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...

I know people have been waiting for a new post again, but I forgot all about it last night. Aiden is in bed already and Andy is playing Rock Band so I figured I might as well jump on the computer and write about our weekend.

We started out the weekend on Saturday leaving the house at 8 am to get to St. Louis by 9 to meet some family friends (Aiden's Great-Grandma Cook would go to breakfast pretty much every Saturday morning with the same crew). The crew was there (and we are sure Great-Grandma was too in spirit) and they were very excited to see us, especially Aiden. We had a nice breakfast and then headed to Alma to make the 10:30 Highland Festival Parade. It ended up being rainy and cooler than expected but luckily the rain stopped (for a little while) as the parade was starting. Aiden was a little confused by the sirens but wasn't scared. He just looked around in amazement at all the people. We got to see some family and friends, eat some good food and just have a good time all around.

As for the rest of the weekend, it was pretty boring. We just stayed around home, finished child proofing a few things and caught up on laundry. It was back to work today, but at least it's not Monday!

And here are the pictures I know everyone waits for. Aiden is definitely not sure about playing in the grass. It's so much fun watching him try to figure out what it is though. He touches it and then pulls his hand away, not sure if it's okay or not. I'm sure he'll get used to it in time.


Just for fun, here are a couple pictures of me holding Aiden. The first one is from August and the second one is from yesterday. How fast they grow up.


And here's our sweet little angel


And then the horns come out


He's really not wanting us to feed him anymore but this happens every time we let him try himself. He's been trying a lot of new foods lately. He loves cheese, yogurt and graham crackers. Yet he still gags when we try to give him some of the Gerber 3rd foods because they are chunky.

We think he may be teething again. The drool is back in full force. We went and got some new bibs that are supposed to not let the drool soak through to his clothes. We'll see how those work. Hopefully we won't have to go through 10 bibs a day.

Next weekend we have my cousin Kori's wedding in Rochester. More family and friends to see. Should be a good time. And here's one more pic of our happy little guy to close the post.

On The Move

Well it's only been a week and Aiden is already doing new stuff. He's now able to go like crazy in his walker. He used to only go backwards, but then if you held something out in front of him, he would go forward but really wasn't sure how he did it. Now he can go any way he wants to. Porter doesn't really care for this as Aiden is always trying to run him over. He decided the couch is the safest place to be when Aiden is in the walker. We keep telling him this is just the beginning of being bugged by the baby.


Aiden is also now able to get up on all fours and he rocks back and forth. My guess is he'll be crawling in no time. That seems to be how everything happens. One day he can't and the next day he is. We've started to baby proof the house. We bought all the gates we'll need to keep him safe while he's on the move. We've started covering outlets and have the the locks to put on the cupboards. I'm sure there are going to be a lot of other things that will have to be done that we have no idea about now.

Here are a couple pictures of bath time from tonight. He loves to splash around which daddy encourages. And what a hairdo daddy gave him :)


We are definitely having so much fun with Aiden. We always get a lot of laughs everyday. He gets to spend some time with Busha Bezemek on Thursday and Friday this week. Daycare is closed on Friday for the holiday weekend and since she is off, she offered to come watch him for us. Then we head to Alma on Saturday for the Highland festival. He'll get to meet some new people as well as see some family including grandma and grandpa Marple. It'll be a good time. Well Aiden is starting to make some noise, so my guess is he's hungry and then it's bed time. So until next week.

I forgot...

See...I'm getting better at this already. It hasn't even been 24 hours and I'm putting a new post out there :) I forgot to mention in the last post that Aiden had his 9 month appt. on April 30th, and he weighed 25 lbs, 4 oz. and was 30 1/4 inches long. He is no longer off the charts. He is in the 97th percentile on everything now. I figured some people were probably wondering so I wanted to add that. And now it's time to go back to work.