A Summer of Lakes and Land

The day after Robert took his last final, he flew across the country for five weeks for Officer Training with the Navy; that left Calvin and I a few weeks to do some traveling and have some fun of our own!

First my mom and nephews came to visit, and thenNatalie & Emerson came out to visit us in Reno. We spent a lot of time up at Lake Tahoe. I have a beach baby. I then drove back to Rexburg to hang out for  a week and celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday!

After some fun in Idaho, we ventured to Vegas to spend our last few weeks. We spent the night at the Mandalay Bay, hiked 20 miles to the top of Mt. Charleston, played with cousins and friends, went to Wet N' Wild, swam and frequented the Children's Museum and Springs Preserve. 

Twelve Months

So here we are; the last of Calvin's monthly updates. This morning I woke up to a slightly broken heart, know that my little babe is now turning into a toddler, but also a full heart of happiness and love for this sweet bundle of ours. This year has happened so quickly!

A few days after he turned one we went for his one year check up and shots (saddest thing I've ever experienced). Our Mr. Calvin has sure changed! He weighed in at 24 lbs and 14 oz ( 91%), 30.5" long (75%) and his genius brains at 19" (95%).

Calvin still takes two naps at 9:30 and 1:30, both anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. He dropped his last nursing session before bed about two days before he turned one and just swapped it for the bottle. We have about a 3 weeks storage of pumped milk in the freezer and he is only interested in about 4 oz for his nightly bottle. We start is nighttime routine around 7:30 and he is out by 8 or 8:15 and sleeps till 6:45 the next morning!

He loves to use is sign language for "food, more, all done, water," and "please". His vocabulary has grown to 5 words: "mama" "dada" "bye" "moo" and "night night". You can tell he tries to say some other things like "Thank You", but doesn't have it down quite yet.

Calvin LOVES anything musical. His favorite toys are things that make noise or music. When we were staying at my parents house while Robert was gone he came to love the piano and would stand up and play it for a good 10 minutes at a time. We got him a little music and drum set for his birthday and it was definitely a great choice on our end.

He is still  some-what of a  great eater. He got a third tooth on the bottom, but that doesn't seem to stop him! He doesn't eat everything like he used to, but pretty close. If he snacks too much in the afternoon it's pretty difficult to get him to eat a veggie filled dinner, or textures bother him more than they would other wise. His favorite breakfasts are still pancakes, eggs and a green smoothie. He loves berries, hummus, and he had popcorn the other day for the first time and it was priceless. He is a Wixom who loves popcorn (it must run in the gene pool). When he eats in his high chair he always has to have a utensil in his hand, even if he can't properly use it. He doesn't like any kind of milk; whole, 2%, coconut, almond, rice, coconut-almond. You name a milk and he doesn't like it. He will usually take a sip or two but then won't have anything to do with it after the initial taste.

He loves to point at things, dance and meet new people. Sometimes I wonder if I should be concerned that he loves strangers so much, but I figure we will cross that bridge when we come to it.  He will also push around anything that will move; he really wants to walk but isn't up for doing it by himself, ha-ha! There were a few decorative casualties at my mom's house from Calvin pushing around end tables, benches, chairs, etc. He is a lightning speed crawler, and climber and hasn't seemed interested in walking by himself yet; although he can stand for a good amount of time before he realizes it and sits down.

Calvin also loves to laugh at himself and mimic noises. My favorite is his belly laugh and fake cackle laugh. It just fills my heart with joy.

A preview of his 1 year pictures. (more to come later)

Watching Calvin over the last year has been such an incredible thing to witness. He has learned to grab things, roll, sit, crawl, stand, pull him self up, say words, use sign language, eat solids, and goof off. So much happens in a year and it was incredible to see how much development happens to one little human over twelve short months.

Eleven Months

Our darling boy is now a month away from turning one and my heart breaks a little bit when I think about it. He is the goofiest little boy; he is starting to do things now just to make us giggle and he loves to laugh as well, mostly he laughs at himself.

He can say "mom" and "dad" more clearly now, but those are still his only words. His new trick that he learned a few days ago is pointing to his ears, nose or mouth when we ask him.When I ask him "where is your nose?" he will only ever point to my nose, never his. His signing vocabulary has grown to include "please" and "all done" along with his usual "more" and "food".

He loves to clap for himself whenever he hears "yay" or "good job", make the fish noise/mouth, point at EVERYTHING, scrunch his nose and walk around with his walker. I use the word walk loosely, he is either on his knees pushing it around, or sprinting with it while screaming a nice war cry.

He stands up on everything and is pretty good at standing up, until he realizes that he isn't holding anything and then he squats down. He also refuses to walk unless we are holding both of his fingers. We try and get him to walk between two people, but he just stands and then falls forwards without taking any steps. It's hilarious.

We definitely have a social butterfly on our hands. Meeting new people makes him happy happy happy; mostly when they play with him and tell him how adorable he is (he gets it...a lot. I think he knows it, too :) When we are at church or on airplanes he looks around and talks to people until they acknowledge him and interact with him and he gets mad if they don't!

He is getting into his "helping" stage and won't let me in the kitchen if he isn't there to help. Stirring on the stove, whisking eggs and flipping pancakes are his personal favorite cooking chores. He may have gotten curry all over my favorite white shorts and ruined them, but I have forgiven him :)

In the last week or so he has switched to 12-18 month clothing for about 90%, he still has a few 6-12/9-12 month things he can wear.  Calvin loves swimming and especially going to the beach at Lake Tahoe. He crawls like a bear all over the sand and especially loves to be buried in the sand. I don't know why, but it's hilarious.

 

He dropped another liquid feeding, so he is down to nursing/bottle to once a day, right before he goes to bed at 7:30. He was getting ready for breakfast about 20 minutes after he nursed when he woke up at 7 so I decided to try taking him straight to breakfast instead and he hasn't looked back!  His favorite breakfast foods are still eggs, pancakes and green smoothies. He LOVES any sort of berry, especially blueberries. Even though he still only has two bottom teeth he prefers to take bites out of food rather than us cut it up and put it on his tray. There are very few things he wont eat, but he definitely has preferences. Some dinners he gobbles it right up and others he takes forever to eat because he tries to pick around things.

We just love this crazy boy even more than last month and love seeing his personality come out!