Sutton's 1st Birthday {The Birthday Breakfast}

Before I begin, let me just start with a side note: today was the first day I started to try to wean Sutton. It's hard.

I changed my game plan from what I said in his 12 month post...I decided to take out the morning feeding first instead of the afternoon one because it's easier to replace the morning feeding with breakfast foods, whereas the afternoon feeding is more of a snack and helps him nap.

But that meant that I went from bedtime the night before til 2pm the next day. I was in pain. Ugh. I hope tomorrow's better, but I'm not sure how long it'll take for my supply to start going down.

AND...baby doesn't like cow's milk. I even tried giving him a bottle and a cup with half my milk and half cow's...no go. Maybe we'll need to get used to bottles from Mama in general before we try the cow's milk again. We'll see.

Okay, on to the real post...

I decided that it would be fun to have a birthday tradition with each of our kids. With Sutton, I decided we should go out to breakfast each year on his day. So we had our first annual birthday breakfast at Jimmy's Egg.

In the car on the way to breakfast...he totally looks like he just woke up. :)

 There's a smile!

The most exciting part of our breakfast was that Sutton got to have his first meal ordered at a restaurant...a scrambled egg! He ate part of it and also ate some of his Daddy's fruit.

Making his infamous "old man face."

He's a little fascinated with fingers...Adam has a fake finger that you can slip over your real one for a magic trick he used to do. Well, now Sutton thinks he can pull fingers off any time. We may have messed up him for life with this one. I think in the photo above, he was just interested in Adam's bandaid.

Trying some cantaloupe.

And some honeydew...

I'll post both photos our waitress took because one of my boys messed up each one. Sigh.

 

We ran a few errands afterwards and he was already tuckered out, so he slept. With his jelly.

Sutton's 1st Birthday {Photo Booth}

Sutton requested a photo booth at his party. It was his day, so of course I had to oblige...

Sutton { One Year }

Well, we made it little man! You're ONE!

You were NOT excited about today's photo shoot. I think I waited til too close to bed time (I've spent the day getting ready for his party), and you didn't want to sit and smile. Even though you're not smiling, I think this photo is so handsome of you. Mostly, you wanted to crawl to get my lens cap..always with the lens cap:

You're the best thing ever. EVER. I can't get enough. At one year old, Sutton:

-You're everywhere and into everything. You are constantly moving. You crawl like there's no tomorrow and you love climbing over us. You can't ever go around; you must go over.

-You pull up all the time, you love standing. Your newest favorite game is to pull up on us, let go and throw your hands in the air, and then fall on top of us, all while laughing. It's a fun game.

-Your climbing has developed into a love of climbing up the stairs. Fast. You can get up the whole flight in no time.

-You're still obsessed with bouncing. You love the Johnny Jump-Up and when we're holding you, you still love to bounce.

-You've started mimicking us and the noises we make, but whenever we say "Sutton, can you say..." then you don't do as you're told. :) Stubborn boy.

-We're going to start the weaning process after your party on Saturday (the 25th). Right now you nurse three times a day. I plan on replacing your afternoon nursing with a bottle of milk first, and depending on how that goes, the morning feeding will follow. We'll leave the night time one for last. I'm trying not to put a limit on it because I want to just figure it out as we go, but I hope to be completely done nursing by mid-July. We'll see!

 

-Whenever I sit down in the rocking chair to nurse you, you always grab your pacifier out of your mouth and throw it on the floor. Silly baby. I can't ever sit in that chair when I'm not going to nurse you, because you expect it and freak out when you don't get it.

-You've been sleeping through the night for the last month except for the past three nights, you've been waking up. Hopefully this isn't a new thing.

-You still use your poop chair every morning to help things move along. :)

-You love airplanes. When you get to watch your Daddy fly his RC planes or helicopters, you're just mesmerized. Whenever we're outside and you hear an airplane, you always look in the sky to try to find it.

-You love the outdoors and playing with sticks. If we sit you on the grass, you still try to keep your feet up off the grass, and you won't crawl or move around.

-Swimming is not for you. I feel like you should love it because you get so hot and sweaty. But you don't.

-You're riding in your big boy carseat now, and it's facing forward. You love being able to see us when you're riding back there.

-We've entered the must-throw-everything-on-the-ground-repeatedly phase. So tiring.

-You're getting curls in your hair in the back. They get curlier when your hair is wet.

-You've developed a deep and intense loathing of bathtime. It's so sad. You scream and scream and try to crawl out and throw your arms around me while I'm trying to wash you. It makes bedtime a little difficult.

-You're starting to be more adventurous in your eating. You finally got the hang of puffs, and you love them. They will always make you happy. You've had banana pieces and tried chicken yesterday for the first time (and loved it). Spaghetti is another favorite. Now that you're one, I'm going to start trying to have you eat at breakfast, lunch, and supper (with bottles of milk in between) instead of eating every 4 hours like you have been.

You always love to stick out your tongue!

-You love the puppies. Sadie lets you crawl on her and she likes to lay by you and play with you. Sometimes you're a little too much for her when you pull her ears or hit her on the head, but I hope you'll both learn to be nice to each other. Diesel, well, he's usually sleeping. Or stealing your pacifiers.

-You wear size 4 diapers, we just moved up to that size. You wear 12-18 month clothes. You're skinny enough to fit in smaller, but you're to tall for the smaller sizes. And some of them won't fit over your head.

-You love me. A lot. You're a mama's boy. I love it, except for how you get whinier when I'm around. I could do without that. But I love that you want ME when you're tired or hurt, even just in general...YOU are my number one fan. :)

-You really like being sung to. We sing "You Are My Sunshine" a lot when it's naptime. "Jesus Loves Me" is another favorite. We also sing "America the Beautiful" (who knows) and "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele. (One of these things is not like the other ones...)

YOU ARE THE BEST BABY...ahem...TODDLER EVER AND I LOVE YOU SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO MUCH. There's no way I could ever tell you enough. Though I try. :) Here's your complete and final monthly comparison for your first amazing year of life. You astound me!

On Your 1st Birthday

My dearest baby Sutton - 


Can I still call you "baby" now that you're one? I can't believe it. 


Today, on your first birthday, I keep thinking about the past year and how much you've changed, how much you've changed your Daddy and I as parents and as people. I remember the day you were born as if it was yesterday, and now we've been through a whole year together and I couldn't be more in love with you!

When we brought you home from the hospital, we had no idea what we were doing and everything was so surreal. We slowly learned how to care for a baby, and our lives were never the same.


Each day has brought something new: you learned to smile, learned to laugh, learned to put your own pacifier in, rolled over, crawled, started pulling up. We just watch you in amazement and laugh at all your silly antics. I never thought I could be so enthralled with such a tiny human!


As you've grown, you've developed some definite personality traits that are alllllll Sutton. We love your crazy noises, your fake laughs and coughs, your "old man face," how you stick your tongue out all the time, and how your lips get pouty and your cheeks get huge when you're concentrating.


You are just the most handsome thing I've ever seen. You look so much like your Daddy, so you're obviously my type. :) I will try not to give you a big head. Well...you know what I mean. :)


It's hard to think that you're not a baby anymore, I'm sad to know that soon I won't be able to hold you like a baby or have you fall asleep on my chest, and it's hard to know I won't be nursing you much longer. But I'm so excited to get to know your personality even more, to hear you talk, and see you walk around. I can't imagine that any other little boy could ever be more amazing than you, and each day just gets better.


Your Daddy and I wanted you so much, and for so long. During that time when we were waiting for you, I always imagined myself as a mom to a baby, but I couldn't really visualize past that. Well now it seems that we're into the unknown and I couldn't be happier. You're such a special little boy, and I feel so grateful to be your Mama!


You are the love of my life and I can't imagine this world without you. I hope we stay best friends even when you are older and leave us to start life on your own. Until then, I can't wait to see what's in store for us on this journey. It's just the beginning.


I love you, little man. I can't believe that God chose to bless me with you.


Love, Mama

Crawlin'

Sutton helped me out with a photo shoot for my sister-in-law Jessica's magazine (Wichita Family Magazine) last night!

Changes

The end of May and early June have brought a tonload (like that word?) of changes to the Dreher household.

Adam and I have been talking for awhile about downsizing our life. Our house, while modest compared to many, has more room that we really need. We own more stuff than we need. The large "stuffs" are unneccessary.

Thinking this way is hard. While a lot of the things in our life aren't needed, I still like them. I loved my Jeep. I love our house. I loved our 50" TV.

But, it's all vanity.

Adam's really forced me to "get over" what I think I need, as well as worrying about what other people think or expect. I'm not cured of it, but I feel that we've taken some steps towards getting there.

We're not quite ready to let go of the house, so we started a bit smaller. The first thing to go was the Jeep. My beloved green Jeep. If you would've asked me what my dream car was, well, I was already driving it. I didn't want anything else. But alas, an SUV is impractical when you only have one kid and do quite a bit of driving...gas prices were killing us.

So one Saturday while I was at a wedding, Adam went car shopping. He traded in my Jeep-baby for this:

A 2000 Honda Civic. It's older than my Jeep, has more miles, isn't as cute. BUT it sure is easier on our budget. No car payment, great gas mileage. And that's what really matters. Right? :)

Well, Adam gets me, and he understood that it's a process for me to be okay with a less-nice car. So he decided to trade me, he gave me the car that he's been driving for the past couple years. It's newer, nicer, and has less miles. The problem was...I didn't drive stick shift. We'd had this car for several years and I'd never driven it. Not once. So a couple weekends ago, he taught me the ways of the stick shift. And now here's my car:

Another change...Sutton has gotten his big boy carseat. I think he likes it. He rode in it all the way to Tenkiller and back and did pretty well. I think he'll like it even better when he can ride forward facing.

Oh, some pictures of Sutton? How did those get in here? :)

He was trying to show me something, and his hand got in the way. :)

We have been working on our backyard since last fall. You may remember that we planted all new grass. Well Adam and his dad made some pathways with mulch and it's finally finished back there. All we have left to do is a brick area for our chiminea. If you need ideas on cheap landscaping, lemme know. :)

Here you can see the pathways a bit better. And our pile of bricks on the left. And a cute baby. See him?

Adam cleaned out our garage and transformed it into a workout/stroller hub.

And back to our down-sizing idea. We sold our PS3 (game system used to watch DVDs and stream Netflix) a few weeks ago, but just got rid of our TV this weekend. Sigh. It's hard to be without a TV. But it was a decision we made to improve the quality of our life, and to better spend our time with Sutton and being active. We rearranged our basement last night since it had been arranged around our TV. Our family room is now 1/3 RC plane storage/workshop, 1/3 conversation/game sitting area, and...

...1/3 play area. It's all clean right now so it doesn't look too fun, but there are all kinds of goodies in that toy box. :)

Another semi-recent change: Sutton pulls up on anything and everything now. He climbs all over everything and even up the stairs. It's ridiculous. My life is different.

But he's so cute and so fun. I love this little man!

And we can't forget another big change...Sadie. We're going through a bit of a rough patch...she's become extremely clingy with me. It's frustrating. I can't take a shower, put Sutton to bed, or even get into the refrigerator without her standing next to me, touching me, or staring at me. I know there are much worse things she could be doing, but it's just hard to have to keep track of a needy 1 year old while having a 70 lb dog there every time I turn around. We still love her though...I just hope this is only a phase.

We're also changing how we eat and I'm starting to exercise more. We want to be healthy, happy parents and set a good example for Sutton of what's really important in life. We're sure not perfect but these changes feel good, and I hope we're doing what Jesus would want us to do!

Father's Day

We had a fantastic Father's Day! It started out with Sutton waking up at 5:30 am....BUT Adam did not have to deal with it, so we'll just call that my gift to him on his day. Then Sutton did wake him up at a more decent hour with a Father's Day card that he drew on. We went to church where Sutton made it through the entire service in the nursery (which hasn't happened in months), so there's gift number 3. :)

Then we headed to Newton for lunch with my Dad and my whole side of the family. My Dad wanted a four generation photo of us Funks, so here we are with my Dad Bruce and Grandpa Rollie.

Whenever we're around my family, Sutton always gets a circle of girls gathered around him and tons of attention.

Laughing at Grandpa Bruce who was playing peekaboo with him.

Cousin picture! Rachel, Faith, and Hannah are my only first cousins in the whole world. We have kind of a small family. My Dad is one of three brothers, then his brother had three girls, so if everything keeps going on that track, I may end up with three boys!

We headed back home for a quick (but much-needed) nap and then went over to Adam's parents house for dessert. Boston Creme Pie, chocolate cake, and ice cream. No good for the diet. Here's a photo of Adam's side of our family.

Happy Father's Day to my awesome Dad! Also to Adam's amazing Dad!

And to Adam...Sutton loves you so much and I never knew just how much more I'd feel for you after seeing you with our baby son. Just like I told you today...my favorite part is watching you watch him. Your love and amusement for him is so evident on your face and it melts me!