An Update on the Little Guy

Well, hello. Not sure if anyone is still out there checking my blog. Opps. It's been a while, I know, I know. I guess for a little bit there I forgot I had a blog!!! oh well, such is life.

Well, here is an update on the little man of our house:

- he is almost 18 months old and I CAN'T believe it!

- I am LOVING the toddler stage. I mean, really loving it! I love how he sometimes reminds me of a little boy, but still reminds me of a baby too. It's like the best of both worlds. Plus, I LOVE how he learns something new everyday!

- He is quite the talker. I mean the child knows so many words. and is NEVER quiet! I never really felt the need to teach Clay baby sign language because he comnunicates so well. His vocabulary often surprises me.

- He is a night owl. I never knew that you could tell this when they are so young, but he truly seems like a night person and not a morning person (a trait he gets from his mother)! He doesn't really get grumpy when we keep him up so late, but gets crazy! It's pretty nice for those nights when we are out late!

- He's a pretty cautious little guy when it comes to new things.

- He LOVES being outside and asks all the time to go outside (even now as I type!)

- He is definately playing like a little boy. LOVES cars and balls. Will make car noises as he drives them all over the house.

- He loves books

- His favorite thing is his "bankie" He MUST have it when he sleeps and it is always soaking wet when I get him from his bed. He likes to chew on it.

- He loves to go for a run with mommy. He often asks to go for a run and brings me my shoes (he's like my little running accountability partner!) He does so well in the jogging stroller and is quiet the whole time (the only time he is quiet). He loves to strech with me after we run, touching his toes and everything.

I LOVE my little guy and I love that I get the privilege of raising Clay and being a stay at home mom!

The Grace of God by Andy Stanley

FYI, this blog was written by my hubby. He uses my blog to get free books lol

“The Grace of God” by Andy Stanley is an excellent read. He goes through the stories of the Bible, most of which are very familiar to anyone who has even an elementary knowledge of it, and tells them from the point of view of grace. He has a great talent for taking these well-known stories and telling them in a way that is fresh and relevant for our culture today. While I had heard all of these stories multiple times, I was never bored as I read through the book. God’s story is a story of grace. It was 4,000 years ago, and His grace continues its work through me and through you. This book is for anyone who believes that they have to work to earn the grace of God; it is also for anyone who thinks that they are too messed up and done too many things wrong that they do not deserve His grace. God’s grace is for everyone and we don’t have to do anything to get. How amazing is that. That is Good News!
I wrote this review as part of Thomas Nelson's booksneeze.com book review blogger program.

Outlive Your Life by Max Lucado

Have you ever felt like your life isn't really making a difference?
Have you ever wondered if there is more to your life than what you are doing with it right now?
If so, Max Lucado's book, "Outlive Your Life", is a perfect read for you. A main theme that constantly runs throughout the book is a call to I would say the rich in general and the American church in particular (because face it, no matter how "poor" we think we are, we still as a group have more wealth than the rich of the rest of the world combined), to reach out to the poor and the needy wherever we are and look for ways to make a difference. The thing I liked about this book is how practical Max gets. He doesn't talk theories. He gives real life examples of real life people and ways to help. He also does an excellent job of building a foundation for why we should be so concerned about helping the needy and poor among us, namely because this is how Jesus lived. We as Jesus followers need to be doing the same.
I wrote this review as part of Thomas Nelson's booksneeze.com book review blogger program.

Couponin'

So, yes, I coupon. And now that I have been doing it for the past few months, and see how much money I'm SAVING, I wonder what I was thinking all of those years of NOT couponin'! Really, it's amazing! Now that I know I can only spend a little over $1 for a box of cereal I use to pay $3 or more for, I don't know how I could ever return to not coupon in'. And that's just cereal, not to mention all the other things I use to pay full price for that I now pay less than half the original price. It does take time and can be a little work, but the return is definitely worth it!
Yesterday was one of my proudest days as a couponer. I never thought I would be one of "those" bloggers who would actually line up everything they bought, take a picture, and post how much I paid for it (not that I have a problem with bloggers who do. In fact, seeing all the amazing deals my friends have posted is what convinced me to actually try this whole coupon thing. I just never thought I would blog about it ;), but when you watch your transaction total go from a little over $30 to just 92 cents, it's worthy a blog right?! I took a trip to Target and CVS and here are all the things I got for FREE (yes, that's right, I said FREE) or for only a few cents.
And here is my CVS transaction that rang up at over $30 and, with all my coupons and ECB, went down to just 92 cents. Not to mention I got 5 ECB back to use on my next purchase!
Pretty fun stuff!

My Little 14 month old

Oh yes, I am still counting months. I mean, when do you stop? Clay still feels like my little baby even though he is clearly in the "toddler" stage. Although he is not "toddling" around. Yes, my 14 month old still crawls. He is fast at it and isn't really interested in walking. He cruises furniture really well, but doesn't let go. He has shown a lot of interest in his walker lately, so I guess he is getting close, but I think it's still going to be awhile. BUT, the child is talking like crazy. Seriously, it seems like he learns a new word everyday, which is pretty fun. I just think it's hilarious that my crawling baby is talking. Seems a little backwards, huh?
Here is the list of his vocab: mama, dada, bye bye, shoe, socks, puppies, touch (comes from when I tell him "don't touch"), and ice. Who knows what he will try to say next. It's too cute!

Catching Up...

Hello again blog world. WOW, It's been awhile. A LONG while. Oh well. we have been really busy the past few months. So, we have a little catching up to do. Here's what we've been up to!

On May 3oth Clay turned 1! I know, can you believe it? My baby is one. Feels like I gave birth to him yesterday. I can remember the first time I held him in my arms (screaming his head off) like it was yesterday! Oh Clay, we are SO HAPPY you are a part of our life. You bring such joy to your dad and I. We love you more than you will ever know!
We decided to have his first birthday party and baby dedication together at our house. It was a great time to celebrate Clay and to commit our little man to the Lord. It was a very special party.
In other news, we are now homeowners! I can hardly believe it. Really. We have lived in 9 different places since we got married almost 5 years ago. Yeah, quite the record. Now you know why I can hardly believe that we bought a house. There were several reasons for this. One is that we were tired of throwing away our money on rent and the other, bigger reason is that we are a part of a core group who is planting a church in the neighborhood we bought our house in. We really felt like God was calling us to be a part of this church and calling us to move to the community we are currently living in. It has been quite the journey being homeowners and we've only lived here for a month! We have renovated the bathroom (well, still renovating) as well as done some other renovations around the house, built a shed, painted like CRAZY, and well, had to clean up our first fallen tree in our yard this week. (Yes an enormous, termite eaten, hollow oak tree in the lot next door fell on our backyard! Could have been worse. At least it didn't fall on the house, right?! I'd much rather clean up a fallen tree in our backyard than clean up a tree AND fix a hole in our roof!)
Also in the past couple months we had my brother, sister-in-law, and family come in town. They recently adopted a little girl from Korea and we got to meet her for the first time. She is only 6 weeks older than Clay and is too cute! She is walking like a big girl and has been for awhile. It was really fun to see them. Wish we could have had more time with them. We had to move into our new house during the time they were in town. Although it would have been nice to do something "fun" we were glad to have the help!
Rob's parents also came in town to visit us for about a week. They were able to make it to Clay's birthday/ baby dedication party which we were really happy about. It was so good to have them here for such a special time in our lives. They helped us A TON on our new house (painting, helping to build a shed) as we had only moved in like 10 days before their arrival. It was great to see them!
Also, my other brother, sis-in-law and family moved back down to NOLA at the beginning of June. It 's fun to have them home, and to see Clay interact with his cousins. He loves crawling after them, and Eli (he's 2) especially loves to "play" with Clay. Eli is absolutely adorable with Clay, feeding him Cheerios, bringing him his cup, and giving lots of hugs. I think those 2 are going to be great friends one day when they can really play together. It's good to have them home.
Well, that was probably WAY more than you care to know about what is going on in our lives. Just seems like there are quite a few "monumental" things happening in our lives the past couple of months.

9 month stats

We had Clay's 9 month check-up today and all is well. Learned that he had his first (of many more to come, I'm sure) virus. He was running a fever this weekend, but didn't have any other symptoms. He seemed fine on Sunday, but I did notice that he looked like he had some little pink bumps on his tummy. Since he is fair skinned and doing the army crawl these days, I figured it was just from crawling on the carpet. Anyway, yesterday evening, it was really looking like a rash. Thankfully today I had his regular check-up appointment and learned (Actually my mom diagnosed it about an hour before I went to the appointment) that he had Roseola, which is a virus common for babies to get at his age. Anyway, seems kinda like a milestone, Clay getting his first virus...

Anyway, here are his 9 month stats:

Weight: 18 lbs. 14 oz. -20th percentile

Height: 27 3/4 inches 50th percentile

Growing away

9 months

I can hardly believe that my baby boy is 9 months. It's even harder to believe that we will be celebrating his first birthday is just a few short months. Ya know, I have always heard moms talk about how quickly kids grow up and I never really understood it until I had my own. I seriously feel like I just gave birth to him YESTERDAY. Ok, I can go on and on about how big he is and how I can't believe it, but I'll stop now...

So here are some things my little 9 month old does now:

- claps his hands on command, or when you sing if your happy and ya know it, or just for fun!
- does the army crawl and gets faster and faster everyday

- can pick up food with his finger and thumb and feed himself

- has 3 teeth, one has totally come in and is working on the other two

- gets his feelings hurt when you tell him "no"
- knows the car and will begin to whine before you even open the door to put him in his car seat

- smiles ALL THE TIME!
- has become more and more interested in toys ( but the stacking cups are still, by far, his favorite)
- plays "catch" (I roll him the ball and he rolls it back)
- says mama and dada

- talks constantly, except when we are walking around in a store (too much to look at I guess...)
- is very ticklish
-LOVES to eat solid foods. You would be amazed how much such this skinny baby can eat!!

showing off his 3 teeth (2 bottom and one on the top left... you can see the very tip of it if you look really closely)

if you're happy and ya know it clap your hands

eating finger foods!

ahhhhahhh I got it!

Funny Face

I don't know what it is, but Clay has been constantly making this face lately. I think it's pretty funny! And here is another pic of a funny face, although he doesn't make this one as often!

Scooting

So, almost 2 weeks ago, my baby boy learned to scoot on his tummy and has been getting faster and faster ever since, which means he has been getting into more and more things. And he makes way more of a mess than he use to. But it has been easy to adjust to so far. I guess in my head, I kinda thought that once your kid is mobile, everything changes drastically. But at first he would not go very far. He would only go for things within a few feet of him. And then he got more a more interested in things that were further and further away from him. But, like I said, it has been a gradual process where I am learning what things he can get into gradually. It's been kinda fun to see what he is interested in. He will often go for the diaper bag and pull things out. He also likes to go for my toes and thinks they are really funny. Oh, and the DVD player is definitely a favorite. He has already tried to eat my bible study workbook and torn an envelope for the blockbuster mail in DVD thing. It's funny, because I often see him start to go for something and halfway there, he will stop and look back at me, as if to see if I will let him, or tell him no. Or maybe it's to see if I am watching, so he knows what he can get away with! Anyway, it's been fun so far, except the whole teaching him "no" thing.
Here are a couple pictures of what he has been getting into!

Humm... mommy, what do you carry around in this bag all the time?Helping mommy unpack the groceries! (He really did take quite a few items out of the grocery bag for me. Now if I can only get him to put them where they belong ;)

Here is a video of our little guy's scooting skills

Bath Time

So, we have come a long way in our "enjoying the bath" journey with Clay. He never really liked it. In fact, most times he would scream the whole time. I never understood when moms would say that their newborns fell asleep in the bath. Ha, yeah right... not this newborn. Needless-to-say, we never really liked giving him a bath, so we only did it when absolutely necessary! (I mean, how dirty can babies get anyway?) It wasn't until a couple months ago that he learned to splash in the bath and he LOVED it. Yes, ever since he learned to splash, it was like all of a sudden he realized how fun baths can be!!! Yay!! Finally it's not a struggle to give him a bath, he actually enjoys it now!!

And this is how baths use to be ... (taken at his first bath )And NOW...
Yay! Baths can actually be fun!!!

First Trip to the Park

Saturday was a BEAUTIFUL day here, so we decided it was a perfect time for Clay's first trip to the park. I have been looking for a park close by that actually has baby swings (because, well, really... what else can a 8 month old do at the park besides swing?!). Believe it or not, it has been quite the challenge to find a park around here that has swings, much less baby swings. On the way home Friday night we passed by a local park and I saw them!!! I knew this was the park for us!

Now, I have figured out that Clay is not like most babies in well, almost everything. He never liked pacifiers. He will NOT take a bottle. He HATED baths until he was 7 months old and learned how to splash. He hated riding in the car and would scream the whole time (unlike most who FALL ASLEEP). Oh the list goes on. All the things that most babies like, well, Clay didn't. One of those things is a baby swing. Yes, before we had Clay we figured we needed one of those baby swings because, well, every baby likes a baby swing, right??!! Oh how I had thoughts of him sleeping in it, or it calming him down. YEAH RIGHT!! He cried every time I put him in it!!! If he was crying and I put him in it, the crying would only get louder!!! So, although I wanted to take Clay to the park, I was not so sure he was going to like to swing. Well, much to my surprise he LOVED it. I mean from the moment we put him in it, he was smiling and laughing. It was too cute! We will defiantly have to take him to the park more often!!

I think this is my favorite one!

Although he did like the swing he wasn't so sure about the slide!!

Yeah, so I had the thought that the park would be a great place to do a little photo shoot! Ha! This is pretty much what he did the whole time. He was WAY more interested in the grass than me! This is the best pic I got!

Really he was more interested in eating the grass than anything else!

playing with leaves

Fun with daddy

I love to see my husband and son play together, cuddle, or just hang-out. I think they will be great friends one day!Rob found baby einstein on you tube for Clay on half the computer screen and he was doing some research on the other half!!! too funny!Just cuddling with daddy after a nap

Rob built a little road with 2 ramps for Clay's caterpillar to roll over. (Good thing there are daddies. Mommies would never think of things like this!!!)

Teaching Clay the Ways of Manhood

So, Rob took Clay after work and I found them in the bathroom doing this:
Ummm... Mommy, what is daddy doing?
Oh, that looks like fun!
I'm not so sure about this
I don't think I liked that daddy.

First Tooth

Yes, it is true, Clay is finally getting his first tooth!! About 2 weeks ago, he was VERY fussy and I noticed that his gums where looking a little different. Of course, I had to feel, no tooth yet. Well, by the end of the day I could feel the little tip of the tooth!! It is still not fully in (not sure how long it takes for a baby tooth to come fully in???!!!) but he looks so cute when he smiles with his little tooth sticking out!! It seems like we are getting close to the stage where everyday there is something new...

Cups

Not so sure what it is about cups, but Clay loves them. He is happy as long as there is a cup around. He doesn't love to drink from a sippy cup, in fact he usually shutters when we try to get him to drink from a sippy cup. However, when we let him drink from a regular cup, he loves it! For months his favorite toy was and still is stacking cups. Crazy kiddo...It seems that the "love of destruction" that all boys seem to have starts at such a young age!