WE HAVE A ONE-YEAR-OLD BOOOOOOOYYYYYEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

OMG.  Mo is actually an entire. year. old.  I don't even know where this year has gone!  It is insane.  When we signed up for this we had no idea what we were getting into.  Turns out, it's WAY better than we ever could have imagined.  Mo is such a gift every single day, cliche but true.  He teaches us when we think we are teaching him and every single time I see his face I cannot help but smile. 

He has recently decided the camera's flash is too bright for him... so this is his new look (yep, he wears Christmas jammies alllll year):

Here he is reading his favorite book:

Here's the little munchkin after bathtime.  He HATES being dried off so I just have to put the towel around him and let him air dry in it:

We had an ENORMOUS birthday party for him last Saturday.  There were 50-plus people in our little house because the weather was FREEZING... Nate made two pots of chili and Emily and I baked two cakes and 40 cupcakes and it was soooo great!  Mo wasn't as into the birthday cake as some babies but that's probably because he's never really had refined sugar before, nonetheless it was pretty cute to watch him:

I think the cupcake may have been underwhelming to him but after he got in his jammies and opened a few presents he perked up.  Especially after the John Deere tractor from Meemaw and Peepaw:

 Ok I am going to have to add more pictures later, my computer is giving up and won't let me put any more on here!  BIG BUMMER!  Anyways, you can see how freakin' cute the boy is and I have new pics of him walking and doing all of his amazing feats of babyhood.... hopefully soon I can add more for you to see!

In other news, Nate got a job with the City of Loveland and just started this week.  We'll be moving to Loveland next month and I am SO ready.  Northglenn is alright but it just feels like suburbia surrounded by shopping centers... we need some personality!  It seems to be a great move for everyone!  It's funny how I initially thought I was SO independent and would need an hour or so buffer between myself and family in Fort Collins... turns out I'd rather be closer.  :) 

Hey look! An abandoned blog!

Yep, it's true, I abandoned this ding dang webl!  I got SOOOOOO busy with baby, work, house and husband and I plain near forgot I even had it! 

Lots of blessings in our lives since I last wrote!  Nate got a promotion and a raise at his job and continues to help provide for our family. He's been grocery shopping for his grandparents which aren't able to get out and do it themselves so it has been wonderful seeing Nate in service to family, they really appreciate it. My job working for my Dad is going really well; I am busy, I enjoy the work and my paycheck is helping us make ends meet.  Of course, the biggest blessing of all is our little Mo!  He'll be 10 months old on Saturday, he crawls and stands up and has two teeth!  He's always on the move, making noise and eating up a storm!  He eats tons of different fruits and veg and black beans and quinoa and rice puffs.  I think the biggest Mo Blessing is that he sleeps through the night now!  Mo weaned himself at eight months and soon after we started working on having him sleep through the night and finally last month he won the battle!  Meemaw and Peepaw got Mo a crib for Christmas and I think that helped him want to sleep through:

Mo has some pretty fun artwork up in his room and Meemaw sewed us the cool cushions for the rocking chair which majorly came in handy when I had to nurse Mo every two hours through the night!

Our friend Brian gave Mo this cool wagon for Christmas and Mo ADORES going for rides in the neighborhood in the wagon.  Brian built the wood frame for the wagon and made custom decals too.

And here's a pic of Mo's teeth!  Just this morning the second one is sticking up more but you can definitely see the first tooth in this photo!

And here is the boy in his high chair which he loves.

Mo's funniest face he makes - it was Christmas and cousin Zephyr is also making a classic face:

Welllllll, Mo just woke up from his nap so I gotta run but I'll leave you with a few more pics and a Happy February to all!  

"Don't Judge a Baby by His/Her Bonnet" and other adventures...

Well hellosies!  It has been a while, eh?  I've been BUSY working and knitting and sewing and cooking and cleaning and laundering and grocery shopping but most of all I've been BABY-RAISING!  :)  It is my favorite thing to do.  Mo turned six months old on the 18th and is now 14.5 pounds and 26 inches long.  The doc says he's completely healthy and developing at a normal rate.  In all of our adventures we did find time to put Mo in a very special little outfit:

This was one of Emily's tiny outfits from about 20 years ago and we had a little fun with Nate by surprising him with Mo wearing this.  He walked in and we could see the wheels spinning right away, he said "Who's that... wait, what?  WHAT IS GOING ON?"  It was pretty priceless.  I'm sure Mo will really appreciate this when he's older.

Mo is loving his exer-saucer right now and he looks especially boy-like in this picture so have a look-see at this and erase the previous images from your memory:

Mo is such a big boy now that he eats food from a spoon!  He likes a little oat cereal and sweet potatoes and peas and later today I'm trying applesauce.  I gave him banana and you'd think I'd fed him a spoonful of poo, he definitely was NOT into banana.  He's also not really into taking a bottle which means I'm still nursing the little fella every two hours through the night.  I'm hoping by the time he's 18 I'll start getting some good rest.  Here's a pic of the wee one eating his first solid meal:

In crafty news, I fashioned a new diaper bag out of a Victoria's Secret tote bag because the diaper bag I had been using was just not big enough for all you need to carry when you have a baby.  Here's the bag before I re-fabbed it:

I added two inside pockets and a velcro closure and used some fabric Jonathan brought back from Africa for the fun color and a slanty pocket and then some fuzzy brown for the heart-shaped pocket on the front:

In EXTRA crafty news, this is a cradle that Nate's grandpa made for him and his brother and sister some 35 to 40 years ago and now it sits in our family room for Mo!  He used it when he was tinier and now it holds his toys.  It's a beautiful handmade cradle and a very special hand-me-down:

That's all for today, I have more crafty news but need to take pictures.  Today is our first big snow in Colorado and we got 8 inches so far and it's still coming down!  Luckily Mo and I didn't have to go anywhere and we are spending a fun snowday inside playing with toys and trying to convince our dogs that Colorado IS better than Texas and that the snow will not kill them.  Maybe my next project will be tiny heated moonboots for the two little dogs. 

Here are a couple pics of the sweet boy.  This first one is Mo and his cousin Zephyr:

 Here is Mo modeling the hat and sweater Meemaw made him:

 Here's Mo with his Pop and Princess:

 And here's the little polliwog mugging for the camera:

Movin' and a-Shakin', YEAH YEAH!

Aaahh, Autumn is in the air and it feels SO good!  I am so thankful for the nice cool weather and extremely thankful that my old jeans still "fit" me after having this baby (it ain't pretty but technically they are fastened...)!  We have been super busy and somehow Mo is suddenly 20 weeks old!  At his last doctor appt he weighed 12 pounds 11 ounces and was 25.5 inches long.  We had a HUGE answer to prayer after some x-rays showed Mo did not have craniosynostosis which his doc had said was a possibility.  Weee-ooooo!!!!

Mo is LOVING his Bumbo chair.  We set some toys on the tray and he picks them up and puts them in his mouth.  His fine motor skills are really developing and it's so much fun to watch!  He now grabs for the dogs' ears and tails and grabs for our mouths and pulls my hair. 

In non-baby-related news I'm REALLY proud of my husband, he's not a "runner" but he finished his first half-marathon a couple weeks ago!  We both ran the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon  and it was totally awesome.  My Dad (Mo's "Peepaw") came to Georgetown to watch the wee one while Nate and I tortured ourselves by PAYING to run 13 miles at 8500 feet above sea-level.   

For my birthday Nate got us tickets to see Robert Earl Keen at the Mishawaka amphitheatre and it was AWESOME!  We took baby Mo and he spent most of the time sleeping in the sling and we were able to sit far away enough from the stage that it wasn't too loud but close enough that we felt like we were really at a concert. This was Mo's second concert (we also saw JJ Matott last month, concert #3!) and we're collecting concert posters from each show so he can have them when he's older -- hopefully he thinks it's cool!  Here's a pic of Mo and his Pop enjoying the show.

And here's the awesome concert poster...

And here are a few more pics of our absolutely ADORABLE baby boy:

At the doctor for 4-month check-up:

At Everyday Joe's seeing JJ Matott and The Arctic:

 Going for a hike up at the cabin:

 Having a bath at Meemaw's:

 At the zoo with Jack Dewey (Mo is on the right):

 Thinking about crawling, maybe?

 Kicking Bogey in the head with sock monkey slipper:

 Bumbo-ing with Pop:

 At his first Rockies game:

 Practicing his new favorite face:

 Perfecting his new favorite face!!

The Mo-ster is Fifteen Weeks Old!

Just look at this little GOOBER!  Dangit he is adorable.  I spend much of my day just loving the stuffing out of this little guy.  And then of course there are the times when it is 4:30 in the morning and while I'm feeding him he blows out a diaper and I have the poops streaming down my leg onto the floor... and still, I love him.  He's just learned to roll over which is really exciting.  He can't roll BACK but he can roll from his back to his stomach both from the left and the right.  It's harder to roll from the stomach to the back it seems.  Here's a close-up of Elmer Fudd, er, Mo, in action:

And since I love him sooooo much I made him a rug out of old tshirts for his room, it turned out pretty cool.  I'd started crocheting it in the round but ended up ripping that out and making a rectangle:

It looks a little wonky in the pic but I've since washed and blocked it so it looks nicer. You can tell we are a fan of the gray tshirt in this house!

In other news, I've started working for my Dad part-time.  I'm trying to get 20 hours in each week but so far have been averaging around 5.  It's harder than I thought!  My Mom ("Meemaw" to Mo) has graciously offered to watch the wee babe one day a week and we've tried it once but he refused the bottle... it seems we have a "boob man".  We'll be working with him every day until he gets it, Mama needs to be away for more than two hours sometimes! 

All in all, this whole parenting thing is the coolest thing ever.  I never get tired of trying to meet Mo's needs and I don't even mind feeding him every two hours through the night, although I am sort of looking forward to when he'll sleep for a 6- or 8-hour stretch.  I love how being a parent changes your focus from yourself to someone else.  I've grown exponentially less selfish and much less concerned with what I wear, eat, read or sew.... and I've learned that prioritizing is my main lesson here:  the days I can't even brush my teeth until noon I realize how many more important things in life there are.  For the record, oral Hygeine is VERY important to me but sometimes your baby just really really needs to be attached to you for a few hours and getting dressed, eating, even going to the bathroom or brushing your teeth will just have to wait. I wouldn't trade it for anything and I'll bet I'll be missing this time when he's older. 

Here are a few more gems for your viewing pleasure: