and his skull fixed!! He's pushing 30 pounds (we'll know exact details on Wednesday at his appointment) and he's just learning and such a joy to have!!

He is crawling with complete ease now and learning how to crawl up steps....he has pulled himself up twice to stand inside his play yard. He is definitely a boy - he is 200 times more daring than Karyl ever was, this boy has NO fear!! He will put anything and everything in his mouth, he will attempt to head off the edge of anything (a bed, a step) head first without even stopping to check it out (no accidents yet, we keep a close eye on him!!). I don't think he'll be walking for a while, his balance isn't at that point yet, but that's good because he is going to be quite the handful once he's mobile on 2 feet!!!

He is such an amazing guy - he is slowly starting to talk more and very few of us can understand it...he asks for kisses, and answers basic questions with an affirmative "yes"...He LOVES to say DADDY over and over and over again....he also can ask for hugs, but he prefers kisses and you have to pay attention because once he asks, he throws his forehead straight towards your lips!! he also gives kisses with his mouth open, he's working on getting the smacking down!! He refuses to build with blocks, he wants you to stack a few then he will knock them down, over and over again. This boy is all about destruction!!

He loves to sleep with blankets because he plays with the edges of them and if you ask him if he wants to take a "nappy-nap" he will say yes, you can lay him down and you won't hear another peep!! He eats bananas and kiwi, and LOVES Cheerios!! His most favorite thing of all though - his big sister. If you want to get him so excited that he shakes - let Karyl have a few minutes with him!! He gets so excited when they are playing that he tenses up and shakes, it's hilarious once you realize that he's not having mini seizures!!

We are so blessed to have this big guy in our lives. He is so happy and when he giggles you can't help but laugh too, it's infectious!! He is such a wonderful addition to our family (even though he refuses to snuggle or sleep in my arms....) we definitely have won the lottery when it comes to genetics and babies. He is our beautiful blond-haired, BLUE-eyed man and we can't wait to see what the next year brings us as far as his growing and learning.

Also, as a side note before closing - thank you again from the bottom of our hearts to all of you who said prayers for Fredrick, sent his name to the temples all over the world and sent your words of encouragement and happy thoughts - without all of you he would have never made such a miraculous recovery and been as well-off as he is now. We owe it all to our friends and neighbors, you guys each helped to make our son who he is today and we will never forget that!!

I will post pics of Fredrick's cake that I made when I can find the elusive camera cord!!!

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY FREDRICK!!! We all love you more than you will ever know =)

Kids say the darndest things...

Karyl and I were playing Hi Ho Cherry-O this afternoon after her nap, and she has it in her head that after each round we have to switch to a different color tree.....well, since I usually lose and still have all the cherries on my tree sometimes I don't want to bother to take them all off and put them on another one....today was one of those days...

We were playing....she won....and she said "alright, time to change trees" and she proceed to switch her yellow tree for the blue one. Then she set it down and stared at me.....I asked her "what" and she said Mommy, you need to switch to the green tree" - I told her that I didn't want to change colors, I liked my red tree...and then she looked down at her tree and to herself said this:

"Rule of life #21: When we play the cherry game, mommy may not want to switch her tree when she should..."

I stifled a very loud giggle and looked at her in the eyes...I asked her where she got that from and she acted like I shouldn't have even heard it. I asked her if that was something Olivia would say and she just ignored me.

If your kids don't watch Olivia, then you won't get it...but if you've seen the commercials for the cute cartoon you'll see why it's so funny.

Oh Karyl - what will you say next??

Actually, she made me laugh earlier in the day too, but I couldn't fully appreciate the humor in what she said until my heart stopped racing and I stopped shaking -

We were in my room and I heard a weird coming from the ceiling - I started looking around and said out loud "what is that noise?" Karyl looked up at one of the recessed lights in our room and said "mommy, it's one of those flying bugs you don't like" I immediately pieced together the noise and possible culprit and got her out of the room. I then closed the doors and got the vacuum.

She then asked me if she could see the bug after I suck him up...I said sure and headed to the office to plug in the vacuum and prepare for battle. I then took about 4 deep breaths, made sure I had a good grip on the hose, and opened the door. Luckily the wasp had settled on the ceiling above the bed and he was easy to get too - I think when they come in through the lights they get burned and injured (or at least shocked) enough that they don't do much flying. So I extended the pole until I was just close enough not to alarm him and hit the go button and sucked his little buzzing butt up!!! I then closed the cap on the hose and took the vacuum outside where Karyl insisted on looking at him. I hadn't even found him when she pointed him out "mommy, there he is - he's playing in the dirt in the vacuum." Yeah, she thinks he's playing, I'm thinking that he deserves to be writhing in there for sneaking in to my bedroom.

So, I took the canister out and put it on the front porch with the opening down so he can't get out...Greg can empty it when he gets home.

I figure I'm not a very demanding wife and I try to help as much as possible, but this is one area where he can be the man and handle it. We need to find some sort of cap for the can lighting in the attic...surprisingly they don't sell anything like that at Home Depot. I found something on line that would work, but that involves ordering, and waiting...I'm sure Greg can think of something - but we need to block off the lights from the attic. While I hate bees and wasps and fear for my life around them, I'm glad that they are only showing up in our room and not through the lights in the kitchen or hallway....near where the kids are. If anyone is going to get stung, I'd prefer it be me and not one of the kids.

And people wonder why I'm not a nature person - because the little buggers insist on invading my space.

And that was my day....I didn't need to exercise, my heart raced out of control for about an hour after the wasp incident, and then I cried like a baby for about 5 minutes, which burned quite a few calories I'm sure.

Kids say the darndest things...

Videos!!!

I LOVE that I can just upload vidoes to YouTube and then share them here. Granted, it takes forever to upload them to YouTube, but once you do it makes life much easier for sharing them!!

So, here are 2 videos from the past week. One is Freddie showing off his ability to practically shake his crib to pieces, and the other is Karyl and him goofing off and at the end, he shows off his new trick - he tickles himself!!

Enjoy!!

Yet another milestone...finally...

As most of you know, Freddie has started crawling forwards and is only getting faster and into more places he shouldn't be...

But this afternoon he did something new....he pulled himself up. He was in his "baby jail" (the big plastic fence/play-yard) and lately he has been doing a lot of pulling himself up on his knees and shaking the railings on his crib and the plastic fencing....well I went into the other room to get something, came back out and heard Karyl say "Mommy, Mommy, Freddie is standing up" and sure enough, he was. He looked a little shocked, and hasn't done it again but he's finally put his skill into practical application!!!

Oh it's only a matter of time until this little bundle of all-boy energy starts running through my house.....

Here it is

So I got the cord out of the van when I said I would, but then I couldn't find the camera...then I lost my enthusiasm and once I found the camera it took another few days to get the fire back.

It never came back, but I felt guilty lying to everyone so here I am...

Oh so much has happened and I have chosen my favorite pics to post. I don't think they'll be in order, and I'm just fine with that - I'll try to put dates on here so that I'll know in the future but that takes work and research (turning the camera back on and looking up the dates).

These are samples I made for the Teen classes I'm teaching at JoAnn's...headbands and a picture made entirely of duct tape. I don't know who came up with these ideas, but let me say that the duct tape picture was a pain in the butt to make!!

January 6, 2010 -

As a reward for being potty trained, Greg told Karyl she could pick out any toy in Target...she wanted a Dora bowling alley, but I artfully steered her towards a more practical gift - a Dora tent. She loves this thing...it's in the middle of Grandpa B's front room right now. It's huge for a kid her size - and it creates static electricity like nobody's business. Greg took these pics and they are some of his favorite pics of little K.

January 3, 2010 -

Karyl's first day as a Sunbeam. She loves her new Primary Class!!!

Ironically (and to my excitement) this past week I have been "promoted" from being the primary chorister to being in charge of the Ward Choir (I'd much rather lead adults than kids...and funny enough, the lady who was doing the adults would rather teach the kids...) sometimes calling really do prove to be an inspired idea.

February 2, 2010
Karyl loves to be Freddie's "Big Sister" and apparently part of her job description is helping Freddie when he cries...he was crying, so she reached over and held his hand. We only noticed because he went from crying to laughing in a matter of seconds, we turned back and this was the scene!!

February 6, 2010 -

Good ol' Home Depot...this is a rack for all of Karyl's Matchbox Cars...I think this will get better use in Freddie's room in the future.

January 9, 2010 -

This was a Lowe's Coin Bank...I don't know how accurate it is, but it has lines for each coin slot to indicate how much money you have!!

January 23, 2010 -

This week she made a travel wooden tic-tac-toe game. She loves to take the pieces out and just put them on the board. She doesn't quite get the concept, but she loves the colorful pieces!!

January 21, 2010 -

Welcome to our backyard mud pool....The water in our backyard during these past few storms has been unbelievable. The water over by the easel is about 8 inches deep. Until we get cement back there, this is what will keep happening - the curse of home improvement.

And this was taken just the other night...I saw this idea on like 13 different people's blogs so I decided to try it out. I am about 3/4 of the way done as of last night. You cover the entire heart with these felt circles and it looks super cute!! I can't wait to show you the finished product!!

So, there are a few of our favorite pictures from the last month or so. I will try to be better and blog more often like before, this past month has just been really weird in terms of my motivation to do anything other than sleep. I guess it's the weather and being stuck inside.

I also have a few nummy recipes that I made over the past whiel including my mother-in-law's delicious meatloaf (I have a picture-by-picture guide to making it), a peach dump cake and our favorite pie around here, my peanut butter pie - which made me realize that my Vidalia Chooper is good for more than just veggies!! So, check out my Life After Diapers blog later today for those!!

I'll be back...

I know, I know...it's been like a month since I last posted.

My camera cord is in the van, in a green re-usable JoAnn's bag with some knitting....

The bag is underneath the 300 pound double stroller in the back of the van...

I really am too lazy to just pull the stroller out and grab the bag. I figured I would wait until we pulled the stroller out and grab it then....but we haven't pulled it out - too much rain, so we haven't been out much lately.

I have LOTS of pictures...Home Depot, Lowe's, our newly remodeled garage with carpet and my "mini-gym", our mud farm in the backyard...

I am writing this and making a public promise...tomorrow I will suck it up and get the cord and post pictures because I also have some yummy recipes for my other blog to post and if I don't post them soon I will forget and then I will be sad...

Have a great Sunday and I promise, there will be pictures soon!!!