New adventures to come!

Well, a very unexpected but very exciting thing happened last week during "The Match" process. Jared found out that he will be doing his preliminary year of residency at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona! We will move there in about 2 months, I can't even believe it! We are so excited to move close to home for a year before we move back to the other side of the country again in New York where Jared will be doing his Ophthalmology residency for 3 more years. We have some very exciting and new adventures ahead of us!

Shad's first birthday

 

Our sweet little Shad turned 1 at the first of this month. I can't believe he is already 1!

The day of his birthday we took him to Uncle John's Cider Mill. Here he is driving the bus:

Both of their faces really crack me up! Priceless!

 

Running around (he's getting harder to catch these days!)

 

 

 

 It was really fun, but he got tired pretty quickly and was ready for his afternoon nap before we got a good family picture. We attempted a few nonetheless.

 

That night we had his birthday party. I really wanted to do something exciting and had a couple really cute ideas for his birthday party, but I have been a little burned out with school and work lately so I just decided to go low-key and easy with a Halloween theme. I'm sure he won't remember anyway...

I had everyone start singing "Happy Birthday" to him, and then my camera on my phone stopped working and I couldn't get it to work again until half-way through the song. Dang technology!

(Notice how Jared almost burns our son with his first birthday candle... Oops!)

 

Here is the result of us letting him do whatever he wanted with his cake:

 

 

Don't worry, everyone else got to eat pumpkin cupcakes.

 

Here are some of the new toys he got:

 

 

Here are some fun facts about this sweet one year old:

 

-He can now walk like a champ (although he mostly RUNS these days- usually away from me when I am trying to get him ready for bed!)

-His vocabulary now consists of "Da-da" (the word he uses for almost everything) "Ma-ma" (usually only when he is upset) "Uh-oh" (his new favorite word) and a TON of gibberish that sounds like a combination on German, Chinese, and who knows what else

-He is the BIGGEST flirt and knows people think he is cute!

-His favorite food is cheese, any kind really

-He finally gained weight above the single digits for percentile! At his one year appointment he was in the 17th percentile for weight, and 50th for height and head circumference. Yeah!

-He just has such a pleasant demeanor about him and is so much fun to be around

 

We are so amazingly blessed to be his parents. We really lucked out with him being so happy the majority of the time.

Happy first birthday, kiddo! Here's to many more!

Where did September go?

Man, we have been so busy that I don't even know what happened to the month of September! Luckily I have some pictures on my phone reminding me of what happened:

Shad turned 11 months:

I can't believe he is almost 1! Time really does fly by when you have kids. (And when you are also in school and working....)

I threw a baby shower for a cute girl in my ward:

The theme was "Ready to Pop". I think it turned out really cute! My friend Jessica helped me plan it.

Jared ran his first duathalon. It started with a 5 mile run that went all through the sand dunes. He said it was the hardest run he had ever done. Not gonna lie, I was pretty jealous that I wasn't doing it.

Here he is before the run started:

While Shad and I waited for him, Shad hung out in the stroller and stuffed his face:

After finishing the run he jumped on his bike for a 17 mile bike ride:

After the race:

He did really well considering it was his first duathalon. I think he took 5th in his age group. I was so proud of him!

Yesterday Jared volunteered in the ophthalmology booth at MSU's annual Teddy Bear Picnic all day, so Shad and I came to visit him and he was able to go around to the different booths with us. The Teddy Bear picnic is where little kids can come and take their teddy bears and have them get "fixed up" by med students, doctors, and nurses. Shad had no idea what was going on but we did get a lot of free stuff! He just loved walking around showing everyone his new skills. And of course, he loved the balloons:

Here are a few more pictures that were just on my phone from the month of September:

Shad and I spend a lot of time reading when we are at home. This picture is really blurry, but I love his cute face and I love that he loves to read so much!

My sweet boys:

Shad really loves his daddy so much and is always so happy when he gets home (he cried the other day for the first time when Jared left in the morning. It was the saddest but sweetest!)

So there ya go, another busy month that just flew by! October here we come!

10 months

Shad turned 10 months old yesterday. Boy, how time flies!

Shad at 10 months:

-Crawls super fast

-Climbs and cruises on EVERYTHING

-Has 4 teeth

-Is starting to get quite the personality

-Sleeps between 13 and 14 hours at night, plus two short naps during the day

-Just started REALLY finding his voice, cute chatter and {not so cute} shrill screams:

 

 

-His nickname is "Shadderbox"

 

He is such a friendly happy kiddo for the most part, we are so blessed to be his parents!

8 months

Where has the time gone?! I can't believe Shad is already 8 months old, what the heck?! Here are some things about Shad at 8 months:

-He crawls around the house, following me wherever I go like a little duckling
-He pulls himself up to everything
-He loves to babble (his favorite word lately is Dada)
-When he gets frustrated he tenses up all his muscles and the vein on his head bulges (anyone remember Monica from Friends? Ha ha!)
-He has a six-pack (that's not even a joke! This kid is soooo strong. We should probably change his name to The Incredible Hulk...)
-He has never gotten a diaper rash (I think he just has really good skin, I'm not that great of a mom..)
-He loves to eat noodles

We are so blessed to have this little spit-fire of a kid and can't wait to see what new things he will surprise us with! We love him so much!

6 months

Shad turned 6 months old today! At 6 months:

-He is teething like crazy, but those stubborn teeth are lingering right below the surface, tormenting us both.

(He loves to chew on this frozen fish.)

- He rolls around the floor like a maniac, moving 4-5 feet in a matter of seconds (diaper changing has gotten a lot harder these days)

- He sits up very well on his own without support for minutes at a time if he has a toy to play with

- He loves to jump in this Tigger jumper. Sometimes he hangs out in it and watches me exercise.

- Most of the time (when he isn't extra painful from teething or sick, which has been frequent lately) he sleeps the entire night for 10-12 hours straight, which has been wonderful for Jared and myself.

- He loves to play with his daddy. He giggles and squeals like crazy!

(This is one of the funniest noises I have ever heard him make)

-He generally eats four 6-7 oz bottles (again, lately not that much because of teething), and one solid food (fruit or veggie) per day

-He is very social, and loves being around other people. Even when he is super ornery, if I take him somewhere with other people, he is happy and smiling. (drives me nuts sometimes because no one believes me that he gets cranky very often!)

- He is so handsome and gets compliments on how genuinely adorable he is (He even won the "Cutest Baby Contest"  he was entered in by a friend who took his pictures!)

- He is very loved in our family and we can't imagine our lives without him!