Busy weekend

We had a great, busy weekend and I don't have any pictures to post because Josh took all the good ones. However! He has finally updated his blog - mostly with pictures and a little commentary here and there, but it is great to see the pictures. Check it out here: The Daily Thomas.

We went to the fair yesterday with my parents and Thomas' cousins, Jacob, Jonah and Noah. I thought Thomas would enjoy some of the little kid rides, but he didn't really care about them. We'll have to see how he feels next summer.

Josh and I had signed up to supervise in the church nursery this morning. We picked the noon service - so we only had 3 kids (including Thomas). It went way better than I thought it would. We had no crying kids and it was fun to see them playing together. By the end all of the kids were starving and we had fun feeding them Cheerios and Animal Crackers.

We also managed to get in a trip to Target and one to Safeway, I made more zucchini bread (we can't get enough and have many more zucchini to eat from our garden) and I tackled a big project that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

I have been meaning to put away the clothes that Thomas has grown out of and my sister in law provided the perfect motivation - she gave me all the clothes that her baby girl has outgrown. I went back and got out all of Thomas' old clothes and decided what we could use that he wore. Some of the stuff was just really too 'boy', but some will work.

So I got all of the clothes organized and put away. We are really grateful for all of the clothes that we have for Charlotte. It was so fun to see them and imagine what it will like to have a girl join our family.

The other big Thomas milestone is that on Friday he stood up without using anything to pull himself up. Josh said he just did it, like he has always known how to stand up. He now stands up and starts walking around the room. He is still a little wobbly and he crashes, but he is well on his way to being a championship walker. I can't believe our little boy is so big. I love him so much and we are really enjoying seeing him grow up.

A quiet Sunday morning

It is a quiet morning at the Canfield house. Yesterday was a big day filled with activity. Jason and Joanne came over with CJ to visit and we had a fun time picking some plums off the tree and sitting outside enjoying the lovely day.



Here is Josh with two babies. CJ was really happy, but Thomas isn't sure about sharing his dad.
We went out to lunch all together and we let Thomas sit between us on a booster seat. He did pretty well, with a few attempts to crawl up on the table. We are trying to get him to sit still in his chair, but he still doesn't love to be confined. He loves to explore!

We also went over to Josh's parents so the boys (Josh and Jason) could challenge their Dad in a game of pool. And then we were off to the first home game for the Seahawks.

Josh and I have been on the Seahawks season ticket waiting list for a couple of years and this year we finally got to buy them. We bought 4 tickets so we could take people with us and last night we took my mom and my sister, Hannah. My dad was supposed to attend, but he was flying back from Africa yesterday and he missed his connection in New York. It all worked out as we were able to pick Dad up at the airport after the game. It was a great game and so fun - Hannah had never been to a pro football game before and she loved it.

Thomas stayed here in town with his aunt and uncle and cousins. Because he had so much excitement and skipped his nap in the afternoon, he passed out at about 7. We got back very late and transported him back to his own bed. He did manage to wake up at his usual time of 6:15 this morning, so Josh got up with him for the early shift - which is why Josh is currently napping.

All in all, a great weekend. I'm going to try to make some Zucchini bread this afternoon during Thomas' next nap. We pulled 9 giant Zucchini out of the garden yesterday! Happy weekend!

Thursday night

I'm waiting for Josh to get home with my treat from Dairy Queen. He has been taking a hockey class this week from 6-8 every night, so Thomas has been spending time with lots of family while I am driving home. It is fun to see him interacting with his grandparents and his cousins. He is getting so steady on his feet and everyone is trying to get him to say more words, so he is learning a bunch.

In my last post, I forgot to update his stats and as we are coming up on his 11 month birthday, I thought it would be great to note how big he was at his 9 month appointment - seems like yesterday. Thomas weighed in at a healthy 24 lbs and 30.5 inches long. He is off the chart for his age in height and almost in weight. The funny thing is that he doesn't look huge until you see him next to other kids his age.

My treat has arrived. I will try to find a picture to put up later. Thomas has been enjoying the nice weather this week and Josh got a great shot of him drinking from the hose.

Yes, I have decided to start blogging again. So much has been going on with Thomas lately that I want to brag a little bit :)

You can see from the above picture that Thomas loves to use toys like this push toy and he has been using them to gain more and more sure footing. He is now able to take about 6 steps on his own before he realizes that he needs to go back to crawling. It is so cute to watch him toddling around the room. We've had to baby proof everything in the room where Thomas normally plays. He likes to climb so we had to take out all the bookshelves.


This is my favorite picture of Thomas. He loves to eat and he really goes after it. He has two teeth on the bottom now which makes him even more destructive to cantaloupes everywhere. He is also now able to eat most of what we eat. In the past week he has started demonstrating when his distaste for specific foods by spitting them out of his mouth.

Yes, I know you are supposed to wait until the first birthday to let them eat cake, but we let Thomas try cake at his cousin Noah's birthday. Of course he loved it. We've also let him try white cake and he definitely prefers chocolate.

While Thomas has been saying "Mama" for a while, he has recently started adding more words to his repertoire. He definitely says "Bye bye" and when you ask him what a kitty says, he says "meow". Today, he was playing with his cousin and he learned how to say "bubble". It is amazing to watch him learn and grow.

We also are super excited to bring our new little girl into the family. She will be joining us in 3 1/2 short months.

That's all the updates and pictures for now. I promise to update more frequently in the future.

We are now blogging at...

Josh has been doing a great job taking pictures of Thomas every day and we have started a new website - The Daily Thomas. Josh is still working on posting the pictures to the website daily, but at least you know I will be posting at least weekly.

Smiley, Happy Baby

I didn't post last week on Sunday because we had the big Superbowl party. It was a rousing success. We know that we had way too many people in our house, but it was really fun. Thomas was a little overwhelmed by all of the preparation and the noise and he stayed awake too long in the afternoon without a nap. When he finally went down, he slept for almost 4 hours!

This week has been crazy at work for me as I was preparing for a business trip to New York. Josh was great and kept talking me through the fact that when I am 30 minutes coming home from work, Thomas is still happy to see me. He doesn't really have a concept of time yet :) Yes, Josh is the best husband ever. He also takes these great pictures and sneds them to me everyday.

Thomas continues to love his Jumperoo. He is so into the discovery part of it, moving himself in a circle to access all the different activities. As usual, this indicates to us that he is a genius. He also rolled himself all the way over this week. He only did it once and he hasn't done it again. He really doesn't like being on his tummy, so he rolled right back over. It is amazing how much he changes.

I leave on Monday for New York and won't be back until Friday. I'm have a lot of meetings scheduled, so I think I will be mostly okay, but I'm a little nervous about how much I will miss my little family. I try to be rational about it most of the time, but I think it will be tough to be away. I don't leave until 3:00 tomorrow so I will at least get to see Josh and Thomas before I leave. Most days I don't get to see them before I leave the house in the morning.

That's all for this week. If you are friends with Josh on Facebook, keep an eye on his profile page. He uploads some of the pictures that he sends me everyday and has even uploaded a video of Thomas in his Jumperoo.

Obsessed with lists this week

My sister Hannah just put up this list on her blog from a list posted by my friend Joanne and and it inspired me...

Have you had - 100 things to experience in your lifetime
1. Started your own blog
Yep, here it is
2. Slept under the stars
Yes, more than once
3. Played in a band
Tacks to Girls! I played the bass.
4. Visited Hawaii
More than once :)
5. Watched a meteor shower
I've seen a couple
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
Hmm, more than I can afford? Hard to decide.
7. Been to Disneyland/World
Both! Disneyland many times
8. Climbed a mountain
Um, no.
9. Held a praying mantis
Not likely to happen
10. Sang a solo
Not for a long, long time, but definitely in the far distant past.
11. Bungee jumped
I would love to, but I've never quite had the nerve
12. Visited Paris
Twice!
13. Watched a lightning storm
In Texas, Colorado and Washington. The Texas ones were the best.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
Knitting!
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
Never!
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
I've only seen it from Battery Park
18. Grown your own vegetables
On my counter :)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Yes, it is very small and behind a lot of glass
20. Slept on an overnight train
Yes! From Florence to Paris.
21. Had a pillow fight
Only as a teenager
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
Yes, although we call that a mental health day
24. Built a snow fort
No, although I have built a snow man
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
Never!
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
Nope, didn't get to Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
As a little kid
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
Every day right now
31. Hit a home run
Does T Ball count?
32. Been on a cruise
On the Bateaux Mouche? Never a cruise where you sleep on the boat
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
From the Canada side
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
Where would that be? I've been to Chicago and San Francisco where my parents were born.
35. Seen an Amish community
Yes!
36. Taught yourself a new language
Not taugh myself
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
Yes, a nice feeling
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
Yes - it was really interesting and of course we did the photo where it looks like you are holding it up.
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person.
Yes - It was a lot bigger than I expected

I think the problem is that the 25 Random Things are going around Facebook. I like this much better. Filling in things is a little easier than coming up with 25 things.

Baby asleep - time for bed!

4 month doctor visit

We suspected that Thomas would move to the top of his growth charts with this doctor visit and he definitely did. He is now at 95-97% in all of the categories, weight, height and head size. He is also reaching all of his milestones except one - he doesn't roll over yet. This is not a surprise as he hates being on his stomach so we don't put him there often enough for him to really try to roll over :)

Okay, now for the stats:
Height - 26.5 inches
Head - 43.8 cm
Weight - 18 lbs

Don't ask me why they do the head in centimeters and the height in inches - that has never made sense to me.

Thomas also had to endure more shots today :( But, he calmed down quickly with his bottle and then went right to sleep for his long morning nap.

I'm posting this early since I wanted to update everyone on his progress (yep, I'm a proud mom). The picture above is one of my favorite from this week. Josh sends me a picture of Thomas every day at work and it is always great to see the little man smiling at me. We got some great pictures this week and I love that we do this everyday - it is going to give us a great record of his first year.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Thomas is getting far too big! He has really outgrown the bassinet in his pack and play, so we have to start putting him in his crib. His room is upstairs, so we have been holding off as long as possible so that Josh doesn't have to try to climb the stairs in the middle of the night. Thomas still gets up for one feeding (usually around 4) so we have to take that into account. We also like having him in our room because it is convenient. I think this will be similar to when we had to move him into the bassinet from sleeping in our bed. It was tough for the first few nights because we had to keep getting up, but then we got used to it.

Josh is actually picking up the crib at Target right now. We had planned on using the crib that has been in my family for years, but due to a paint problem we cannot. Josh's mom has tried every furniture refinishing technique to get paint to stick to it and it just will not work.

Josh's parents came over to drop off the crib yesterday and stayed to play a game with us. Doesn't Thomas look like he really understands how to play and is actually helping his grandma?


We also put Thomas in his high chair for the first time yesterday. He is pretty good at sitting up by himself and it was nice to have him at the table with us while we were playing. Notice the 5 point harness they have in the high chair these days - very safe...


Josh has been taking a picture of Thomas everyday and sending it to me at work. He also posts these pictures on his Facebook page, so if these weekly updates aren't enough for you - you can look there.

Must go now - Thomas is desiring some entertainment.

First week back

We had a pretty good first week back. I find that it is pretty easy to get out of the house every morning, but harder to get back in the evening. I have no patience for how slow people are driving on the way home! I just want to be here with my little family.

On Thursday night, Josh had a hockey game, so we put Thomas in his bear suit and went to the Ice Rink. He looks so cute in his little outfit and he only protests a little when we put it on...

Josh injured his shoulder in the game, so I worked at home on Friday in case he needed help picking up Thomas. It turned out that my sister and brother in law were able to take him for the day, so I got lots of work done. It was nice to work at home because it took away all of that commuting time.
Yesterday, we had a baby shower for Jason and Joanne. They are expecting their new arrival sometime in the next 8ish weeks. We had a great time with friends and family. Thomas loved all the attention and was a happy little boy the entire time.


Finally, Thomas is getting very adept at holding things. Here is a picture of him holding his bottle. He is pretty good at holding on to it and actually getting it in his mouth. He still doesn't understand that in order to get the food he has to tip the bottle up.

Josh's shoulder is doing much better. He has a nasty bruise, but he is definitely on the mend. He has two more games left in this hockey season and then a total of 3 weeks off before the new season starts.

Hope you all had a good week :)

The last week

I've been enjoying the last week of my maternity leave and have been slacking on my blog. Thomas has wanted to play with us more and is having fun practicing his new skills. First, he has been sitting up a lot. He has his new Bumbo chair and can sit up at the table in it. He also likes to sit up on my lap and make faces at me. We have also noted that he likes to stand up a lot more now. He can almost stand up on his own - just holding on to our fingers. We are torn between thinking this is the cutest thing ever and wanting to slow him down. It is way too early for him to even think about standing up!

He has also been struggling with sleeping this year (he he - since Thursday). He had been sleeping for a long stretch at night and now he is awake again every couple of hours. He is also chewing on his hands and our fingers and his teething rings constantly, so he may be cutting some teeth. It is also way too early for teeth! Maybe he is so big that his body just thinks he is older. He is officially in only 6 month size clothing - and filling it out nicely. I can't wait to see how much he weighs at his next appointment.

Okay, okay, pictures:

First, can you believe this little face? Hannah took this picture and she got such a good shot of Thomas with his Great Grandma. He is learning to use all of those facial muscles!

Thomas with is Great Grandma and Grandpa. We need to take a 4 generations picture with them. My grandparents don't live that far away, but we only see them a couple of times a year. Recently, we have been talking about getting together more often. We decided that there is no reason to wait for holidays to see each other. We have a big group here in the Seattle/Tacoma area - 3 of my dad's 4 sisters live here and 4 of my cousins, in addition to my sisters and me. We plan to meet again in March for my grandparents birthdays.

Thomas at the hockey arena! Josh plays hockey and we go to watch his games most of the time. Sometimes we skip the 8:45 games. It is a great time for Thomas to hang out with his Aunt Jen since his Uncle Jeremy also plays hockey. I make Thomas wear his bear suit in the arena so that he doesn't get too cold.

Finally, a picture from Thomas' dedication. Chad, the pastor, remarked on how big Thomas is. Afterward, the rest of the family told us that the baby before him was 8 months old and about the same size as Thomas. Yes, he is going to be tall. Crazy.

We loved that a lot of our family was able to come. In addition to my parents, Hannah was able to attend as well as Robb and Reba and the boys. Josh's parents were also able to attend along with Thomas' Uncle Jimmy. It was a big group! Afterward, we all went to Red Robin for lunch.


That's about it. I'm going back to work tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm really blessed to have a job that I like and a husband who is able to work at home. I know that Thomas will be in good hands and I don't have to worry. I'm going to miss them both like crazy every day, but I'm trying not to think about that part too much.

Blog posts going forward will probably slow down to once a week. I'm going to make an effort to update every Sunday. Hope everyone is having a great year so far.

Christmas Pictures

We had a such a good time on Christmas that I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I had. Robb and Reba have a lot more on their blog as well.


Thomas decided that we had too many presents to open. Exhausting :) Seriously, I thought this picture summed it up the best - we were all in the room laughing and opening of gifts and Thomas took a little snooze.

Thomas decided that Christmas would be the right day to start sitting up. He was on Josh's lap and he just leaned forward to grab something in front of him. Above, he is enjoying a gift that his cousin, Jacob gave him - a Kindergarten workbook. While it was a little over his head, Thomas enjoyed the pictures and was pointing at them and trying to turn the pages of the book.


In honor of my grandmother, I took this picture of the table on Christmas Eve. She always took a picture of the table before we sat down to eat on holidays. She passed away in June and I really missed her this Christmas. She loved the holidays and always gave us many gifts, from cool flashlights to socks and scarves and gloves. She really wanted to make it special for us every year. We got to spend some time talking about her on Christmas and it was nice to remember all the great things about her.


Thomas loves his Aunt Hannah.

He really loves all of his family. We are very blessed to have some many great people in our lives. We were able to see both my family and Josh's family on Christmas day. I was afraid that it was going to be hard for Thomas to have so much stimulation in one day, but he did really well. He has started going to sleep a little earlier at night - between 8:30 and 10 and sleeping until 5 or 5:30. We are really enjoying the extra sleep - just in time for me to go back to work. I have one more week of maternity leave.

At the beginning of my leave, I couldn't imagine going back to work. Now it doesn't seem as crazy. Josh is such a great dad and Thomas loves hanging out with him. I will miss them both all day long, but it is cool to know that they will be together.

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

We haven't taken that many pictures in the last couple of days as we have been getting everything ready for Christmas. We will have some cute pics over the next couple of days. We are planning on going to church today - as long as it doesn't get canceled. We woke up this morning to more snow - and it is still falling. My boy is napping a little - he gets grumpy when he doesn't get enough sleep.

Yesterday we made it into town to do some last minute shopping. We met up with my parents and my sister and her boys for lunch. We though we had timed it right, but Thomas had a total meltdown at Wendy's. He was so tired he did not know what to do. Josh was able to rock him to sleep and he napped for 3 hours. He has started taking one long afternoon nap - and when he does he is usually pretty happy afterward.

Then, we went to the Canfield's for dinner. They have a long, crazy driveway and we drove up from the bottom of the hill rather than try to slide down from the top. We got about half way up the hill and then lost it. Mike came down to help and he and Josh put the chains on the truck. We backed up and took another run at the hill and made it up. Josh is a really good driver in the snow and we are grateful that we have a 4WD. I bought chains for the truck several years ago and we have never used them - even on trips up to the mountains in the snow, but we have made great use out of them over the last couple of days.

We will be busy with family for the next two days, but before it all starts, I wanted to take a minute to say - Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you all have a wonderful couple of days with loved ones!

Snow Pictures

It still hasn't stopped snowing, but before it gets dark I wanted to take some pictures. This picture shows how much snow we have.

The cats love to sit at the window and watch the snow fall. I think they are also fascinated by the birds that have been hanging out in our backyard.

Thomas loves the snow. He watches out the window with great fascination.

They even canceled church today

Overnight we got another 8 inches of snow and it is still snowing. This morning we had that really fine snow and I was trying to tell if it was really rain, but it is now snow - the pretty, flaky kind. We managed to get out yesterday during a break in the weather. We went out to lunch, to Target and to Albertsons. We had eaten most of the meat in our house and I knew we were going to get a bunch more snow today so we bought more food. Of course we took the Explorer and put the chains in the back just in case.

Since we started attending, our church has never canceled due to snow, but today they called it off. We even came out here one time and turned around because we couldn't get down the driveway and there was still church on that day.

We might be able to get out if we put chains, but I'm thinking we will just stay here. No need to try to get down the hill unless we really need something.

I made that list of things we have been doing in the last post and forgot to say that we have also been playing a lot of games. So, for today I will leave you with a list of all the games we are playing:

Board games:
1. Settlers of Catan (this is a Canfield family favorite and once I learned to play, we bought it for my parents as well and now we all play).
2. Scrabble
3. Carcasonne
4. Boggle (well, we plan to play today)

Wii:
1. Wii Fit (we have to get some activity to work off the pounds)
2. Donkey Kong (downloaded on the Wii - classic DK from the 80's)
3. Super Mario (see above)
4. Excite Truck
5. Dance Dance Revolution

I'll take pictures later today to show the depth of snow!

What we have been doing while snowed in

1. Knitting (Sarah)
2. Working our way through our food stores (it's a good thing I go to the grocery store all the time and we have a fully stocked freezer/pantry/fridge)
3. Playing Wurdle (highly addictive iPhone game. I keep stealing Josh's phone to play.)
4. Watching news coverage of cars on the side of the road
5. Watching TV (Netflix is now available on Tivo!)
6. Enjoying the fire (We have not been able to make it work since we moved in and Josh figured out how to fix it yesterday - yay! We now have a little more warmth in the living room.)
7. Drinking tea and coffee and other hot drinks
8. Napping (mostly Thomas)
9. Playing with Thomas

Hope everyone is staying warm!

Family Photo

After I posted last night, we set up the camera to take this family photo. Thomas is getting dedicated at church this weekend and we needed a picture of the three of us together. It is amazing that we didn't have one yet.

We are having a mellow at home day and Thomas has been very snoozy. I have had a lot of time to work on my knitting and I just finished one of my balls of yarn and need to switch to a new one, so I thought it would be the perfect time to post this picture. I have about 3 knitting projects going and I hope to get some of them finished before I go back to work. I really need to finish the slippers I started for Josh. Now that he is home all day and it is so cold outside, he will actually get a chance to wear them.

Thomas is stirring - time to eat!

Thomas has definitely found his finger. He can also now reach out and grab things - although he is still working on exactly where the object is. I could swear that he was waving at me today. I was filling up the car with gas and waving to him from outside the window and he waved in response. I know, I know, he can't really wave this early, but it was the cutest thing.

Josh has been working during the day so Thomas and I try to get out of the house a little to avoid distracting him. Yesterday we met up with Noah and Rebecca. Thomas loves his cousin as you can see from the picture below.


My boy is definitely interacting with toys now. Josh's friends James and Anand came over two Saturdays ago and James brought the Tiger in the picture below. Thomas loves it. He will play with it and pull on the ring and then try to put the Tiger's ears in his mouth. He is definitely starting to chew on things. The other toy he loves is the Winnie the Pooh rattle in the picture above. He holds on to it like a security blanket.

Right now, Thomas is hanging out with his dad. He has had a mellow day - taking one very long nap (3.5 hours) and another short one a little while ago. Most of the time now he is sleeping for a 6-8 hour stretch at night, so we are feeling a little more rested. Still loving all this time we get to spend together and savoring our last few weeks before I go back to work.

Winter

I've been going through all the photos we have of Thomas and printing some to hang on our walls. The one above is from our day of Christmas tree hunting. It is the perfect little picture of Thomas. Josh is really good at getting the right shots of him. He actually took this one on his iPhone. I now have a bunch of pictures in frames for us to hang up.

Yesterday I started wrapping Christmas presents. I wanted to get a jump start on it so that I don't end up wrapping them all at the last minute. I am a very traditional wrapper - just paper, ribbon, bow - but Josh is way more creative. He doesn't like it if you can tell what the present is from the shape of it so he uses extra cardboard and paper to make the present into the shape of a dog or a bird or a dinosaur. It makes it really hard to guess what is inside :)

We went to the Canfield's last night for Mike's birthday. We will do a bigger celebration on Saturday so that everyone can be there. I love that we have been able to do things like this since our schedule is so flexible. I will miss this when I go back to work.

Speaking of work, I am going to Seattle today for our end of the year team party. Josh is going to take care of Thomas here. It will be a little bit of a dry run for us. I am really looking forward to seeing everyone prior to getting back into it in January.

That is all the news. It looks like we may get snow this weekend which will make for some very fun pictures.

Christmas is coming!

The Canfields were here today to bring Thomas his Santa outfit. He is truly the cutest baby ever (not that I am biased...). We have a couple big things coming up. We have to get pictures taken with Santa (we might try tomorrow), we have to finish our shopping and we have to get everything wrapped. I also bought a set of picture frames and some photo paper from Costco and I have been printing and framing pictures. We don't have a lot of things on the wall in our house and I am so excited to have some beautiful photos :)

We started a new schedule this week. Josh is working from 10-4 while I am still on leave. He is getting a lot done while I soak up as much time as possible with Thomas before I go back to work. We then get some focused family time at night. We've only been doing this for 2 days, but it seems to be working well.

Tomorrow, Thomas and I will be doing more shopping - and Santa pictures if all goes well :)