Reading Mama a book...

Sweet Maddox read me a story yesterday. I couldn't quite catch every word he said, but I definitely enjoyed it...

Walking

We are getting much better at the whole walking thing! He has been walking around scaling the room for what seems like months now, so we were so excited to see him finally start to let go. Here he is a few weeks ago when he first started letting go and walking on his own:

And here he is tonight cruising around the house. He has gotten so much faster and so much better at keeping his balance. He hears Blake bouncing the ball in the other room so he is trying to get there fast. He may be running before too long!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Happy Birthday to the best daddy (and husband) in the whole world! Maddox loves his daddy so much! His eyes light up when he walks in each day from work and he gets so excited to play with him. He especially loves when Daddy puts him up on his shoulders and does flips with him on the bed. Unfortunately Blake is away tonight (boo) at a retreat for work. He was chosen to participate in a leadership program for Southern Company and tonight was their first function. He would say it isn't a big deal, but I think it is and I am so glad that they recognize his hard work and see just what a valuable and important employee he is. Maddox and I are proud of you and love you very much!

Since Blake was going to be gone today, they celebrated his birthday at work yesterday with yummy cookie cake (Blake's choice of course). Maddox and I went and ate lunch with Blake and stuck around for cake. Naturally Maddox was quite the entertainer and as one would predict from his past experiences with cake, he loved it! Since it was St. Patrick's Day, the cake was covered in green icing and since the cake was covered in green icing, so was Maddox's face. He even had icing in his shoes by the time it was all over. Here are a couple of pictures that one of Blake's coworkers took with her phone.

Maddox also really walked for us for the first time last night. He was carrying around a spatula (go figure) and I think he forgot what he was doing and he just started walking across the room. He was still a little wobbly, but he made it where he was going and we clapped for him and he was so proud. He did it a few times at random, but still won't do it regularly. I wish I had captured it on video. I am hoping to get that this weekend.

Starting to walk, no more bottles, and new pictures!

Yesterday was a pretty big day for Maddox. He finally walked hands free for the first time. Sally said he was pretty much walking across the room holding onto his little blankie. Of course when I picked him up he wouldn't do it for me and he wouldn't do it last night or tonight either, but hopefully he will show me soon. I'm sad I missed it but I'm sure he will do it again for me in his own time. He did take a few steps for me, but after that he did not want to cooperate any longer. Yesterday was also our first bottle-free day. I was afraid to completely take him off the bottle because he is so obsessed with it, but it was actually quite successful. For the past week and a half or so he has been taking his milk with breakfast and lunch in a sippy cup and I have been holding off cutting out that last bottle for fear that he wouldn't do well at night without it, but I was wrong. Last night and tonight at dinner he drank his milk down in his cup easily and he went to bed no problem. Hopefully this will last!

On another note, Maddox's one year pictures are up. They turned out pretty cute, but what's not to love about a little one shoving cake in his face? Here is the link if you want to check them out: http://melissahardin6013.zenfolio.com/p592166146.

Maddox's Birthday Party

Maddox's 1st birthday party was last weekend. We had so much fun and were so thankful that so many of our friends and family could come celebrate with us. Maddox was a little cranky before everyone arrived, but fortunately he snapped out of it pretty quickly and had a great time. Of course he enjoyed eating all the good food and he also had fun opening his presents. It seriously looked like Santa had come again and dropped off enough goods for the whole neighborhood. He got so many fun new toys, some big boy clothes, and even three new pairs of shoes (which is great because he didn't have any that fit him before then). We have tried putting shoes on him a little lately. He's not the biggest fan, but he has successfully worn them on a few occasions so we're going to keep working on this. Here are a few shots of Maddox opening his presents and having fun at his party.

I think Maddox's cake was his favorite part of the party. He had the cutest cake that my friend Kim made. I decided to go with a sock monkey on the cake since Maddox has pretty much been branded as the sock monkey kid. I thought it turned out great! It was almost too cute to eat!

Maddox even had his own mini sock monkey smash cake, which he didn't waste any time digging into. It is so funny to watch him eat because he still waves his hands in the air and makes excited whining noises when he sees you coming toward him with food. He started off by picking off each one of the icing polka dots before he dug into the rest of it. He ate a good bit of the cake and I'm pretty sure he would have attempted to finish it off if we'd allowed him too. He was a not too thrilled about having his cake removed from his tray before he had finished, but I think it was for the best!

Thank you again to everyone who helped make Maddox's birthday so special. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. And we are blessed beyond words to have the most amazing beautiful little man. We love you so much, Maddox and can't wait to see what your second year has in store for you!

One Year Old!

Still so hard to believe that my little munchkin is one!! I took off work today to spend the day with him and we had so much fun just playing and snuggling all day. We went to the doctor first thing this morning for his one year well baby check-up. I'm sure Maddox was thinking, "Good plan, Mom...shots for my birthday!", but he got over it pretty quickly! Maddox is still growing like a weed, which isn't surprising since he is a little garbage disposal. He weighed in at 22 lbs (40th percentile) and was 29 3/4 inches long (50th percentile) so he is right on target for his age since he's tripled his birth weight. He had to get his toe pricked too to test his iron levels. He didn't mind the toe pricking part so much as he did the lady squeezing the life out of his toe trying to fill two vials of blood. He got a little agitated during that part. He also was very upset to have to have 4 more shots today, but I was able to console him pretty quickly. It does break my heart to have to lay him on the table and watch him get so upset while they are sticking him. I just want to do what mommies do best and make it all better, but those nurses make it hard.

Dr. Miller checked him out today and answered a lot of questions and gave us a lot of advice. We are beginning to transition to whole milk. Maddox drank a sippy cup full today and seemed to like it okay. It was no bottle though. He sucks that thing down no matter what's going on around him. With the sippy cup of milk he would take a sip and then chew on the rim, of the cup throw it down, and then start the process back over. We are going to keep slipping the milk in there so we can get solely on whole milk pretty soon hopefully. It should be a lot cheaper that's for sure! We are also going to be starting to drop his bottles which is probably going to be a challenge since he is obsessed with his bottle. When I say obsessed, I'm not exaggerating. He literally is beside himself when he sees you making it and he can't wait to get it. He climbs up your leg and whines and moans and waves his little hands in the air. It is pretty funny to watch.

Maddox isn't walking on his own just yet, but I doubt it will be too much longer before he is. He loves to walk holding on to furniture and the walls. He walks just about everywhere, but he just is too afraid to let go yet. Every now and then he'll let go and stand for a second, but he's not willing to try that first step just yet. These past few days he has started to get upset if he can't get somewhere by walking. He a big bouncy ball that he loves to play with (go figure he has a lot of expensive toys and his favorite is a $1.50 bouncy ball, haha) and sometimes when it rolls out into the middle of the room, he drops to the floor and puts his head down and cries because he can't walk to it. It's kind of sad, but he usually gets over it pretty quickly. It's just funny to see his little temper start to shine through and he definitely is developing quite a temper.

Lately, Maddox has been waking up during the night too, usually around 10:00 after he's been down a few hours. I talked to the doctor about it today and we're pretty sure it's night terrors that he's having because he cries out and he almost looks like he's in a daze or still sleeping when I go up there. Usually we can calm him down and lay him back down with his paci and his giraffe or tiger blankie and he's fine though. Hopefully he'll grow out of this pretty soon.

We now have another tooth breaking through. Hooray...it's about time! We have been waiting on some teeth to join those bottom two for quite a while. You can finally see where his front tooth has broken through. That should help with his eating, not that a lack of teeth has slowed him down any. One thing about Maddox for sure is that he is an eater. He will eat and eat and eat and he eats just about anything you give him. I typically have to cut him off because I sometimes don't think he will ever stop himself (I'm sure he would...he just seems so little to be eating that much). He will eat a whole sandwich for lunch plus a fruit cup amongst other little snacks. It just seems crazy the amount that he eats! We have been off baby food for quite a while. Maddox was never a fan of any of those Gerber Graduate foods. I guess once he got a taste of the real thing he didn't want to go back to those bland foods.

The picture at the top is one that Blake snapped of him on Sunday during his portrait session. We had his one year pictures made and he had a little personal smash cake for his pictures. It definitely wasn't anything to look at seeing how it was a homemade box cake with canned frosting and sprinkles, but he absolutely loved it (and it didn't take too long for it to be a pile of crumbs and frosting on his face anyway). He was extremely serious the entire time he ate it and as soon as he started on it he was focused on that and only that. I think he was trying to shovel in as much as he could before we took it away. We tried very hard to get him to smile, but it was pretty much impossible to distract him away from his cake. He went to town and he loved every minute of it!! I am sure he will do the same at his party on Saturday.

Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy! I cannot believe that you are already a year old! Has it really been a whole year since I held you in my arms for the first time? It seems like only yesterday, but then again it seems like you have been part of my life forever. I could never have imagined in a million years how much I would love you. You always know you're going to love your children, but I don't think you ever realize just how much. Maddox, you are such a blessing to your daddy and me. You have made this the best year of our lives. Seeing your beautiful smile and hearing you giggle always makes my day. I have enjoyed watching you grow and learn new things this past year and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for you. You are truly the greatest blessing I could have ever asked for and you are so much more than I will ever deserve. I love you to the moon and back!