Catching up on PICTURES!!!

OK, so instead of editing old posts, I'll just catch up on pictures in one post and tell you what each picture is.

Hunter during his Christmas program.
Hunter's class during the Christmas program.

The second infant class at the Christmas Program (Rudolph song).

The 18-month to 2-year-old class at the Christmas Program (Jingle Bells).

I think this picture was taken on the way home that night, or maybe on the way back to the school for the program. He was sleepy!

And if you look really close in the valleys on the roof, you'll see the very small amount of snow we got a couple of weeks ago. I saw pictures in Magnolia and they got a couple of inches - just a little north of us! We got jipped!!

And some cute pictures of kisses...Daddy kissing Hunter, Hunter kissing Daddy and Hunter kissing Jake. So sweet!

No videos yet although I did edit them last night. They are still too large to email to myself at work so that I can upload them. Our home computer crashes every time we try to upload something onto the internet...oh well. Maybe over the holiday I will get some videos posted. The Christmas Program ones are just awesome!!

"The optimist looks at the world through rose-tinted spectacles." ~ English proverb

Spectacles...another word for glasses. I am proud to say that Hunter's Daddy and I decided that Hunter should see a pediatric opthamologist, mainly because of Mommy's horrible vision problems and coke bottle glasses at the age of 5. (They made glasses a lot bigger and thicker back in those days.) Hunter also was showing some potential signs that he wasn't seeing perfectly, although really, you would never guess his eyes were the problem. We thought his clumsiness and multiple falls might be due to balance problems from his ears - the doctor even said that before he looked at Hunter's eyes on Monday: that falls are usually due to balance issues not vision issues.

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He ate his words shortly after that. For those wondering how a doctor checks an 18-month-old's eyes, they dilate the pupils and then shine a light into the eye at different angles to see how it reflects on the retina. This will show the doctor whether the child's eye shape is normal or abnormal (called astigmatism). Hunter has similar amounts of astigmatism in both eyes, indicating he is nearsighted. For those of you who know the numbers, he's a -6.5 in each eye. In comparison, I believe before I had my surgery, I was a -11 in one eye (much more severe) and -6 in the other.

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Anyway, my boy needs glasses, to say the least!! We will be checking out some frames this weekend to make sure we like the options they have given us. The frames I almost ordered are supposed to be warranted for 2 years (supposedly unbreakable) and the lenses are warranted for a year. It's almost as if they think babies will break glasses!! Shocking!! :)

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We have a couple of friends/family who have had babies in glasses. They say that once they put the glasses on and realize that they weren't seeing things the right way, they aren't as prone to want to take them off. I'm not as confident of that yet - I have to see it to believe it!!

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If you know of anyone else who has been in this situation, especially at this young of an age, please point me to them as I'm sure I will have questions if/when he starts pulling them off and refusing the wear them. And here you thought I was going to be completely optimistic about this based on the title of this blog! Ha!!

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But honestly, we are very happy that we took him in to have this checked out. Some future developmental milestones may have been slowed due to vision impairment and we may have come up with other excuses for slowness in certain areas. I guess it is actually a good thing that my eyes are so bad because it made me just assume that his would be bad too. Daddy's eyes are perfect, and we were really hoping that Hunter got that gene, especially when we saw that Hunter's eye color is green like his Daddy's. As my cousin told me yesterday in an email, "...this is how God made them & us and we will be better parents and more sensitive to it by going through it ourselves."

What a week!

First of all, Hunter got to see snow for the first time in his life. Yes, it snowed in Houston...of course, all he got to see and feel were the few tiny flakes that hit his face as I carried him to the car after school. It had stopped by the time we got home, so there was no accumulation except in the valleys on the rooftops. It did start again later that night (this was Wednesday night, 12/10) but he was already in bed. The roof was pretty much covered!! It was pretty exciting for the kid trapped inside this adult body.

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Hunter also "met" Santa last Saturday. He would have nothing to do with Santa...poor guy. Thankfully, this was at my friend, Andrea's, work place, so we hadn't stood in line at the mall forever or anything like that. She works for an interior design firm and they were holding a Christmas open house with Santa. We were the last family there, so the photographer offered to try to photoshop Hunter into a pic with Santa. You won't believe the results - it really looks like he's sitting on Santa's lap! Will post the picture this weekend, hopefully!

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Next, I started Weight Watchers this week, which might sound silly, but it helps me to watch what I'm eating instead of not caring! Hopefully it will continue to be a motivator. It's kinda fun actually, but don't tell anyone I said that. :)

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Last but not least, and I don't have the pictures or videos yet, but Hunter participated in his first Christmas Program last night at Kids R Kids. My goodness, it exceeded my expectations more than you could believe!!! I mean really, he's 18 months old and he's the oldest in his class. I thought surely they would all be crying or they would see parents in the audience and run off the stage to them. NOT SO!!!

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The first class was the babies, and they were so cute! Dressed as angels and all being held or sitting in their infant carriers. They just sat there and looked cute. The next class is the older infants, and they did Rudolf. Two were dressed and Santa and Mrs. Claus, and one as Rudolf, with the rest as reindeer. Again, just looking cute and some posing for the cameras.

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Next and most important was the 12-18 month class, Hunter's. Even though their class was the smallest (only 4 of them showed up) and their outfits the simplest (shirts with NOEL), it was still entertaining. They stood up there swaying with the music. They were supposed to be holding hands I think, so Hunter and the little guy next to him kept trying to hold hands at different times, or the little guy would start playing with Hunter glitter letters on his shirt. I can't wait to get the video posted - you'll love it!! Hunter never did see us in the crowd, I don't think. I was shocked at how well behaved all of them were, and when we saw him afterward, he seemed so proud of himself!!

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The last class in his part of the program was the true toddler class, and they did jingle bells and as soon as the music came on, they just came to life! It was awesome! Some were clapping, some dancing, some bobbing. Most of these kids were in Hunter's class when he first started at this KRK, so it was almost as much fun watching them as it was watching my own son. Very cute!

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We're going to a wedding this weekend, so I'm sure we'll have more pictures and more stories to tell. I will do my best to post pictures and videos once we get back in town. Have a good one!!

New York City

OK, so I posted pictures before I had time to write about our trip. Now I'll fill in some details.

We never got around to leaving Hunter for an overnight trip. To say the least, I expected us to do this long before he turned 18 months old, but the timing was never right, with all the moving and stuff. So Grandmommy came to the house to stay with Hunter while Daddy and I went traipsing off to NYC.

We left Friday morning early and had a relaxing afternoon before an early dinner and a show. I won't go into details, but the meal was the best I've ever had and for each course, they did a wine tasting. It was superb. Afterwards, we literally raced down the streets of NY to get to our play before it started at 8:00 - it was a little stressful, but we ended up making it with time to spare. We saw Equus, and if you don't know about it, read about it on the internet. I'm not going to go into the scandalous plot. It was interesting, but mostly, the acting was incredible.

Saturday was also relaxing - we didn't plan much during the day and it was raining, so we tried to stay dry mostly. We did a little shopping, took the train north and walked through Central Park over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (it wasn't raining by this time). Not to brag on myself, but considering my camera doesn't even show me in the screen what I'm taking a picture of, I think the pics I took in the park turned out great! The museum was pretty good...it's a bit large and we don't have the best taste in art, so others probably enjoyed it a lot more. But it was a nice way to spend the afternoon anyway. And since it was still raining on and off, we decided to see the new Bond movie and eat popcorn for lunch - you know us, we are always up for a good movie, even in the heart of NY!!

That night, we ate at a more casual and "hip" restaurant downtown - Brent's best meal for the weekend. Then we went to Caroline's Comedy Club and laughed till our stomachs hurt. The main comedian was Mario Cantone, Anthony from Sex and the City. He is pretty much exactly like his character on S&TC - hilarious, Italian, homosexual. I have never laughed so hard in my life. And the opening acts were great too.

Sunday, the only activity we had planned was to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Can I tell you, the wind was blowing SO hard it nearly knocked me over at times!! A cold front came in that day, but thanks to some gloves and hats bought on the streets of NY, we were set. We did get some great pictures of the Statue, too many to post here. I've posted one of the best ones though and will post some more when I get a chance.

Since I surprised Brent by staying an extra night, we hadn't planned anything for Sunday evening. We ended up eating Mexican food and seeing another movie - again, for us, this is very relaxing, even in NYC.

It was a great trip. I did miss Hunter, of course - at times, terribly. But I knew he and Grandmommy were having a great time back in Houston. He changed a ton during the less than 4 days I was gone. It is so neat to see how quickly they change and it is so much more noticeable when you are gone for more than just a few hours. :)

Happy Halloween

Pre-trick-0r-treating...




Post...

Hunter - 17 Months

Lots of pictures to post, so little time...







The following three pics were taken right after we left the pumpkin patch. He looks a lot happier than he was when we first had to leave. He was devastated! I think he would have stayed there for hours if we'd let him. Anyway, the pics progress from barely smiling to all out laughing. I can't even remember what I was doing to make him laugh, but it worked whatever it was!


I only did one in black and white...there are probably some other shots I could do that would turn out good. If you couldn't tell from the pics above, he was way more interested in watching the other kids than he was in looking at the camera.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

One more picture

My dad and Erika were in town this weekend for the Bayou City Art Festival, and we went downtown to see them Saturday evening. Brent took this picture with his new iPhone and I was pretty shocked at how great it came out!!! Had to share!

I know, I've been a bad blogger...

You probably aren't even checking in anymore. So much as been going on...too little time...too much to do...I sincerely apologize for completely missing 16 months. I'll do better, I promise.

We moved into our new house. And no, I'm not going to post pictures yet because first of all, we aren't finished decorating yet, and second, I want you to see it in person first if you can. Pictures won't do it justice. I did post one below of the lake closest to our house. Today is SO gorgeous, and the lake and sky just looked too beautiful not to take a picture.

We are settling in nicely. Hunter loves the new house - of course his favorite part is the steps. His room isn't quite as great as the house in Kingwood, but it is still fabulous and he doesn't seem to mind that he doesn't have his walls painted blue anymore. :)

We've been taking lots of walks around the neighborhood, swinging at the park and meeting lots of new friends. I think we landed on the best street in the neighborhood - so far we have 4 kids plus Hunter under the age of 4, one brand new baby, Megan, just born on Monday, whose older brother is Aiden. And across the street we have 2 year old twin girls - beautiful! There are only 5 houses completed on our street so 5 kids under 4 is pretty great compared to where we've lived before. The two houses that aren't complete yet have 3 kids each - one house has older kids and the other, the youngest is supposedly 18 months. We are very excited about all of the new friends, both the parents and the kids. Everyone is sooo nice!

I better get some cleaning done. The dust is still settling, 4 weeks after we moved in and still dust is settling! Crazy!! Oh, and the picture below of Hunter looking like he's going to cry is just so that you can see the mouthful of teeth he's got - I think he's up to 12, maybe 14 already.

Hunter - 15 months

Apparently, at some point, I stopped doing "official" monthly posts. It wasn't a conscious decision, just for the record. Nonetheless, here is a 15-month update.

We haven't had our 15 month well baby visit yet. I think it's scheduled the week of our move, which will have to change because that week will be way too hectic. I'm really uncertain what he's supposed to be able to do at this point in his development, but what I know is that he's walking really well - it's like it happened overnight!! One weekend, we're going back and forth from Mommy to Daddy, the next he's walking from one end of the apartment to the other, and this weekend, he can get up on his feet from the floor with no help or nothing to pull up on - he's an official toddler! It's really crazy how fast this all happened. The video below shows the progression over the last month or so. The most recent clip is from a couple of weeks ago and he's 10 times better at walking now. It's awesome!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

He's also "talking" quite a bit, just not in real words...still more babbling than anything. The video clips below are from the past month or so. He tried very hard to tell Mommy Happy Birthday. I'm also trying to find the clip where he repeated "mess" when I was trying to get him to say "I'm a mess." It came out more like "Mets" (and no, he's not yet a big baseball fan, so he wasn't confused). (Just realized the "Mets" is at the end of one of the walking clips above.) And the other clip is of him doing "Please" in sign language - this started long ago (and I posted at the time) but I haven't been able to download videos from the home computer since we moved to Firefox instead of Internet Explorer due to some issues we were having. Anyway, enjoy the clips below.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Last but not least, Hunter is trying very hard to eat with a spoon. More often than not, he picks the food up and puts it on the spoon, then takes it off and uses his fingers to feed himself after all that. He also will pick up the spoon, and then using the same hand, pick up food in his fingers with the spoon still in hand - makes it difficult to get the food in his mouth, but it's cute anyway. (This particular video was taken after Mommy went crazy with hairspray on Hunter's hair - it was pretty funny lookin.) I also included a clip of him eating a humongous peach. I regretted this afterwards because his little face broke out horribly. His skin is soooo sensitive. I haven't given him peaches ever since because I felt so bad about it. Even though it doesn't seem to bother him, it looks so irritating, and there is no telling what it is doing to his little tush when it comes out the other end. Oranges are horrible for his hiney!!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I went ahead and included the last three clips in with the eating clips. One is Hunter playing with some pots and pans, and the other is him putting his pacifiers into the silo on his barn toy (cant' get this one to load for some reason...will try later). And another clip is Hunter playing with Uncle Brad last weekend - he's in town visiting from St. Louis and got to spend the afternoon with us. Those boys had a blast!! And when Uncle Brad was back today, Hunter picked right up where they left off.

Keep in mind that all of these clips are pieces of much larger videos, but I'm sparing you the length (not to mention it would take 2 weeks to upload everything). You can thank me later. As it is, I will probably have add more as the weekend goes on because the first one is taking quite some time to put together, so if all of the videos aren't up when you check in, make sure to check back on Monday and hopefully they will all be up.

New favorite place to sleep

Hunter has had some pretty rough nights over the past couple of months. At this point, we aren't really sure if it's just a bad spell or if it will never end!! Most of the problem, we believe, has been gas (whenever it hasn't been diaper rash, which we finally have control of now). Sometimes, we get proof of that when a toot escapes during one of his rampages. Other times, we just have to assume because we can't imagine anything else causing him such anguish for such a long period of time. For example, we were up with him last night from midnight until around 3:00, when he finally allowed me to transport him back to his crib. Most of this three hour period, he was screaming bloody murder, squirming like you wouldn't believe, throwing his head back in agony, and absolutely refusing anything we tried to give him to attempt to help. Did I mention that we tried again to take his bedtime bottle away? First thought was obviously hunger - he refused a cup of water, a cup of milk, a bottle of water, and last resort, a bottle of milk (which he did end up taking a little of finally). Does my child have severe hunger pains or was it gas? Did he work himself into such a fuss that he forgot what he was angry about and then decided he was just going to be angry about that? We don't think so...it certainly seemed like pain.

Of course, he woke up happy as could be (with poop everywhere, but that's another story). Didn't seem overly hungry...no apparent leftover gas pains...sure, he's been cranky today but so have I due to the lack of sleep!! Do I think anything is wrong on a grand scale? No. Do I wish I could make his pain go away in the middle of the night? Absolutely, so if you have any ideas besides Mylicon and rubbing his tight little rumbling belly, let me know.

All that being said, he has come to very much enjoy sleeping on the couch. Today, we took a nap after lunch on the couch, started together and then I snuck away 30 minutes into it so that I could do this and pick up the apartment a bit before we head to a birthday party in Kingwood (yay!). Here are a couple of pictures of my peaceful child sleeping on the couch. He's going on an hour and a half now, and I'm not about to wake him up!!

Addison turns 1

My friend Jessica sent me the picture below of her daughter, Addison, and it is just too pretty not to share with the world. Addison turned 1 on August 15 - isn't she lovely???

Happy Belated Birthday Addison!!

Communicating with a toddler

Sure, he's babbled and been saying his own little words for awhile, but lately, we've been a bit more cognizant of what words Hunter is really saying. The current list includes:

- uh oh
- dada
- mama
- mine (that's the latest and greatest)
- deboy (no idea what this means, but it is apparently his favorite thing to say)
- no (most common word from my son's mouth unfortunately)

As for sign language, he still does please, but not as often as I would like. We think he has his own version of HOT - both hands slapping his head. Very strange, but that is what he consistently does when we ask him to say hot!

He also hums when he ask him what a cow says (must have been working on that at school because I had been trying for weeks to no avail and all of the sudden he started doing it last night). He consistently shakes his head yes when I ask him if he's silly, and if he likes his food. Funny thing is a lot of times when he shakes his head yes, and I say "alright," he changes to shaking his head no.

Kinda like clapping, the waving came late, but he's pretty consistent with waving hi and bye now.

Just wanted to get this documented since I know I won't remember in a few months. :)

A day off

UPDATE from last post: Thank you Grandmommy and Heather. We cut apple juice out of Hunter's diet and it seemed to do the trick. He slept GREAT last week and over the weekend, although he did get another rash over the weekend...we're thinking it may be all citrus, especially since his FACE also broke out Saturday after I fed him a peach (like a huge peach, all over his face). Anyway, we'll going to cut out other fruits too just to see if we can pin it down completely.

OK - back to current time. As always, Hunter seems to take big steps when he's sick. Seems opposite, but it's been pretty consistent his whole life...maybe he's more easygoing because he's tired, so he'll do things when asked. Who knows!??!

Yesterday, he was running a fever and we took him to the doctor - double ear infections. I won't go into the sordid details, but it is all my fault. I feel terrible - I deserved to have to deal with this on my birthday! However, with my easygoing, sick child, I got what sounded an awful lot light "Happy Birthday" from Hunter last night. I will try to get the video posted soon - still haven't figured out why Firefox won't let me load videos without breaking. I think we need a new computer.

This morning, Hunter woke up with 103.6 temp because again, Mommy didn't do her job and wake him up during the night to give him Tylenol or Motrin. But I didn't learn my lesson, because he took a three hour nap earlier and woke up with 104 temp. Don't get me wrong, it was going down pretty quickly once I figured out he had a temp, but my goodness that was a hot baby!!! Daddy and I were both home today because of Eduardo - our offices closed in anticipation of flooding (which I do not think has happened anywhere at this point, and the rain has stopped for now).

Anyway, latest temp went down and Hunter was in a great mood. We tried walking again and BAM!!! He was taking 5 or 6 steps at a time, sometimes not even TO anything or anyone in particular! We are so proud, and he seems to be proud of himself. It's adorable - man, he's growing up fast!

I haven't gotten video yet, but I am way behind on pictures, so I will post some now.

This was his 12-month picture that I never got to post.

This one is a bit blurry, but what a great laugh...it's contagious!

Finally...sunglasses that fit Hunter's monster head!!!

It's been awhile...

Sorry, but life is running away from me!! Hunter will be 14 months old this week...where has the time gone?? He took a couple of steps today (that's really a stretch, btw - it was more like he moved his feet while falling into my arms). It is amazing he isn't running yet. You should see him "drive" his firetruck around this apartment. He flies around corners, running behind it or sometimes holding onto the steering wheel from the front and walking it in reverse. He spent most of the afternoon throwing toys back and forth with Mommy and Daddy, walking all around the coffee table, barely hanging on. He's so close!!

I do have video of the firetruck, but we can't seem to get our home computer to allow us to upload it onto the internet.

Grandmommy came to visit yesterday and she and Hunter had a blast. She must have worn him out the first hour she was here (we went to lunch and a movie - thanks Mom!!!) because he took a 2 hour nap during her visit. I don't remember the last time he slept that long for me on a weekend. He does that pretty much every day at school, but not so much on the weekends.

Hunter is also clapping (finally). I know what you're thinking...he's clapping? Isn't that like a 6 month old thing??? Not with my baby boy. He's just never been interested, or maybe he didn't think he'd done anything so super yet to deserve a clap. But today, he was clapping for everything. They've probably been doing patty-cake at school or something, since that's where he picks everything up.

Speaking of...he's learned "please" in sign language. Normally, that looks like:

That is, a circular motion with one hand around the chest area. For Hunter, however, it looks more like "Get in my belly" from Austin Powers. LOL! He pats his belly with both hands...actually, it's more like a downward rub. Not circular, but that is definitely what he's doing. They had told me at school he was doing it, but I pretty much didn't believe them because they are always so nice and positive...I figured they're just trying to make me feel good because they remember how emotional I am. :) But last weekend, I told him to say please while we were in the middle of one of his 5 course meals, and I did the motion, and he "repeated" with both hands on his belly. Well, more like lower chest....just above his little pot belly. I haven't gotten that on video yet, but am working on it. We're working on "thank you" and "more" and "eat" and "cup." Not much success yet, but like I said, "please" kinda snuck up on me so we'll see!!!

Let's see...what else...oh, I'm working too much. Gotta stop doing that...things are slipping through the cracks outside the office. My poor little nephew turned 4 in June and just now this weekend got his gift from his aunt and uncle because I hadn't found time to go out and buy anything, much less ship it. I'm sorry Colin - Happy Belated Birthday, little man. I hope you like your Batmobile. I must say, it was difficult to pry it away from Uncle Brent.

Also, our house is coming along nicely. They've painted most of the walls and should start on flooring soon (I think?). It's pretty fun watching everything come together. Just another couple of months and we should be moving in (keep your fingers crossed). Apartment living isn't that bad though. Hunter isn't sleeping well still, but we think that might be something besides just an adjustment period. If any of you moms know what I'm talking about, please email me!!! We think (thanks to Grandmommy's suggestion, and Aunt Heather's confirmation today of her boys' similar problem) that apple juice could be our problem. Hunter's had some pretty bad diaper rashes since he turned one. Remember that we moved right after he turned one, at the same time we took formula away and also started introducing every kind of table food known to man. We also had not done much apple juice before we moved, but he's been having apple juice every day, multiple times a day sometimes. Hunter's cousins (or at least one of them...not sure if Heather even tried apple juice with Devlin?) had very bad rashes due to apple juice and she realized this and fixed that problem quickly. I, however, have become complacent and apparently got used to being woken up multiple times during the night when Hunter would wake up. Yes, we no longer get up when he cries now, but we still hear him on the monitor most times. Anyway, we aren't sure that the rash is waking him up and we aren't even sure if the juice is what's causing the rash, but it is at least an experiment we are very willing to try.

In my googling last night, I also came across some information on Fiengold, so if any of my readers (do I even still have readers???) are familiar with this or have tried it, let me know. I think Fiengold is for a bit more severe type problems from the little that I read, but when I did searches for sleeping problems and diet, that was what came up pretty consistently. I'm not spending any money on it until I talk to someone who's even heard of it, so if you have, please email me (or at least post a comment so that I can get back to you).

Wow, I'm rambling. Last but not least, if you haven't ever read any Julie Morgenstern books and are interested in getting organized (either with your stuff or with your time), I highly recommend any and all of her books. I listened to two of them on CD (3 or 4 times actually, both of them) over the past couple of weeks (got them from the library) and really think she may change my life. So I bought the hard copy books today so that I can read the unabridged versions and also see some of her notes and diagrams. Hopefully, I will be a new woman in a few months, especially a more organized person in the new house!!

I'm done now. Sorry for the book and absolutely no pictures!!! Maybe I will get back online from the home computer instead of my laptop so that I can share some pics. For now, I'm going to go read myself to sleep. :)

Happy 4th of July (and more)

My goodness, there is a lot to catch up on. I will try not to bog you down with the dirty details, but some things HAVE to be discussed!! (And some pictures are just thrown in here for kicks.)

12-month well baby visit

Our 12 month well baby visit was supposed to be our last appointment with Dr. Barnhart (more on that later). It was very sad because we loved our pediatrician. Hunter weighed in at 22 lbs 3 oz but 32.5 inches long with a monster head (49 cm). His weight is starting to catch up to his height. The monster head is causing many people to think Hunter is much older than he really is. He's been accused of being anywhere from 18 months to 2 years old. He still is not walking (yes, that is the most common question we get, especially now that he's 13 months old). He crawls ridiculously fast though and still gets into everything you can imagine.

At this appointment, we were instructed to get rid of the bottle (not quite there yet) and the baby food. All this was the week before we moved and flipped Hunter's world upside down.

Yes, we moved...
We sold our house in Kingwood and have moved into an apartment temporarily while our new house is being constructed. We anticipate moving into the new house in September (keep your fingers crossed). If you don't keep up with us besides through this blog, you're probably wondering why we're moving (again). Yes, we were very happy in Kingwood, but Brent's company moved to the west side of town and he was driving 46 miles to work ONE WAY. We miss Kingwood a ton, but are getting used to the Northwest side of town, and we are also closer to our families.

It's been quite an adjustment - especially for Hunter, but mainly because we changed so many things at once. We did take the bottle away during the day because his new daycare class is for big boys and they drink out of cups. He is still getting a bottle at night but we'll wean him from that over the next month or so.

The apartment didn't seem to phase Hunter's sleep (at first). He slept soundly the first few nights, and then daycare came along and BAM! No more sleeping through the night (with the exception of maybe 3 nights since we moved nearly a month ago). I have no idea why this is happening, but I'm sure we will figure it out in time. For now, we've got a blanket over the windows because we thought too much light was coming into the room, and we're back to playing white noise during nap times and at night. We figure with all the changes in his diet and decreasing to one nap a day at daycare, this is all par for the course.

School and stuff

Hunter is still in Kids R Kids, but a new location and a new class. It's 12-18 months and the boys in this class seem to dwarf my baby (who is no longer a baby, it seems). They eat table food only, which Hunter was apparently a champ at, at least at daycare. At home, he was spitting everything out at me, apparently trying to get me to give in and give him baby food. He is now eating like a champ, both at school and for Mommy and Daddy. To give you an example of one of his huge meals, the boy ate the following for breakfast Friday morning - 3 fruit and grain bars (140 calories each), a whole banana, and a half piece of toast. And he still doesn't gain much weight! He is burning so many calories!! It's crazy!

His new class does an art project every day, or so it seems. The picture below shows some of his art over the last three weeks.
The kids in this class also have to wear shoes, they sleep on mats on the floor, they go outside every day for playtime, and they do splash day once a week during the summer. Hunter is still allowed to sleep in a crib, until they feel confident he'll sleep on the floor (which of course, I am doubtful will ever happen, but I'm sure it will if they say it will). He comes home with dirty clothes every day because he's not walking, so he crawls around in the dirt during playtime. We love the new teachers though and Hunter seems very happy.

Mommy's adjustment period

All that being said, it doesn't mean Mommy has handled all of this change well. My wonderful friends in Kingwood have been there for me though, and I can't tell you how much I appreciated it. Especially when Hunter had a stomach thing and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make him feel better. (We had to go back to Dr. Barnhart for this since I hadn't found a new pediatrician yet - that problem has now been solved, thank goodness.) He has a couple of new teeth and a couple more trying to get through, which may have something to do with his poor sleeping habits. I'm sure eventually things will feel like they are back to normal (and then we'll move again!!).

July 4th Celebration

Here are some pictures from our trip to Round Top to celebrate July 4th. Hunter loved the parade and got to say hi to some friends.I had to zoom in on that last picture because Hunter's smile is just classic!!!
I'll try to keep up with this blog better. It's been difficult to make time for with all of the craziness in our lives so far this summer. But I will try - promise!!