Happy boy

After seeing this picture, I'm sure you're smiling because there is no way you can look at this face and not smile. We're so lucky to have such a happy little boy. He makes us laugh so much.

So at least this time it's only been a couple weeks not a couple of months. There's really not a lot of new stuff going on but I figured I'd at least put some new pics up. Right now we're playing in the basement with his barn and tractor and listening to Aiden's music. He likes to dance or booty shake as I call it. Of course I tried to get him to do it so I could post a little video of it on here, but he won't do it when the camera is on. It's pretty funny though especially as it's to songs like Baa Baa Black Sheep and Bingo.



Today has been a day of playing catch up on laundry. Of course Aiden loves to help. Some how he seems to have taken on Porter's love of socks. He sees Porter carry them around and he thinks it's funny for him to do it. At least this sock is clean, Porter loves the dirt ones.

He loves playing in his Cozy Coupe (it might not be a Mustang like grandma's but at least he can see over the steering wheel). He can only go in reverse right now but he'll figure out how to go forward soon enough.


And we can't forget about our other baby. Porter is really a great dog. As much as Aiden messes with him, pulling on his ears, poking his eyes and pulling hair out of him, he just sits and takes it. Good boy Porter :)

Next week is Halloween so I'll have lots of pictures to put up I'm sure. We're heading to Ubly to trick or treat since he's still too small to do much of it. He can just go to a few family and close friend's houses and then Busha and Grandpa can watch him while Andy and I go have some fun of our own with some friends.

So it's been awhile

I know it's been a long time since I've done a post. It's so much harder to do now that Aiden is on the move all the time.There's no more being able to put him in his exersaucer to play, knowing he's safe and being able to be on the computer to write a blog. He's been walking for over a month now and into everything. He took his first steps on Labor Day and now he just walks all over the place. He gets better at balancing and catching himself everyday. He's had a few good falls where he's had blood from cutting his lip open and some good bruises on his melon. He's taken a couple headers into the corners of his toy box. He's also tried reaching for a toy at the bottom of his toy box and fell in which I thought was hilarious but it scared him and he cried. I wish I could have got to the camera to take a picture before he fell all the way in. His head was in the box and his feet were dangling outside and he was hanging on for dear life. It was too funny. He does like to play inside the toy box though if you put him in there.



He has a mouth full of teeth now. Thirteen with at least one more getting ready to come through. He's eating pretty much everything we do now. He won't touch baby food anymore. He's trying to figure out how to use a spoon but hasn't quite got there yet. He will in time. He loves macaroni and cheese and he could eat bananas for every meal. He has a little food picture book and every time we get to the banana page, he points to the kitchen. If he's hungry, he gets off my lap and heads to the kitchen. We better not ever forget to buy bananas at the grocery store.

He's had about a month or so of waking up in the middle of the night at least once. We're not 100% sure why (teething, changes of going back to daycare after Andy found a job, new habit) but we're doing the best we can to get him back into the same routine everyday and he's slept through the night the last 2 nights (knock on wood - I probably jinxed us for tonight).

He tries to talk all the time. We can't understand a lot of it but he has mama, dada, doggy, rock (as in rocking chair), and huh down and we get the occasional snuggy, uh-oh, bub-bye. He even said grandma clear as day one morning and of course neither grandma was here to hear it. And we can't get him to say it again. He knows what things are though because if you tell him to grab a certain book or toy, he gets the right one, but he just can't say it yet. All in good time.

We left him with Grandma and Grandpa Marple over Labor Day weekend. I stood up in my friend Andrea's wedding so we left him Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. It was hard to be away but at the same time, it was nice to have some time alone. We had a great time at the wedding, and I think Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed having Aiden to themselves. Although, I'm pretty sure when we left on Monday, they went and took naps because as I started this blog out saying, he's on the move all the time, which means you are on the move all the time.

We've tried to go out and swing a few times this week but the rain has kept us in a lot after work. He's going to be a sad boy in a week or two when we have put the swing in the garage for the winter. Every night he points outside which means he wants to go swing. Hopefully we have a few more sunny days so I can get him out there a couple more times. I can't wait until we get our first snow and see what his reaction is to that. It should be fun, but who knows, he may hate it. It took him a long time to get used to the feel of grass before he would crawl around on it so he may not like the cold of snow. Now how do you teach a 1 year old about not eating yellow snow?

Aiden and I both are getting over being sick. We had a cold/cough. Aiden seems to be pretty much back to normal with an occasional cough in the mornings after he wakes up. I'm feeling better after getting some uninterrupted sleep the last couple of nights but I can't seem to lose this cough.

I think that covers most of what he's been up to over the last couple of months. Here are some pictures of Aiden wanting to drive Grandma Marple's Mustang.

Hair Cut

This past weekend we were in Ubly (I had my friend Onie's bachelorette party) so we had the woman who has cut my family's hair for as long as I can remember cut Aiden's. She's the one that cut my super long hair the very first time. He did much better then we thought he would. There was very little screaming involved. Of course he wiggled around some, but what one year old wouldn't? He looks so different now but very handsome...see for yourself.






Great Grandma had to come see his new haircut and he actually went to her this time!

Friday night, Aiden woke up at about 4 am and did not want to go back in his pack n play, so I slept on the recliner with him until 5:30 and then Andy took over until 7:30 when Aiden got up. Aren't they cute? He did much better on Saturday night (a very good thing for me as I was feeling a little rough after the party).


This coming weekend we get to go to grandma and grandpa Marple's and get to see Aunt Allison and Uncle Anthony. We're definitely looking forward to it! Plus I'm on vacation next week so after we leave Midland, we're heading back to Ubly to hopefully see a few people who have not met Aiden yet because we just always run out of time on the weekend trips. Well, our dinner is ready so I'm going to go eat. I'll try to post again after we get back from Ubly. We'll probably have a lot of fun pictures.

One year already

So Aiden's first birthday was Thursday. Andy and I still can't believe a year has gone by. At times it seems like time has gone by so fast but at the same time, we can't remember life without him. A year ago we were so nervous about raising a child and now we know it's really a lot of fun and a learning game. We have a great support team of family and friends that have helped us answer any questions we have had along the way so far and I'm sure a lot more advice will be needed over the next 18+ years. We've realized there's nothing we wouldn't do for him and nothing he does grosses us out anymore. Things that might have made us gag before we had Aiden are now things we laugh about and stories we share with our friends that have kids and we all laugh. It's so amazing how he went from a helpless 8 lb 12 oz, 21 3/4 in. baby into a 26 lb 6.5 oz, and 31 1/2 in. toddler who is trying to do everything on his own. He's scooting around furniture, finger feeding himself (he tries with the spoon but you've seen the pics of how successful that is) and chasing the dog around the house. It's just a blast watching him. Having him has been the most amazing experience of our lives. From comforting him when he's hurting to laughing with him when he's giggling, we wouldn't trade any of it. And we're not the only one's who feel like this. Seeing him with our families, especially his grandparents, and watching how happy he makes them and how proud of him they are is so great. Every minute they spend with him, they are grinning from ear to ear. And he is fortunate to have his great-grandma Wasierski who makes him a GIANT cookie because mom says just 1 cookie :)

He had a great birthday party with friends and family on Saturday and being the easy going kid that he is, he was a happy little guy through the whole thing. He was giggling and having a good time. He smashed his cake all over which was great. He loved playing with the balloons and the scooter ride with Great Uncle Ken. He got a lot of fun toys and cute clothes, but of course being 1, his attention span is not that long and he kept trying to run away while opening gifts. We finished up just in time to get almost everything in the house before the rain poured down. It was so nice to see everyone that was able to make it and we missed the ones who couldn't be there. We are so blessed to have the family and friends that we do, knowing they will be a part of Aiden's life as he grows.

Here are pictures from the party...







And of course we have to throw a picture in of our fuzzy baby...He found a nice spot to lie down before the party started but he ended up in the house during most of the party because he wanted to help everyone eat. He did manage to get a piece of cake that fell on the deck, a hot dog that fell on the floor and then decided to be a sassy dog that evening and jumped on the counter to get MORE cake.

Since it's been so long since my last post, here are some July pictures...



Since we got rid of the hot tub and put the swing on the deck, Aiden absolutely loves it. I think we have got more use out of the swing in the month we've had it than we did the whole 5 years we had the hot tub.
Again...this is what happens when he has the spoon...


Well...until next time.

Finally crawling

Last Wednesday, Aiden crawled for the first time while he was at daycare. Now he's on the go all the time. Most of the time he does more of an army crawl but gets to where he wants to go. He's doing very well with walking while holding on to our hands. He's standing up against the couch or his little table a lot now without falling over. If I had to guess, he'll be pretty close to walking by his first birthday.

We spent our first night away from him last week. My mom and dad came down on Wednesday and stayed the night. They left Thursday morning and took Aiden with them to Ubly. Aiden did better than I did, but I survived. It was very nice to have some time to ourselves Thursday night. We went and saw The Hangover. (Great movie) It had been over a year since we had been to the theater. Not much has changed...still expensive but it was nice to to out. We ended up going to Ubly later on Friday night. I wasn't sure we were going to make it because I ended up getting really light-headed and dizzy at work Friday and Andy actually had to pick me up because I didn't start feeling better at all. I was sweating, nauseous and my legs felt like jello. Not sure what happened (blood sugar, stress, who knows) but no more mall Chinese food for me. After I got home and Andy got me laying down, I had some OJ and slept for a little bit and felt a little better. I could at least stand up without falling over. We ended up heading to Ubly later that night but by that time Aiden was already sleeping. He did wake up about 11:30 screaming and continued that throughout the night. We probably got about 3 hours of sleep that night. We think it was his teeth and possibly a little ear ache. I had my friend Andrea's shower on SAturday morning and I got yelled at for not bringing Aiden but I figured he needed to stay home and rest. Luckily he was in a better mood the rest of the weekend. SAturday night he got to see his first polka band at the wedding reception we went to. He enjoyed the music and dancing. We left pretty early though because we wanted Aiden to sleep and mom and dad needed sleep as well. We got to spend some time with Great Grandma and Christy on Sunday which was nice and then we headed back to Lansing this afternoon.

I just realized that a lot of the pictures of Aiden are on my mom's camera and on the video camera which I still can't post on here until Andy sets it up for me, so I'll have to have her send them to me. The ones I posted are from our visit with Great Grandma. He wouldn't go to her all week until we went to her house on Sunday, then they were buddies. He even got to have some ice cream to help his teeth feel better so he would stop chewing on the cold pop that he stole from daddy.

Anyway, I need to get ready for bed. It's been a long weekend and a good nights sleep will hit the spot. Until next time...

So I've been bad about getting a new blog up every week again. It just seems there's not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done. So to catch everyone up, two weekends ago we went to Rochester Hills for my cousin Kori's wedding. We had a good time. My mom and dad were there and really enjoyed seeing Aiden. We were supposed to see Uncle Eric, but he stood us up to watch the Red Wings. Aiden did surprisingly well with all the noise and all the people. He took about a 20 minute nap but otherwise stayed awake until we left at about 10:45. We gave him a bottle in the car and he was out within a minute of finishing it. Below are a couple pictures from the wedding.


Last weekend we just stayed home and it was very enjoyable. Andy has been teaching Aiden bad things again. He's taught him to pull his finger and when Aiden does, he makes a farting noise. It is rather funny to watch and Aiden thinks it's great. He couldn't help him learn to wave bye bye or to blow kisses...

Aiden is now sitting up in his crib by himself and I'm pretty sure it won't be long before he's standing. He tries really hard to pull himself up. Below are a couple pictures from earlier today. Until next time...