Aidan's First Birthday

On January 7th, our sweet Aidan celebrated his first birthday!  It's hard to believe that he's already one.  We're having so much fun with him!  In the 10 days since his birthday, he has started walking more and more, and he is able to stand up on his own in the middle of the floor.  He can be very good at playing by himself at times, but he still loves to be held, so if you leave him to play alone for too long, he'll let you know that he's over it.  haha!  He often reaches both hands up to gently pat our cheeks, and we think that he's trying to give us kisses when he leans in to our faces with his mouth open wide.  Natalie still makes him laugh like no other.  He is becoming more independent in his food choices, and doesn't like to be spoon fed anymore.  Unfortunately, he is still a bit picky with his finger foods, so it's been interesting lately trying to feed him balanced meals.  He has started making the cutest noises when he yawns.  His smile melts my heart.  I love this little boy.

I'm sad to say that the lighting on Aidan's birthday was less than ideal...  He (miraculously) laid very still for the picture with the bear, but when we set him loose for the close up pictures, I just couldn't get one in focus. :(:(:( Even though the following pictures are blurry, he looks just too cute in them not to share with you.

I decided not to throw an actual party for Aidan this year.  We sang "Happy Birthday" to him and let him open presents on his birthday, and I baked him a cake and did a smash cake photo shoot with him a couple of days later.  Those pictures have yet to be edited, but I will hopefully be posting them soon.

Baby's First Christmas

I am a fan of the "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments that let you put a picture of the baby in it.  I'm a fan of pictures in general (obviously), so I love having some hanging on my tree.  I realized today that I never posted Natalie's first Christmas pictures on here for y'all to see!  I recently got some really great pictures for Aidan's ornament, so I figured I'd post them all together for you.

Even though Natalie and Aidan are only 25 months apart, their birthdays straddle Christmas, so Natalie's first Christmas was 3 years ago when she was 2 weeks old, and Aidan is celebrating his first Christmas this year (he'll be 11.5 months old on Christmas day).  Needless to say, their ornament pictures are quite different!  haha

I'm no newborn photographer, and this was my very first attempt at it, so I didn't get the perfect sleeping baby pose. Oh well!  Natalie was exactly 1 week old in these pictures.

{This is the picture in her ornament!}

I crocheted the Santa hat for her before she was born (free pattern here), and made the tulle skirt, too.  :)

I didn't make anything for Aidan's pictures because I just didn't have time (or red yarn), but I don't think he needed it anyway.  I'm still technically choosing which one to put in his ornament, but I have an idea which it'll be.  Which is your favorite??

   A                                                                           B

C                                                                            D

E                                                                        F

G                                                                             H

11 Months Old

Here I am posting this a week and a half after the fact, but Aidan turned 11 months old on the 7th!  He has experienced his first Thanksgiving and his first Christmas season is in full swing.  He's not officially walking yet, but he's trying!  He is a super fast crawler, and loves having freedom to go where he chooses (which doesn't happen too often because I don't have enough energy to chase him all day long - ha!).

I had a hard time getting him to cooperate for his pictures this month.  Travis was working, so I was alone in the attempt to keep him both happy and laying down.  Quite a feat.  I couldn't get any pictures of him smiling, but I'm just happy that I got an in-focus, semi-decent picture. ;-P

Here are a couple of outtakes:

  

But after a little while, I finally got something I could work with...

I just love his cheeks.  I mean, come on.  Look at them!  And those lips... and eyes...  Umm, I know I'm biased, but I think he's so stinkin' cute!  :-D

Double Digits

I'm a nearly 2 weeks late in posting this, but better late than never, right?  Aidan turned 10 months old on the 7th!  Our sweet baby boy is getting more and more personality, and I personally think that he grows cuter each day.  He's rocking 8 teeth now and is starting to stand alone.  Walking is around the corner!  He walks along the couches really well these days.

I couldn't for the life of me get a good close up picture of him this month.  It was hard enough to get a picture with the bear (whose name is Sam, in case you ever wondered), and when we turned him loose for the close ups, he just took off.  I have several pictures of his bottom as he crawled away from me...  Luckily, Travis took the following picture 6 days before Aidan turned 10 months while we were on a walk around our village.

Isn't it good?!  Hopefully I'll have better luck keeping Aidan still in a couple of weeks when I take his ELEVEN month pictures!  (Only 2 months left of this monthly project....  Don't mind me, I'll just be silently crying in the corner....)  hahaha

Seriously, though, we love this boy!  We get to celebrate his first Thanksgiving next week!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  :):):)

9 Months and Counting...

Y'all, we're already three quarters of the way through Aidan's first year!  How did that happen?  He turned 9 months old on the 7th.  I'm already feeling the need to start planning his first birthday party...  I don't think I'm ready for that!  Ha!

This baby will get into everything if we let him.  He goes back and forth between waking me up all night long and sleeping through most of the night.  Every night is a gamble.  haha  He's a pretty good eater.  He really doesn't like rice cereal, but eats most everything else.

A little blurry, but he's so stinkin' cute!

"Ok, Mommy...  Enough with the pictures!" 

I sure do love this baby boy!

Aidan is 8 Months Old!

Y'all.  I feel so behind this month.  Aidan turned 8 months old 2 weeks ago!  I took the pictures on time, but have just now edited them, so that's why this post is so late.  Lately I feel like my to-do list grows bigger every day, and I rarely accomplish anything.  That's not entirely true, but it feels that way.  Aidan has decided that it would be fun to wake up every 2 hours (or less) at night, so I'm just completely exhausted all the time.  But enough about me.....  haha

Aidan's 8th month of life was a little bit hard for me!  I felt like he was growing up entirely way too fast this month.  Within the span of 8 days, he got his top 2 teeth, started sitting on his own, and started crawling!  Slow down, baby boy!!  We have started blocking off an area in the living room for him to crawl around in (a circle of furniture around the rug...  it's kind of awesome), and Natalie has started the big sister job of complaining whenever he touches her things.  ha!

Our sweet boy has the best smile, and he thinks that Natalie hung the moon.  Nothing makes him laugh like she does.  He loves to babble, and I think his little voice is just so cute.

Until next month...  :)

7 Months Old

Another month has come and gone.  Aidan Baby is 7 months old (as of yesterday!).  This past month he rode his first long distance train, had his first cold, traveled outside of Germany for the first time, went swimming for the first time, and finally stopped screaming during bath time.  We started feeding him solid foods (so far, rice cereal, green beans, and apples), and he's not a big fan.  Of those 3, he enjoys apples the most.  He still loves to be held, especially if you're walking around.  (Our baby carrier gets lots of use!)  He's becoming more and more vocal, and gives us the best smiles and giggles!  I have a feeling he'll start crawling this month.  We need to start baby proofing the house...  haha!

Already 6 Months!

Nearly one week ago, our sweet baby Aidan turned 6 months old.  Can someone please tell me where the past 6 months have gone?!?!  I can't believe that we're already halfway through his first year.  This baby boy really is so sweet.  He loves to be held.  Natalie really makes him laugh!  He's not crawling yet, but he's oh so very close.  He's still a good sleeper, but he does wake me up 1-3 times each night.  I'm so grateful that he almost always goes right back to sleep for me, though.  (Natalie would wake up and stay awake!  So exhausting...)  We are about to start giving him baby food.  He is sitting up with support, and I have a feeling he'll be doing it on his own in no time.  His smile and laugh light up our days!

I love his chunky little legs.  His cheeks just beg to be kissed!  Natalie thinks it's hilarious when he tries to grab her hair, nose, etc.  He always has a big smile for his daddy when Travis comes home from work.

He doesn't like his swing very much anymore, but has gone back to wanting to be held.  I have a feeling that he'll be more content once he figures out how to crawl.  He likes being on the floor until he can't go where he wants to go!  Ha!

We sure do love our baby Aidan.  Time needs to slow down a bit, though.  :)

5 Months Old

One week ago, our sweet Aidan turned 5 months old!  He is starting to become more and more active, and more and more vocal.  He's so sweet!  He loves to watch Natalie, and is getting so very close to being mobile.  I'm not ready!  He's not quite moving yet, but I see it in our near future.  Natalie was crawling by 7 months, let's see what Aidan does!

Can I just say right now how much I love his smile in the picture with details?!

A few days ago I caught the following video.  I was making Natalie's lunch and heard this amazing laughter coming from the living room!  This is what I found:

New Lens, Take 2

For Mother's Day, Travis gave me a new camera lens!  (It's a Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6.)  I'm super excited about it!  My last "new lens" was a portrait lens, but this one is more of a general purpose lens.  It will be great for travel photography!  (I'm excited to use it on our upcoming trips.)  It's really great just in the house, too.  I'm a lucky girl!  I'm mostly telling you about this lens to show off Travis' photography skills.  He took the following two pictures of our babies, and they are so great!  He's got the photog eye, don't you think?

Aidan is 4 Months Old!

3 days ago, my sweet Aidan turned 4 months old!  How is this possible??  This cute boy of ours is so very sweet, and is such a blessing to our family!  He's starting to "talk" to us quite a lot, and it's adorable.  He is also rolling and rolling, much to my dismay.  haha  He's not supposed to be mobile yet!  I'm not ready!  :-P

I'm excited to finally be getting smiles out of this boy with my nice camera!

I'm sad that his eyes are out of focus in this picture, but it's just too cute not to share.

3 Months Old!

Our Aidan Baby is 3 months old!  He is such a sweet boy.  I'm posting this a couple of weeks late, but the pictures were taken on time.  He turned 3 months old while we were on our vacation, and I've just taken my time getting the pictures edited since we got back.  haha

If you read the Easter post, then you'll know that Aidan is not wanting to smile for my nice camera.  Maybe next month I'll get lucky...  Anyway, here is information about Aidan's 3rd month of life! 

Natalie had to join the fun!

Easter 2015

Each Easter since Natalie was born, we have been able to get dressed up and take family pictures.  I wanted to do that this year, too, but time and exhaustion got in the way.  We actually left on Easter Sunday for our vacation to Bavaria (more on that later!), and I'm still working on the whole juggling life with 2 kids thing.  Not to mention that I didn't know what I would wear in a family picture.....  ha!  I was able to get pictures of the babes, though, so I thought I'd share them with you!

This cutie didn't want to smile for me.  He's been doing that lately!  If my nice camera is in his face, he won't perform.  haha

{Adorable}

"Natalie, can I take your picture?" *sigh*

"Pleeeeeeease??"
"No!"

I was able to bribe Natalie to take a picture with Aidan by letting her hold the lens cap.  haha!  I think these 2 pictures came out pretty well!

Sweet babies. <3<3<3