What A Day!!!

So, here's what happened.  In one of those "temporary insanity" moments, I decided to make Kenny's one year doctor appointment at 8:15 in the morning! The doctor's office is a good thirty to forty minute drive from my house.  But I need gas, so I need to leave earlier.  My mother is going with me, because a doctor's visit equals shopping trip, and we must not miss those opportunities.  So at 7 am, she's at my house and we're pulling out of the drive at 7:15.  I stop for gas, and we're headed to the doc's.

We arrive at the doc's office about fifteen minutes early and have to wait for them to open the doors.  In case y'all didn't know yet, I live in the south where the heat has now reached a 1,000 degrees.  So we're sweating our patootie's off waiting on them to open the door.  So we get in, get all the paperwork filled out because they haven't had me fill out a hundred times before, we must do it again, and me and Kenny go back while my mom and Connor stay out in the waiting room.  While we're waiting on the doctor, Kenny is having a good time walking up and down the exam table, climbing on me, trying to climb off the exam table, throwing a fit to be in the floor, and beating on the walls.  Finally the doctor comes in and says everything is looking great.  YAY! The doctor said he was above average in head circumference and height.  My mother (who wasn't in the room, remember?) heard, "He's a genius and the most adorable baby I've ever seen".

After the doctor, we went around the corner to where my husband works and saw him.  We love visiting Daddy at work, and Daddy loves to see us.  We said hi to everyone and Kenny showed off his walking and dancing skills as Daddy played his favorite, The Gummy Bear Song. (See last post to find a link to the song, if you've never heard it and want to)  Daddy gave Connor two dollars and told him he could get some ice cream after lunch.

So then it was on to the shopping.  After a successful trip into the clothes store where I found two cute tops, and a successful trip into Archiver's where my mom found a couple of stamps and Connor was on his best behavior, we decide to go eat at the food court in the mall.  On the way there Connor said he was going to buy a cookie with his $2.

Whoever designed the mall was either really smart, or really devious, because you can't sit at the food court without seeing the carousal.  As soon as we walk in Connor starts, "I want to ride that!" How much does it cost to ride the carousal? $2.  So I told Connor he had to choose, he could buy ice cream, like Daddy suggested, a cookie, like he was talking about, or ride the carousal, but whatever he chose he had to eat his lunch.  And he did! My picky, skimpy eater ate all his nuggets and some fries.  Then I asked him what he had decided to do with his two dollars and he wanted to ride the carousal, so that's what he did!

So then we headed to Wal-mart because the other day I got a phone call from the portrait studio offering me a free 10x13 photo for Kenny's birthday.  I made the appointment for 3 because I figured we'd be all day shopping.  Wrong.  We get to wal-mart at one! I thought maybe they might could get us in earlier, but nope, they were booked and then the photographer had to take her lunch.  I should have just rescheduled and went on home, but nooooooo! I come from a family of 'going to see it through no matter what' kind of people.  At 2 I decided I would go ahead and reschedule.  But the people ahead of us was still in there.  Finally, at 2:30 they left and I thought, "well, there's only a half hour left, might as well stay now."
An hour later we're finally leaving.  The kids are tired and my mom and I are beat.

Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there.  When we got home we went over to my mother in law's so she could visit with the grand kids and she was making spaghetti for supper.  After supper she gave Kenny the rest of his birthday present (It didn't come in in time for the party) It was a little CD player for kids and she had her daughter burn a CD with nothing but the Gummy Bear Song on it, over and over and over and over.  So now he can listen to it non stop as much as he wants.  I have discovered that when relatives buy presents for kids, they take no consideration for the parents sanity.  But it's okay, Kenny loves it and I love seeing my baby happy.  Besides, until he figures out how to turn it on and press the play button, I still have control over how many times in a row it plays!

So we were sitting there listening to the gummy bear song for the 158th time and my sister in law starts talking about the new movie Magic Mike.  I'm not sure how it happened, but before long she had talked me into joining her in making these pictures to put on facebook.  She made one with her fellow and I made one with mine.  Then we posted them on facebook and watched everyone start laughing! So I thought I'd share it here too:

So that was my day.  It was a really good day, the kids behaved, I got new clothes, Kenny got a good report from the doctor and I'm going to see Magic Mike with my sister in law sometime Saturday.  

Kenny's First Birthday Party!

Kenny turned one on June 22.  He actually had two birthday parties.  Since my husbands mother had to work on Saturday, she had him a little cake, ice cream and presents the night before.  It was going really good until Kenny grabbed his daddy's cup of milk.  Now, for the past few days Kenny has been drinking out of regular cups really good.  The only problem he has is when he's done, he throws it down! So when he grabbed Brad's milk, everyone got nervous except for me and Brad because we had seen him drink from cups.  I brag on him, telling everyone, "It's okay, he can drink from a regular cup, watch." What does he do? Dumps it all over himself.  So for the rest of the evening I'm getting teased and laughed at because I let him do it.  But it was nice, his granny got him this cute little activity table that plays music and lights up.  He loves it, he can stand up at it and dance.


The next day was his other birthday part for everyone else, mostly my side of the family.  I got the cutest idea for his cake.  Kenny, for whatever reason, has come to love the Gummy Bear Song <-- this is the link in case you've never heard it before--  This song can instantly change his mood.  He can be mad, upset, crying and screaming, but if we turn on the gummy bear song, he will stop, start laughing and dancing.  Since it seems to be the only thing right now that he just absolutely loves, I decided to have a picture of it put on his cake.  The Kroger Bakery does that.  I took them the picture and they put it on the cake.  Not only that, but Kroger, ours at least, gives a free little cake they call a "smash cake" on the first birthday for the baby to dig into.  It turned out so cute.  Being the procrastinator that I am, at 1:00 I leave to head to Walmart and get Kenny's birthday present, and then to Kroger to pick up the cake.  I got home with thirty minutes to spare!

Brad graciously volunteered to grill out for everyone.  Hamburgers and hot dogs.  I don't want to brag, but y'all, my husband can grill up some awesome food!! I love when he grills for us, it's always grilled just right, never burnt or under cooked, juicy, just perfect!! He started grilling as the grandparents and great grandparents arrived.  While he was grilling, Kenny entertained everyone by dancing to the gummy bear song! (His great grandparents were still laughing about this morning at church)



So we eat, and then pull out the cake.  We give Kenny his little smash cake and at first he's a little shy with it.  Then he realizes it's edible.  Before long it's all over his face, his clothes, his hair, the chair, up his nose and in his ears! That's when we decided it probably would've been a good idea to let him open presents before digging into the cake.  So while the rest of us are enjoying the big cake, my mom and grandma stick Kenny in the bath and wash him off.  We get him redressed and after my grandmother insists on coming his hair, which didn't do any good cause he ran his hands through it and messed it back up, we give him his presents.

All the presents are in gift bags so it's easy for him to open.  I encourage him to pull out the tissue paper in the first bag.  He leans over and looks in.  Clothes.  (Cute clothes) so he goes to the next bag, pulls out the tissue paper.  More clothes. (Even cuter clothes) On to the third bag, pulls out the tissue paper, and again, clothes.  (I'm happy, cause he's out grown everything else and the clothes are so cute) On the fourth bag he was done, he started playing with other stuff.  I knew there was a toy in the fourth bag because it was from me and Brad.  But I could not convince him to pull the tissue paper out of the bag! I finally pulled it out and tipped the bag over for him to see and then he wanted it out of the bag and out of the box so he could play with it!

So he had a great first birthday!

A Whole Year is Gone

My youngest son Kenny will be one on the 22nd of this month.  A whole year has passed.  I can remember a year ago I was so miserable.  I was ready for him to get here.  I was excited too, I couldn't wait to meet him.  I couldn't wait to see the differences between him and his older brother.  What would he look like? What would his likes and dislikes be? What would he show interest in? What would he care less for? Well, I've had a year to learn about him.  He's a very different baby than Connor.

Right off I noticed that Kenny was a very determined baby.  Most of the time he was relaxed, easy going, laid back.  He just went along with the flow, unperturbed by what went on in his world.  But when he decided he wanted something, like to be picked up, then he'd start whining.  If ignored, the whining turned into crying.  If the crying was ignored, it turned into screaming.  I say all this in the past tense, but he still does this.  Now he follows me around the house, letting me know he wants to be picked up.  I have had to pick him up and go put him in his crib to let him cry it out.  But since he's so determined, crying it out can last forever.  I've tried distracting him, I've tried picking him up and getting him calmed to put him back down, I've tried bribing him with food.  Nothing works.  Fortunately this doesn't happen a lot except when he's teething or going through a growth spurt.

We also discovered pretty early on that it doesn't take much to make him smile.  Me or his daddy can just look at him and we get his big goofy grin in return.  And he has the cutest laugh ever.  He's very ticklish and we've found all his tickle spots.  I love his grin.  He's got a small gap between his two front teeth and when he grins you can see it.  He'll throw his head bag, squint his eyes and grin as big as he can.  That grin makes my heart smile.  He loves to play and his favorite thing to do is play with faces.  He'll stick his fingers in our mouths, grab our bottom teeth and pull.  He also likes to pull on his daddy's nose.  He also finds it hilarious to smack us on the face and hear us say 'ow'!

Kenny is definitely a mover.  He's never still.  Trying to change a diaper on that kid should be an Olympic sport! He'll do one of two things: He either pulls his legs up to his chest and start playing with his hiney (that's usually only when he's dirty) or he waits until the diaper is off and starts rolling away.  It's hard to hold him down, keep his hands above his waist, his legs down and put a diaper on him all at the same time.

But the biggest thing I can't believe with him is how he eats.  Connor has always been a skimpy eater.  When he was 8 weeks old he was diagnosed with Pyloric Stenosis and had to have surgery.  He lost a lot of weight for a baby and since then has never really ate.  He also inherited my picky eating habits.  But he's healthy, he has plenty of energy, he's just skinny.
Kenny never stops eating! He is as opposite from Connor in the food department as one can be.  I have yet to fill this child up.  Even has a newborn, he'd nurse for a long time.  The only time I've seen Kenny turn food away was one time when he didn't feel good and had a fever.  My parents kept them the other night for my husband and I to go out for our anniversary.  They told me he ate supper, then laughed and said he ate 6 chicken nuggets and half a banana.  My mother in law was watching them other day while I was cutting grass and said he ate an entire grilled cheese sandwich and some pudding.  Last night he ate an entire bowl of a pasta dish I had cooked.  That kid will eat anything that doesn't eat him first.  When he sees food, he spits his pacifier across the room! It literally flies!


It has been quite an interesting year of learning all these new things about Kenny, like he inherited my curls, or his daddy's dimples.  Or how when he decided he wanted to walk he just started walking. (He's been walking really good for a couple of weeks now) and when he cries he has this heart breaking, pitiful cry that makes you feel like a terribly cruel person if you don't pick him up and comfort him.