Just Playin'

It's a happy thing when Sutton plays by himself and doesn't need me to be right there. It only happens a handful of times each day, and only when we're at home where he's comfortable.

Today after running some errands and getting thoroughly sweaty, we came back home to take a break and cool off. Sutton decided to get on his 4-wheeler all by himself!

Then he went and found his airplane and started flying it WHILE riding the 4-wheeler. We have a multi-tasker!

In these next two, you can tell he's making airplane noises, haha.

 Then there's this one. She's crazy. She was the calmest dog ever for the first month she was with us, and now she's nuts. HYPER. Getting in fights with Diesel. Laying on TOP of our pillows on the bed (gross). Always under foot. Sigh...we still love her.

This is her perch. Command Central, if you will. She guards our house from here and barks at all squirrels...er...suspicious looking people. Nah, mostly just squirrels. :)

Getaway

Saturday night, we left Sutton in the capable hands of his Papa Ed and Grandma Janet while Adam and I spent a night away.

The anticipation of leaving Sutton was the worst part. After we left, we actually did a really good job holding it together and talking about things besides Sutton! I was proud of us.

Rewind...since I've been working a lot this summer and had a little extra $ (emphasis on little) to spend from that, and since our only celebration for our 5 year anniversary this year was Tenkiller (which was FAR from romantic with that needy baby), I really wanted to do something fun with the husband. My friend Jaclyn gave me a great idea to do a mini-getaway by staying in town and getting a hotel, doing dinner, movie, etc. Awesome idea. It was so much fun.

Adam's parents came over in the late afternoon and we headed to our hotel to check in. We stayed at the Hilton by the airport and it was nice but definitely not as nice as the pictures on Expedia. :) Whatev.

We took a couple pre-date photos at the hotel to document our fun.

On our first attempt, Adam was doing mean things to me. I like how we're still both trying to hold it together and smile at the camera.

Earlier last week, Adam had gone out to "work on my surprise" for this weekend.

You see, it's common knowledge in our house that I have a pretty good fashion sense, and Adam...well, he is not only colorblind (so he can't tell what matches) but he pretty much only wears t-shirts. He insists that he knows what looks good, he just doesn't make the effort.

So anyway, just before we left the house, he locked himself in the bathroom to get his surprise together, and came out in THIS. I almost died. Dark tight-ish jeans, white button down, and skinny tie. Seriously? The only tie I'd ever seen him in before this was a zipper tie (yes, that's a real thing). I could barely handle myself. Whew.

Then we went to Hangar One for dinner. If you haven't ever been, go. It's totally Wichita. I'd never been there til last year and they have some really great food including fried pickles.

We went back to the hotel and got in the hot tub, and debating crashing the wedding reception that was going on (we didn't) and watched tv (since, you know, we don't have one) before heading to a late showing of Harry Potter 7:II in Old Town Square. We got there pretty early, so we walked around a bit and then sat and watched a bunch of kids play in the fountains. Oh, and took a picture. :)

During the movie we got POP (oh, how I miss thee) and popcorn and candy and chili (weird). Totally not on the diet. It was wonderful. And Harry Potter was SO good. I think I need to re-read the books for the third time. And watch all the movies. I love Harry Potter. And Adam. And our date nights.

We slept in til 9:30 (holy cow) and then had a breakfast/brunch at the hotel before heading home to schnuggle our baby boy.

Who meanwhile.....

was having a great time with his grandparents. I'm glad they took pictures of their escapades.

He's still loving his slide from Rachael and Matt. We play with it every day!

Grandma was pretty proud of this next series of photos she captured. He thinks he can climb back up the slide. But you tell him "no, Sutton" and...

He goes around and climbs up the right way! He's so smart and big.

A HUGE thanks to the grandparents for not only watching our sweet boy for the night, but also for putting up with the ridiculous dogs and our messy house! :) That's how you can tell we're really comfortable with you...we don't clean for you. Is that bad? :)

13 Months

I found myself uttering a phrase today that was a first for me:

"You have a booger in your eyebrow!"

I cannot tell you how much I love that little boy. Snot and boogers used to be the death of me. They still are when they're on other people's kids. But Sutton's boogers are sweet. Lol.

I said I'd stop the monthly updates at a year, so this isn't technically an update, but he needed some updated photos and it just happens to be the 24th of the month, so...

 Old Man Face #1 (He has a few of these, though no more show up in today's photos.)

I think he looks like me in this photo! Such a rarity...

We even made a visit to the old stompin' grounds where we used to take his monthly photo. Oh, the drool.

I was trying to get a photo of him standing by himself so that you all have proof, but he was sad and mad that I set him down. 

Still sad.

 

Still mad.

Okay, done.

Checking out the rain. We had a short rainstorm this afternoon. I was in Walmart so I have no idea what actually happened at our house, but there are huge puddles in the street, part of our fence is down, and the power went out.

He pulls up on everything these days. Nothing is safe anymore.

Here we have the cheerleader pose.

Finally got one to show off the standing! Hooray Sutton!

Other things I want to remember about this age:

*Sutton's favorite food is goldfish. He could probably eat an entire bag in one sitting. And he tends to always smell like goldfish too.

*Aside from pulling up on everything, he also walks along furniture and walks if you hold his hand. I'm convinced he could walk by himself but he thinks crawling is so much faster!

*He loves wrestling. Sutton and Adam will wrestle and he just laughs and laughs.

*The hair is getting a little unruly but I'm still not ready to cut it.

*He eats a TON, plays real hard, and sleeps a lot. We're at 2-3 naps per day, which seems like a lot, but I guess he's just growing.

*Airplanes are his fave. Real ones, toy ones. Toys that AREN'T airplanes still get flown around in the air with plane noises.

*Since the 1st birthday, there have been lots of tantrums. Almost once a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I kinda maybe associate it with him missing nursing? It seems to be getting better lately. Who knows.

*The top two teeth are coming in!

*We left him for the first time overnight last night and both he and we did just fine! It's a little freeing. :)

Weaning

Lindsay asked for advice on weaning in my last post...I don't know about 'advice' but I can tell you how I did it! :) (Thanks for giving me a topic to blog about, by the way.)

After getting Sutton used to baby food (which we started at 6 months), I took my nursing down to 3 times per day - morning, mid-afternoon, and bed time. We did meals of baby food for lunch and supper. We did this for several months.

My goal with weaning was to do it without having to introduce formula at all. I just didn't want the expense, and I didn't want to have to transition from breast milk to formula, then formula to whole milk. I thought I could save a little trouble. I researched this method online and didn't find much! So I just kinda did what worked for Sutton and for me.

After his first birthday, I cut out the morning feeding and just put him in his high chair as soon as he woke up and fed him oatmeal and fruit. He didn't mind that change one bit!

Once my body adjusted, I cut out the afternoon nursing as well. This was a bit more difficult but maybe just because I was trying to force the whole milk issue. We gave up on that and he just gets an afternoon snack of goldfish, fruit, or yogurt.

Once again, after my body adjusted, I decided to be done. I decided the date of the last feeding, and it was very emotional for me, but I knew it was the last time, and I soaked it in and just stared at my beautiful boy thinking about the very first time we ever tried breastfeeding in the delivery room. We finished, I put him to bed, and that was that. The next night, he got yogurt and goldfish before bed because if he doesn't have a full belly before bed time, he wakes up at like 5am. No good.

The whole process from start to finish lasted about 3 weeks and worked really well for us. So there you have it. A little wordy, sorry!

Two important things:

-Sutton drinks TONS of water. He loves it. I got a lot of advice to not let him get attached to a bottle, so we went right to sippy cups. He loves these Nuby cups (someone got them for us for one of his showers, that's how we found that brand) and I love that they don't spill. I'm glad he loves water because then I don't feel so bad about him not liking whole milk. He gets his liquids from water and his calcium from yogurt and other foods.

-Every baby is different, but I think one thing that made the transition easier for us is that Sutton LOVES to eat. He'll pretty much eat anything you put in front of him (unless he decides to share it with the dogs...which he finds hilarious). The transition to eating hard food (like goldfish, puffs, hot dogs, etc.) from baby food was much harder for us than the transition from nursing to not. My tactic was to stick puffs (something sweet and tasty) between his gums towards the back of his mouth so that he couldn't just spit it out immediately.

AND...I would love ideas of things to feed Sutton. I feel like he eats the same thing every day. Right now, he eats oatmeal, bananas, yogurt, lunch meat, hot dogs, whole wheat goldfish, puffs, and baby food mixed with oatmeal. Sometimes we'll buy those Gerber Graduates meals, but I don't want to make a habit of that. And cheese seemed to back up his system. I'd love food suggestions if you have them!

The Boy

I hadn't taken or posted any photos of Sutton lately, so I got a few of him today while he was crawling around playing.

This is a face that Daddy taught him and he makes it all the time. Weirdo.

He still loves to be underneath things.

He's definitely a photographer's son...he plays with memory cards. :)

Such a handsome boy! I remember when I was pregnant, I'd pray for a healthy baby and I'd tell God that I didn't care if he was cute, I just wanted him to be healthy. I had no idea I'd be blessed with the most handsome little man ever.

Can you believe he's almost 13 months? We finished breastfeeding last week Wednesday (July 13) and he's doing good with it. Still doesn't like milk, and Daddy had to put him to bed the first few nights so he wouldn't expect to nurse. My body's still adjusting, but doing ok. (Let me tell ya...that soreness coupled with my foot injury and my sore tetanus shot arm, I was a MESS Sunday and Monday!)

And on the walking front...we're not quite there. He can stand on his own forever. And he walks along furniture. But crawling is just so fast that why would he ever want to do anything else? :)