June Favorites

 

I have had a lot of favorite photos this past month that I have not posted - so with this being the last day of June, I figured I would share.

My sweet boys reading books together

Granny and Granddad with the boys

Casen loves to put things on his head, so the next set of pictures are just a sample of different things he has found to put on top of his little noggin'.





A diaper rag

 

A hat

 

A tiara - Princess Casen? Uh no!

Upside down sunglasses

Now we have them on right!



Shopping at Lowe's with Dad

Father's Day

Since Camden was gone to Grandma and Grandpa's on Father's Day, we celebrated it twice. We celebrated with Casen on actual Father's Day and then we celebrated this morning with Camden. With me working summer school, Shane has been getting his fair share of time with them, getting up earlier and tending to their every need during the day! Thank goodness he is such a great dad and loves his boys and takes such great care of them. Makes my life as a mom MUCH easier!!!

Casen and Shane on Father's Day

 

Camden and Shane celebrating Father' Day

Gone to Grandma and Grandpa's

After Casen's party, my parents took back my nephews with them to Kerrville to spend a little time with them. Their dad was planning on picking them up on Thursday and my mom asked me if Camden would like to come and spend some time with them and if so, perhaps Shawn could bring him to them as he was picking up his boys. Well, after discussing it with Shane (who was a bit apprehensive) we decided to let him go. You couldn't help but say yes when we asked him if he wanted to go and he got so excited and started listing all the things he was going to do!

After talking Uncle Shawn's ear off for several hours, he was delivered to my parents in Austin. He told mom he was ready to play on the playground when they arrived in Kerrville. Well, let me just say, we have 'Facetimed' him every night and that boy does not miss us a bit. He tells us about all the activities he has done with grandma and grandpa and makes sure and gives us a 'bathroom report'. He has gone swimming, visited with all the neighbors, ate out at restaurants, played on the playground, fed the fish, gone fishing and countless other fun things. He has loved every minute he has spent with them, probably because he is ruling the roost. We had decided that we would go ahead and pick him up on Tuesday, but after talking to him on the phone, we decided to let him stay until today. We obviously miss him more than he misses us - which is good - it is nice to know he was having a great time and is just enjoying my parents!

Proud of his catch

Swimming makes Camden smile!

Jumping in the water after his water stick

Mr. Joe Cool

Wearing his goggles while playing on his computer

"Riding the reindeer!" as Camden says



Camden and Grandpa - two peas in a pod

Grandpa left his shoes at the door, so
Camden followed suit

Wearing his sunglasses on his hat like Grandpa

I met my parents in Bastrop at Buccee's to pick him up and he was so excited to see his brother and me. He has this wonderful tan that I am a bit jealous of!!! He told me all about the fun he had on the way home and is already ready to go back!

Sad to leave Grandma and Grandpa,
but glad to see his brother!

One Year Appointment

Today Casen had his one year well check and Shane was the lucky one who got to take him due to me working summer school right now. According to Shane, he did fine, except for when he had to lay him on the table to get his height as well as get his shots. But luckily, the second you pick him up he quits crying. He weighed in at 21 pounds 15 ounces (which is 33rd percentile for weight) and is 31.5 inches long (which is 90th percentile for height). He received four immunizations as well as a finger prick to check his CBC and lead levels.

His four little bandaids - he took off the bandaid on his finger

 

As far as an update on his progression:

• He does not crawl, just scoots, however he can scoot as fast as he wants to get somewhere.

His bruised ankles from the way he crawls

• He goes to bed between 7:00pm and 7:30 pm and that is per his choice. He will let you know my getting a little fussy and then if you ask him if he is ready to go 'nite nite' he will start waving and blowing kisses. He generally sleeps 12 hours and then takes 2 naps a day that can range between 45 minutes and an hour and a half. I finally ditched his sleep slack a few months ago, so he just spreads out nicely in his bed.
• When he naps, he sleeps on his stomach, and at night he prefers to be on his back.
•  He loves his milk cold, and likes to drink it the minute he gets up from his nap drinking about 24 ounces a day.
• He still takes medicine for his reflux - Prilosec 15mg/ml - 2 ml twice a day.
• He still take Miralax daily for constipation.
• He has 6 teeth. 
• He definitely is a snacker, enjoying gold fish, Cheerios and yogurt as some of his snacks. He used to be a better eater, but now has seemed to become a bit picky when it comes to supper items. For breakfast he likes pancakes and sausage, or blue berry muffins and for lunch either a peanut butter or ham and cheese sandwich along with little cheetah type puff chips. He is really hit or miss for supper and generally eats his fruits and vegetables by way of the squeeze pouches because he always spits out 'real' fruit and vegetables. (I hope that changes soon!)
• He can say momma, dadda, book, balloon (ba-oon), done, Zach, and dog. Everything else gets pointed at with the word 'dit '.
• He is very strong willed (I guess he gets that honestly from his parents).
• He enjoys playing with his brother's Hot Wheels and looking at books. He will play on his own for an extended period of time but then after awhile just wants to sit on your lap and suck on the two middle fingers on his right hand.
• We still have been unable to identify his dominant hand due to the darn sucking of those fingers. If he is sucking on them he uses his left hand and if he has a drink he holds it in his right hand also, so will do everything with his left hand.
• He wears size 3 diapers. (That whole thing cracks me up because when I look back to Camden's one year he was wearing size 4 diapers, and gosh knows he was smaller than Casen. Can you say eager mother???? But what was I thinking, you pay the same amount for larger diapers and receive less in a pack so now I try to hold off on increasing the size as long as possible!)
• He wears 18 month shirts and 12 to 18 month shorts. Honestly, it won't be long until he is in 24 month shirts due to his little buddah belly! 
• He wears size 4 shoes.
• He is a happy little guy and is either talking or laughing the majority of the time.

Tooth #5 and #6

All I can say is thank goodness for pictures because they spot things better than my eyes. As I was working to get a picture of Tooth #5 on the bottom left, I noticed in the picture a little speck of white on the bottom right. So not only did tooth #5 arrive, but so did tooth #6! I must say, he is doing pretty good with getting all these teeth in at one time. He has a few bouts of fussiness where we can tell it is his teeth, but other than that he is handling his new pearly white just fine!

Tooth #4

I have thought for several days that Casen's other upper front tooth was trying to come in, but since he is not a fan of letting me look at his upper teeth, I was having a hard time identifying for sure if it broke through. Well, as I was going through his birthday party pictures, there was one of him with his head tilted back and lo and behold I spotted the little chiclet I was waiting for!

Casen's First Birthday Party

As you are know, I am not really a theme person, so searching for something different from the normal 'blue' type themes for Casen's birthday was not an easy task. Casen has not seemed to pick a favorite color yet so that left the picking up to me! One of my friends sent me several different blogs with different ideas and one of them had the color orange (my favorite) in it and so I went with it and was pleased with the end result. (I stole the idea for the invitation as well as the garland and photo timeline I made from the blog.) I am so grateful for those crafty people, because that is sooooo not my forte!

 

I made the circle garland from scrapbook paper which I sewed together on my sewing machine and I also made the photo timeline for the fireplace that showed pictures of Casen from each month of his life. 

 



 

 

Photo Timeline



 

As she has done for Camden, my mother made Casen's cake and I must say I just loved it! She and Dad arrived at our house yesterday and mom brought all of her equipment to ice the cake. Thank goodness mom 'gets me' and doesn't mine all the little nit picking I can do! She did an awesome job and not only did it look good, it tasted great too! Simple, yet fun looking! She also made Casen an individual cake for him to have fun with.

Mom and I started the morning heading to get his balloons while leaving Shane and Grandpa Key with the boys so Casen could get a nap before his guests arrived - which he had a good nap and woke up right after the final guests arrived. We then returned and set up everything for his party. He was fortunate to have a lot of his family members attend. Of course Grandma and Grandpa Key were here as well as Melissa, Shawn, Mason and Braden. Then Nana and Poppa Ron arrived with Granny and Granddad Hood from Georgia. We were so excited to see them since they had not yet ever met Casen! Then Kelsey, Shanelle, Gavin and Malachi arrived so we were ready to party!

Casen with Braden and Mason

 Casen with Granny and Granddad

Melissa and Casen

Casen and Nana



It was lunch time so we started with the food. We had chicken salad sandwiches and hot dogs for those that were not chicken salad fans, which was more than I had estimated - oops! So Casen ate a ham and cheese sandwich instead of a hot dog so there would be plenty for his guests - doesn't he have great manners!?! ; )

We sat around and socialized and bit and then it was time for the cake! We all sang happy birthday to Casen (which he was not sure what to think) and then Camden blew out Casen's candle for him. . I then gave him his cake and he tried a little icing and then after realizing just how tasty it was, he just kept eating the icing. He finally made his way to the actual cake part and seemed to really enjoy it too! After he made a mess, I cleaned him up some and then fed him some cake and ice cream. He did not seem to sure about the ice cream since it seemed to give him a brain freeze so he did not seem to want that (since he loved the icing and didn't care for the ice cream, I am beginning to wonder if he really is my child . . .)

Camden being a big helper by blowing out the candle

"How do I go about this?"

"Let me try this and see what it tastes like."

Yummmm!

The end result - he loved the icing!

Casen then helped me open his presents. He was excited to receive some new toys, a pool for the backyard, water toys, clothes and money.

 

He had a great time visiting with the family and playing with his new toys. Here are more pictures from the party.

Me and my 1 year old

 

Enjoying his ham and cheese

Camden and Gavin enjoying cake

Shawn and Melissa helping Grandma Key serve cake and ice cream

And one last piece of exciting new for his special day, today was the last time he had formula in his sippy cup. He would have been completely off of it earlier in the week since he has been tolerating it like a champ, but due to his illness, I was leary to rush things. So, bye bye Similac! We have moved up to whole milk! (Yea!!! Another pay raise for us!)

 

 



Casen seemed to have a great time, as did we. Thank you to everyone who came and shared his special day with us.