One year!

Just had to start out this post with some great news! We have a laptop connection to the internet! Yeah! Jackson thought to take his laptop to the apple store to see if they could fix it and sure enough they did. We both went there today and probably spent about 30-45 min there. It did take some time to fix it because this laptop is an older system but it worked! And they didn't even charge us, so happy! :) 

So on that happy note, one year has come and gone for our lil man. And as usual, a 12 month doctors appointment.

His one year doctors appt was on,

March 13, 2013

Weight: 24 lb. 2 oz (gained about 2.6 lb.)

Height: 2' 7.3" (31.3 in)

Head Circumference: 18.7 in

His weight is in the 75-90th percentile

His length is in the 90-95th percentile

Head circumference is in the 75-90th percentile

Immunizations: MMR, Hep A, Varicella, (not nearly as many as he's use to getting)

We did get his iron checked because it was 11.8 at his last visit which was a little below normal. But no worries, his iron is now 12.7 which is great news because normal levels are greater than 12. The doctor said that if his iron would have been low again, that they would have drawn a CBC and a bunch of other labs to rule out some other reasons his iron levels were still low, but thank heavens they weren't!

The doctor said everything else with him looked fine, still no ear infection! She said that the tubes in his ears looked great. She couldn't believe how much teeth he has. Even though he had 8 teeth the last time (which is still a lot and I guess not as noticible for her last time) but he's got all 4 molars coming in now, as well as another tooth up top. The doctor said that with all the teeth he's getting that we should try and eliminate binkys and bottles to help prevent teeth problems. She said where he's more laid back that it might not be a problem. So far that has gone okay, he might cry a little bit but no longer than 5 min. I'm pretty sure it's just because we are changing his routine. The last week has gone well and I really think that he'll just forget about them the more we don't use them. So like I said, no use of any binkys or bottles, my little baby is growing up.

He still only crawls, quite well and fast might I add. He only likes to walk with his push toy dog and stand by objects like the couch or the wall etc. But he has no desire at all to walk. We've tried to hold his hands and walk with him but once we let go of him he won't even try and keep a balance, he just falls. Which, thats okay too, I know he'll walk someday. He does like to "Bear Crawl" as the internet would put it which is so funny to watch. If he wants to get somewhere fast he'll put his butt up in the air and raise his knees off the ground and just crawl with his hands and feet (Bear Crawl). He is really fast when he does that and I'm pretty sure why he crawls like that is to get somewhere quick. It's quite funny to watch.

Some of the things he likes that I didn't mention last time is jumping. I looked back at his 9 month post and was surprised I never mentioned jumping or him doing it. Which is bizzarre to me because of how much he loves to jump, I would have thought he was a jumper at 9 months. Sometimes in the middle of the night, we'll hear him be wide awake for a midnight jump just happy as can be. He doesn't ever cry, he'll just jump for a bit than go back to sleep, so funny! He jumps anytime he gets the chance to do so in the crib.

He's learned words and where they are located. He doesn't speak the words of course but he'll touch his head when I show him the word "head" and read it to him. He puts his arms up when I say "put your arms up". He'll point out my nose and tongue when I ask. He knows all of the parts on his head. He loves learning numbers and the alphabet. He'll just sit, stare, and smile at the flash cards when I show him them. No talking yet, but he does like to mumble alot.

He loves food, no favorite food yet that I can think of, he'll eat anything. I can't think of anything he doesn't like (so grateful to not have a picky eater). He likes to try and feed himself now. He loves water and will drink a full sippy cup if I let him.

Just finished up with the Pediatrician, just waiting for his shots.

Aunt Lou

Emily was at my place the night before and went with me to the doctors appt.

I like having her around for things because than I get more pictures.

Shot time, poor baby :(

After the doctors appt at the store

A post all about Maximus

So, as I have said on our son's brithday post, our internet went down. We have no clue why it did and still don't know why. We called our internet company and it was a big enough problem that they couldn't help us over the phone and decided to send a tech out to our house the next day to fix it.

Well the next day arrived, and as most of you know Maximus loves people! He gets so excited anytime we have a guest come over. Enough to drive people crazy! Lucky for me, I knew someone was coming and could prepare, not prepare for actually training Maximus but plan on where to put Maximus while he was here. So the doorbell rang and I thought if I put him outside he'll just bark the whole time to come in, heaven forbid we let that happen, so I just quickly shoved Maximus down the stairs and closed our childproof gate on him, easy way out huh? Just shove him down the stairs, haha. But in all reality there was honestly no way I could answer the door and control Maximus, sad I know. I've been there, done that, tried, never works, he's just too excited. I haven't figured out on how to fix that one yet, but hey, the childproof gate works great for now huh, haha. Well until.....Maximus starts whining! Rather loud might I add. Within a few minutes of the tech guy and myself heading upstairs to the TV room, Max starts whining. Well I can't have Maximus whine, he'll wake the baby up and than I'll have a baby in my arms and a dog to deal with while the tech guy works. So a crazy idea came across my mind, I'll work on training Max! I can completely focus on Max with no baby in my arms. So I head back down the stairs from our tv room and open up the gate. I was quick to grab his collar and steer Maximus in the right direction to his bed near the fireplace. He obeyed really well, quite impressed with that actually. I thought for sure he'd make a run for it and head upstairs, but he listened and just stared at me. Probably just waiting for the moment for me to break eye contact so he could make a dash for it. After I got him to where I wanted him to be, I thought to myself, crap, I don't have any dog treats to reward him with. Max was doing really well and needs to know that by being rewarded. So as I slowly back away from him, not breaking eye contact, I quickly grab the dog treats on the counter. I am of course talking to him the whole time saying "stay" while giving him the evil eye. I know, sounds dumb but it works. Anytime he tried to move or stand up real quick to make a break for it, I'd say, "NAH!" really loud.

Picture of Maximus just waiting.

I was really impressed with how long he stayed there and how well he was doing that I decided to take a picture haha!

Eventually the tech guy came down the stairs, it had to have been a good twenty minutes though. The tech basically said that our internet system was broken and that they have to replace it with a new system. So after the tech went outside to get some tools etc., I had Maximus follow me up the stairs just because I wanted to see what all the tech guy would be doing. I guided Maximus to the luv sac and had him sit there with me. He was very anxious and attempted to leave the luv sac several times but I faithfully kept him there, and it honestly wasn't too hard to do by this point. He listened very well and I think was finally getting the picture. The tech guy came back in after being gone for several minutes and headed up the stairs to where we were. Maximus just watched him work, attempted an esacpe a few more times, but than just gave up. The time from when the tech guy arrived and left was at least an hour and a half, maybe even two, so this was quite the task for Max. It was just killing him to not get up and attack our tech with love, but he did really well. By the time the tech was about to finsh up he was very calm and mellow. He just stared at the tech guy, hoping for freedom I'm sure.

I took a picture of Maximus because I thought it was cute how he looked, just literally staring at the tech.

I took a quick pic of the tech too, haha

When the tech finished up, I asked the tech guy if it was okay that Maximus said, "hi" to him. The tech and I talked about dogs several times while he was working and so from that conversation I knew that he liked dogs and had one himself. So after he was done, he was more than happy to let Max say hi. I gave Maximus permission and gave him the "go" to go see him. He was very excited but surprisingly somewhat calm about it. It's amazing how the little things in life like that can make a dog so happy. He did great with the tech though, and never tried jumping on him. I was very impressed. I wish I could do more one on one training like that with Maximus, especially with visitors but it is WAY too hard with a baby in my arms and we really don't get visitors that often. I had to be very firm and strict at first with Max. There was no way that I could have kept Max from jumping all over him, open the door, and talk to the tech guy all at the same time. Max needed that constant eye contact and me close by just to keep him in the right direction. Oh well, it's over now, the tech guy has come and gone.

Within twenty minutes after the tech left, my sweet boy woke up. No nap for me that day since I usually nap when he does. Oh well, the good thing is, we have internet, now!! Yeah! Or so I thought we did. We have great internet connection for all of our devices except for our laptop. I wish I would have checked my laptop before the tech left, but I didn't. The thought never cross my mind, or it did and I just figured it would be fine. So still to this day, Jackson's mac won't connect to the internet. We've called the internet back and they were very nice, helpful, and truly tried to help figure out how to fix it. After an hour worth of trying, they figured it was a computer issue since all the other devices connected just fine. I did give apple a call and wasn't too impressed with them, they were no help at all and just wanted to make money. For now, the situation remains unsolved. Lucky for me, I was able to use my parent's computer last weekend and get all my pictures uploaded into several posts of there own and just take the time to write about throughout the week. In the mean time, till we figure out what we want to do about the mac situation, my sister Emily is returning my laptop back to me. It's an older laptop that I bought for school a long time ago and just wasn't using it. Emily put it to use and borrowed it. Thanx Em for bringing it back to me!

After waking up that day!

A last minute haircut

Braxton's hair is getting long as you can see in all his pictures. So what does that mean, haircut time! I didn't have the time to go to my friends place to get his haircut like last time since it was so last minute and needed to get done before my trip out of town. Lucky for me, my friend Kristina told me of a salon for kids called "Cookie Cutters" and how you get two dollars off the price of a haircut if they go in during the month of his birthday. Well lucky for us, it's still March! Yeah! So off to "Cookie Cutters" we went!

I decided to give him a bath right before going to make sure his hair was clean.

This is the bigger towel my mom made for him before he was born. He's out grown his smaller one.

The cookie cutter place was really cool, I forgot to take a picture of all the stuff inside but I found this picture online and it looked pretty similar to the one we went to.

Right after we got there and checked in they asked us to pick a seat. I went with the toy car seat. The other options were animals, a pink car, and some other old fashioned looking vehicle type of seats.

They had the movie "Cars" playing on his personal TV. I've heard they have all sorts of techniques to keep the kids occupied. Kristina said they blew bubbles for her boy when he got his haircut.

All done! The lady did a great job and was really quick. I'm sure she's had to learn to be quick over the years. Braxton did very well, he only started to cry when they pulled out the little electric razor to cut around the back and sides of his head. It freaked him out, poor kid. After he was all done, they gave him a balloon and a sucker to take home. I let him play on the slide that was there for a few minutes before leaving. It was a fun little place to go to.

The finished product of his haircut! Looking so grown up and handsome!

Fun with friends

My neighbor friend Kristina who babysits Braxton once a week in the mornings has become a great friend. She only lives down the street from our house, so thats a plus too having her live so close. We frequently text each other throughout the week to go do stuff or just simply hang out. It's usually unplanned and very last minute, but nonetheless still fun.

One day she asked me if I wanted to go to IHOP with her and get a free shortstack of pancakes on the International house of pancake day. So I figured sure, why not. I surprisingly didn't get any pics of us eating pancakes, but I did get a couple pictures of us playing at the Carl's Jr play place next door.

The next day was Kristina's son's birthday. He turned 4 years old, (I think). Kristina and her hubby decided to do his birthday party at the "Jump around Utah" place in Utah. It's a large building with lots of air filled toys in it and a large structure to climb and play on. It was a lot of fun.

That air filled thing in the middle of the room is like a big trampoline that people can jump on. I was on that frequently holding Braxton while I jumped on it with him in my arms. I wish I could have gotten a picture of him laughing hysterical in my arms. He loved it! He sure does love to jump as we all know from the pictures and videos we get of him jumping in his crib.

 

These next four pictures kind of show everything that is in the facitlity going clockwise. You can see where the entrance is from the picture up above.

If you see in the picture below the words, "No jumping...", well the rest of it says. "No jumping near edge". If I saw that picture I would wonder why the words no jumping would be on the trampoline. Just an FYI.

 

Some people had fun trying out this hurricane simulator. This was off to the right of the last blow up toy I showed in the 4th picture I posted of the facility. Kind of fun to watch 78 mph winds.

Can you guess what Braxton's favorite attraction was out of all the fun things at this jump around place?? A little tiny slide just sitting all by itself, just waiting to be played with. It was right between a blow up toy and the hurricane stimulator. Even after going down the slide a few times, I'd pick him up and  take him somewhere else in the room and put him down, and he would just crawl right back to his personal slide. He thought it was the greatest thing!

See that little boy in the green striped shirt right in the center of this picture, that's where the slide is.

 

Braxton and his slide.

What a fun day we had, I'm sure he would have had more fun if he was older, nonetheless still fun. We did attempt to go on some of the bigger items at least once. Thanx for inviting us Kristina, will defineitely have to go again someday!

A day at the park

My friend Tessa and I try to hang out once a week or at least every other week now. Which has been great because it's helped me get out of the house. I'm honestly quite content with just hanging out at home. So it's been good to get out and go do some things.

So one day at Tessa's house we decided to walk to the closest park. It was fun. I think it was Braxton's first time at a park, or at least playing on one that is. He still prefers to crawl. I don't think he has any desire to walk right now which is fine, someday he'll walk, but for now he crawls everywhere he goes. At home he'll walk and push his push toys around the house but won't even try to take a few footsteps on his own, he'd rather collapse and crawl to where he wants to go. Oh well, at his own pace I guess. The park was still fun for having a crawler on my hands.

He really liked the swing, at first he was a little nervous about it but quickly got over those fears.

Tessa's boy on the right having a great time.

Braxton was also a little hesitant at first about the slides but that fear too went away real quick.

Tessa and her boys.

It's so nice to have a friend there to take our picture! I didn't look my best due to my lack of sleep and getting off a night shift from the night before, but what the heck, you only live once, right? :)

And no worries, we both had a nap before our adventure to the park.