Mikey's 1st Birthday

Today is Mikey's birthday! I can't believe he is 1 already! We have been having a great day and wanted to share it with all of you. This morning he went to his My Gym class which he loves. He really likes playing with all the toys, chasing other kids and practicing his gymnastics and climbing. After a good nap we opened his presents and he loved all of them. After a good play session he enjoyed a chocolate cupcake. He was still pretty full from lunch so only ate a small amount. Soon we are going to go get barbeque for dinner (yummmm, can't beat southern barbeque). It will be a perfect way to end the day as he likes flirting with all the waitresses when we are out. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! Sorry, the pictures are in reverse order and I'm too lazy to fix it :)

More Mikey Pictures

Just because he's so cute :)

He's crawling up a storm and cruising along the furniture. We're just waiting for that first step.

He sticks out his tongue when he is thinking about something. Very cute :)

He is starting to feed himself (some gets in him, most goes to Tibo on the floor).

My other project has been to try to get a good picture for my new job's website. I like the first one but it's blurry and I just tend to be hard to please, and not photogenic. I really enjoy the new job- most of the time I'm a "doggy dentist". That's right, I pull dog's teeth for 10 hours straight and get paid very well to do it :) I enjoy the work and it's much less stress than emergency. I also enjoy working part time right now while Mikey is little and still not sleeping through the night.


Along the line of other random ramblings: Last night I tried my first traditional irish dish of corned beef and cabbage. Not only was it good but Mike said it was better than his mother's (smart husband). I think we will add that to our list of crock pot meals we enjoy.
We are excited about Easter next week. Mikey can't do too much for it yet but we got him a stuffed bunny for his easter basket and some colored plastic eggs. We are going to wait until next year for the easter egg hunt and such. What other stuff do all of you do with the smaller kids for easter?

California Pictures

My mother-in-law Jane just sent me these pictures from California (yes, we forgot our camera again).
On a much less fun note, Mikey has another cold (4th one). This time he ended up with a double ear infection (again) and bronchitis. The bronchitis means he gets nebulizer treatments three times a day. Have you ever tried to hold downa wiggly 9 month old for 10 minutes at a time? Not so easy. I try to distract him with kid's songs (he doesn't care that I sing poorly) but still a challenge. Hopefully, he will feel better soon.

Utah/California Trip

So, at the begining of the month we finally took a trip to Utah and California. To put this in prospective, we haven't been to Utah since our wedding in 2006 and California since 2005. It was about time we visited and introduced Mikey to all the family. Unfortunately, Mike had a job in Dallas at the same time as our trip so he flew back and forth twice and had a very broken up vacation.
In Utah we stayed with my parents (haven't done that since I graduated from vet school) and we had lots of fun! Mikey decided to be super clingy and screamed his head off any time I left the room but when I was present he was super happy and learned new things from everyone. My dad taught him to do this super cute, flirty head tilt. Not so cute during dinner but all the other times :) My mom taught him to kick a ball and now he constantly wants to walk over to balls and kick them. He is still walking on our fingers but barely.
We also got to see my childhood friend, Mary and her little boy. I haven't see her in years and enjoyed our short visit. We also met Jamie and her collection of kids. Anna and Bryton had a great time with Mike and Mikey. Austin wasn't sure about having a younger baby around but warmed up to Mike once he realized he threw balls and flung kids in the air. (How can you go wrong with that?) Mike and I went to a nice dinner at a new restaurant in town and my poor parents got to listen to Mikey scream for a couple of hours. We also got to see my grandparents and aunt and uncle.
In California we stayed with Mike's mom and stepdad. They have a nice guest room and a heated swimming pool :) The pool was enough to make Mikey very happy. Mike's brother, Grady, also finally met Mikey. He played the piano for him so that was pretty exciting. We went to see Mike's extended family at his aunt's house which was fun (and loud). They are all such great people :)
Overall, it was a great trip. I would have liked more sleep (story of the past 9 months) but everyone had a good time :)

Christmas!

I know I am really bad about posting. We got busy with work and Mikey and time snuck up on me. We had a great Christmas with Mike's stepmom Karen in central Florida. It's on a rural river so it is super relaxing and a much needed break from all our stress. Mikey got a few fun toys and we got a short vacation (present enough for us). As I'm sure is no surprise to anyone, Mikey is super active and constantly on the go. He loves to go places and wants to walk all over (still needs help with that from us). He is really working on crawling but gets mad when he can't get places fast enough. He has a walker that he loves and he runs after Tibo all over the house. Giggling all the way :)
As an update on the rest of us, I am no longer working at the emergency clinic. There was a whole variety of reasons for me quitting there but the most pressing was that it simply wasn't a happy place to work anymore. I'm going to be working part time at a regular family clinic after the holidays with occasional relief days for the humane society. Hopefully I will be back to full time in March but for now I am loving the extra time with Mikey and the break from the recent stress.
This next month (February), we are finally going to visit the family. We will be spending a few days in Logan and then a few days in Palm Springs. We are looking forward to meeting my sis-in-law Jamie and nephew Austin and introducing Mikey to everyone :)

Teeth!

I would love to get a picture of them but it's hard just to get a glimpe of them! In the past week Mikey has had two new teeth come in. They are the two bottom teeth and boy are they sharp! That kid loves to chew on everyone's fingers. We were hoping to go to a Halloween party on Friday night but Mikey got sick with an ear infection. I didn't realize they could actualy have goo pour out of their ears like dogs! Luckily he was already on the antibiotic before that started or I would really feel like a neglectful parent. Luckily he's such a happy kid that you can tell when something is bothering him pretty fast and get it dealt with. In the past 10 days he's had a stomach virus, two teeth and an ear infection. And when he doesn't have a fever he is still happy and giggling. I think he definitely got his daddy's happy, easy going personality. I'm much more of a grumbler. I'm sorry if all my blog entries are about Mikey but he and work are my life right now and since I can't really post some of the stuff happening at work (grumble, grumble) I stick with Mikey :) Oh! And as you can see from the picture I decided to go blonde again. It's been about 6 weeks so it's almost time for a touchup already.

Learning to crawl

Mikey is trying hard to learn to crawl. He hasn't had a ton of success yet but he's working on it. I can tell he's going to be as impatient as me (dad) because he gets so frustrated after about 2 minutes of trying.