January 2013

A fresh year begins

Every new January
Memories await

January has been an interesting month for us.  So much and yet so little has happened, and it's crazy to think that the month is over now!  I'll apologize ahead of time for the lack of and quality of photos.  I'd like to blame it on the fact that a friend borrowed our good camera, or that Charlie was gone for a lot of the month and it's hard to take pictures of Bruce single-handedly.  But to be honest, it really was just a lazy picture taking month.

We, meaning Charlie, spent a lot of time at the beginning of the month working on house renovations.  He finished installing the two ceiling fans and recessed lighting in the living room and our bedroom, and exhaust fans in both bathrooms.  Seemingly small additions, but a lot of grueling attic work involved.  We've also bought the new bathtub, and are almost done hemming and hawing about tile decisions for the bathroom.  I think.  Installing all of that will be on Charlie's to-do list for February!

Charlie and I celebrated our NINTH wedding anniversary this year on the 3rd.  Unfortunately, I caught a stomach bug and was miserable company for him.  The good news was that Charlie was a rock star with Bruce the next day while I was still recovering - brought him to work and took him out to lunch - so I could stay in bed half the day.  The bad news was that we had to cancel our Ring Dunk/Cotton Bowl Party.  We still watched the game, but were a pretty pitiful pair.  So many touchdowns, but so little energy for "kissing your date."

I remembered "Free First Monday" at the natural history museum this month and took Bruce there to meet up with a couple of our friends.  It had been four months since the first time we took him there, and it was so great to see his reaction this time!  I left the stroller in the car and thought I'd just let him lead the way - he was awestruck!  And the museum is so  great with lots of hands on things to touch - he was in heaven!  And then he found the stairs, and our museum visit was essentially over.  We spent the rest of the afternoon going up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs.  And then he found the girl scout troop trying to take a group photo by the mastodon, and Bruce thought it was hilarious to photo bomb them.  He especially liked laying down next to the girls posing on the floor underneath the mastodon's raised hoof.  All in all, it was a great afternoon at the museum, and hopefully I'll remember next month on the free day so we can go back.

The next weekend, there was a grand opening for the casino/equestrian event arena Charlie helped design in Mulvane, Kansas.  We drove up there and Charlie's mom watched Bruce at the hotel while Charlie and I went to the reception.  Afterwards, I went up to put Bruce to bed and stay with him while Yvonne, Bill and Charlie went out for dinner and to win big at the casino.  Charlie came to spell me when he was down ten dollars, and I met up with Yvonne to have my go at the penny slots.  I found a great machine ten minutes before I needed to get up to bed - won 30 dollars - and then forced myself to go upstairs to bed.  I told Charlie about the machine and where to find it, and the next morning he won another 30 dollars, doubling our money!  We've never left a casino with less money than we started with, but this was definitely our biggest win!

Bruce's first merry-go-round ride

We drove back home just in time to get the house cleaned up before my mom and Rick came for a quick visit.  We didn't have any huge activities on the agenda during their stay, (other than a breakfast at Ozzy's Diner, of course) but we had a great time shopping, hanging around the house catching up, and playing with Bruce.  They packed up and headed back to Texas a few days later, and then Charlie left the next day to go to San Antonio for a few days for a work convention.

Normally, I would have been a little bummed to spend a few days taking care of Bruce by myself, especially over a weekend, but this time it was perfect timing.  I had a church leadership event Friday night and all day Saturday that I had to look forward to!  That meant that Bruce spent Friday night and all day Saturday with a babysitter.  That's a big deal for us.  A first, in fact.  We don't have many opportunities to get out, and babysitters are expensive these days!  Friday night was nothing because he was already in bed by the time the babysitter got here, but Saturday - whew!  Eight hours away from each other!  Bruce had a great day though, and was all smiles when I came home that afternoon.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the "break," but I definitely missed him too.  The church meeting was really encouraging too, and I'm looking forward to this coming semester for our House Church.  

Charlie came home on Sunday and then left again on Thursday for China!  He comes home tonight, after being gone for eight days.  Definitely the longest business trip since Bruce has come along.  It was exciting for him to get to go on the trip, but he didn't really get to leave the hotel or conference center much, so it's not like it was a vacation.  Hardly.  I can remember before Bruce, Charlie's business trips were almost like a vacation for me - I didn't have to cook, I could watch what I wanted to on television, could go out with girlfriends - life has sure changed!  I really admire single parents because I can barely survive a week of it!

this is when my battery died at the park...
 right as we got to the cool tunnel...

To help pass some of the time while Charlie was gone, Bruce and I went up to my inlaws' house for the weekend.  It was pretty cold, so we didn't get outside much, but Bruce did manage to get one tractor ride in with Grandpa and Granny K to feed cows.

To help pass the time when we're not in Stillwater, or at a fun, fancy casino, or shopping with grandparents, or at a museum, we've found a lot of fun activities to keep us busy around the house.  Mainly, I raided my arts and crafts supply closet and came up with a lot of random things that Bruce amuses himself with.  He has a shoebox of pinto, lima and coffee beans that he loves dumping in and out of kitchen pots and jars.  He loves putting them all in a pile on the floor, and then raking them out like a bull getting ready to charge.  Or he'll lay down and put his face on the pile of beans - this boy still loves feeling things with his face.  Is that normal?  And he thinks it's really great when you pour out a big jar of beans over his head like rain.  I have to admit I like it too.  Think pressure-massage waterfall.

Then there's a box of assorted sea shells we brought back from Florida this summer.  Bruce's favorites are the lightning welks, naturally.  He also has a shoebox filled with "craft" rocks, mermaid stones, and a few chunky turquoise and wooden beads.  These for some reason he thinks need to be arranged and rearranged in an old egg carton.  He's also gotten into markers, watercolors, and colored chalk this month, along with a growing obsession for stickers.  Bruce loves playing with my tub of colored pencils too, but more just like Pick Up Sticks, because he can't press hard enough yet to make satisfying marks with them.  At any given moment, these items are strewn about the living room, and all over the house if I'm honest, but the mess is definitely worth it to see him engaged in an activity for more than 30 seconds at a time!  He'll still raid his toy boxes from time to time too, but playing with these "real" things seems to be a lot more interesting to him.

Bruce's first watercolor

He loves hiding and playing "run away," especially running away with some object that I'm supposed to come and snatch back from him.  This game is particularly funny with socks or my grocery list.  I don't know why.  Bruce still has the best laugh!

As far as developmental milestones, I don't know exactly how he "measures up" to others his age, but he's definitely moving forward, which is what we care about.  He's an expert walker, and things that used to trip him up aren't a problem anymore.  He can walk on tip-toes, walk backwards, walk in circles, can even run a bit, and has the most adorable "triangle walk" around.

Bruce hand selecting the chicken food

feeding the chickens

Bruce is talking a lot more these days too.  Still mostly gibberish, but a few real words, or really great mimics, come out from time to time.  Our most impressive party trick though (when Bruce feels like playing along) is that he can now mmmoo like a cow, ssss like a snake, oof like a dog, ah ah ah for a monkey, and is getting pretty good and frumping (?) like a horse.  It's really cute.

checking for eggs

carefully putting them in the carton!

For months now Bruce has been blowing kisses for us, but just this last week...brace yourself...he's started giving us REAL KISSES!!!  They're few and far between, and always more readily given away to his lovies, but still.  Man.  Melts my heart.  He clicks his tongue to make the smack and lays it on ya like a pro.

Charlie's been gone for nearly half the month on work trips, but we're looking forward to things slowing down a bit travel-wise.  He's got some projects in Oklahoma City on the schedule that should keep him around more this coming month.  Yahoo!  Looking forward to lots of family time!  We've had a great start to 2013 though, so I can't complain!

December 2012

Eyes full of wonder

From sweet joys December brings

Taking it all in

This Christmas season was a lot of fun to share with Bruce.  Sure, last year he loved to lay under the Christmas tree, but not much more beyond that struck his fancy.  This year though.  We've been able to include Bruce in so many more of our family traditions.  Family traditions that Charlie and I had growing up, some that we didn't even realize were traditions until now, and new traditions that we've started as our own family unit.  It has been special, and exciting, and leaves me happily enjoying them now, and anxiously anticipating future years to come.

I'm typically not a huge Christmas music fan, but we've had the holiday playlist going almost nonstop for the past month, and surprisingly I've found myself actually enjoying it.  And not just when the Jackson 5 or Big Bad Voodoo Daddy cycled through - but all of it!  It's interesting how having Bruce around changes things.  Bruce's favorites seemed to be all the classic hymns, with a traditional version of "Joy to the World" topping the list.  He's a funny kid.  His latest dance move has been adding "the swim/airplane" to the hip shakin' mix.

The first decoration that we got out at the beginning of the month was our Advent calendar.  Yes, it has chocolate hidden for every day leading up to Christmas - but it's not your typical Advent calendar.  Several years ago my friend Kim introduced me to the best Christmas cd ever - Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God.  For those of you who know me well, I've probably recommended it to you, and quite possibly have even given you a copy of it.  What makes it special is that it tells the Christmas story from the beginning.  The very beginning.  The songs take you from Creation, through all of Israel's history leading up to the birth of Jesus.  I really wish I would have been the one to compose it, but I wasn't.  What I did do though, was compile a collection of verses that narrate the cd and also summarize The Story.  For those of you who follow me on Facebook, it's become a tradition of mine for the last few years to post my Countdown to Christmas with these 25 verses, and they also are a part of our Advent calendar. (If you want to see all the verses, here's a link: Countdown to Christmas)  Bruce had a great time each morning taking the little felt icons I made out of the drawer of the Advent calendar and sticking them on the outside.  He may have just wanted his bite of the Hershey Kiss, but I enjoyed reading him the verses!

Towards the beginning of the month we had our international students over for dinner and we decorated our Christmas tree.  There's something about having a tree inside the house that brings the spunk back into our cat, Mr. Pants.  And Bruce loved it too.  He insisted the first thing we did every morning was to turn on the Christmas tree lights.  We kept our most precious ornaments toward the top, but Bruce thourougly enjoyed playing with the ones we left on the bottom.  Unfortunately, several of them had to visit "Santa's Hospital" before putting them away at the end of the month because of pieces that were loved a little too much.

Comparing Cowboys with Sojung

Making stockings

The next week when we had our international students over, Santa came a little early and we celebrated Christmas with them before they all left for their holiday travels.  We roasted marshmallows in the fireplace for s'mores, opened stockings, and had a lot of fun blowing bubbles for Bruce!

We didn't get any lights up on the outside of our house this year, but on multiple occasions Charlie bundled up Bruce after dinner and took him for a walk through our part of the neighborhood to enjoy the other houses.  I'm not sure what Bruce thought was going on, but he definitely loved every bit of it!

Bruce insisted that Joseph hold Baby Jesus
instead of Mary, and of course Jesus would
 look better with a cowboy hat on. 
Then Bruce put them on the tree. 

Charlie and I also took Bruce to see the Norman Christmas Parade.  We couldn't stay for the whole thing because we needed to get home for lunch and a nap (not to mention that it was actually pretty cold that day!) but for what we did see, Bruce was pretty impressed - especially with the high school marching bands!

We got to go to two birthday parties this month for littles we love.  Charley had a Bigfoot birthday celebrating five years of adventures, and sweet Caris turned one!  I love birthdays and look forward to bringing Bruce to more as the years go on.

Since we spent Thanksgiving with my family in Texas this year, we drove up to Perkins, OK to celebrate Christmas with Charlie's family.  It was just a small group this year, just us and his parents, but we had a really nice time.  Bruce got several hours of tractor driving in with Grandpa Bill and Charlie, so of course he had a blast.  Charlie went to Kansas with his dad one day to see the new bulldozer and bring back a load of hay, and we were all going to cut down a Christmas tree the following day, but some pretty nasty weather was moving in, so Yvonne and I decided to cut down the tree ourselves before they got back.  Well okay, she cut the tree down by herself.  I mostly just tried to keep the cows away from Bruce, and keep Bruce away from the barbed wire fence.  I did help haul the tree over the fence (okay, so the perfect tree just happened to be on someone else's land... shh...) and help tie it on to the back of the polaris.  I think Bruce thought we were crazy, but was happy to have another tree to decorate.

Not your typical tree, but still great!

Lots of rocking chairs at Granny K's!

Christmas morning came before dawn for us since Bruce is still such an early riser.  (and poor Granny K. was up way too late the night before making Christmas bread, but it was worth it!)  Bruce's reaction to all the gifts under the beautifully lit up Christmas tree wasn't quite youtube worthy, but it was really sweet to see him excited - especially about his new wagon!  The weather got significantly colder, but we got our puffy coats on a went for a couple of wagon rides anyway.  We've got the cutest little rhino around!

Our ridiculous Christmas elf
almost ready for bed

Charlie was able to take some time off from work, so we stayed a few days after Christmas and then headed home.  We took down and put away "Christmas" and got ready for our friends Dan, Leslie and Liam to stay with us on their way to Houston.  They got in really late, so we didn't see them until the next morning, and they had to get back on the road fairly quickly, but we had a fun morning anyway.  The best part was that it started snowing like crazy!  They'll stay with us again on their way back to St. Louis in a few days, so we're looking forward to that as well.  Like I've said before, I love having a friend who has a son Bruce's age.  And now that they're both a year old, the two or three month difference in their age doesn't seem noticeable at all.  It's fun to compare milestones and developments and see how the boys are growing.

Liam and Bruce

rubber-banded ziplock baggies make
great snow shoes...

And how is that boy growing?  So incredibly fast.  Do I say that every month?  But it's been great.  He's now so much more of a little kid, and hardly recognizable as that baby I've toted around for what has seemed like forever.   He loves checking to see if the "big boys" across the street are playing outside, and if they are, he insists we go and say hello.  They're super sweet and considerate and always make time to talk with Bruce and include him in what they're doing.  Now that it's getting so cold, it's hard to spend a lot of time outdoors, which makes life a little more challenging, but we're hanging in there.  He still has an amazingly short attention span, but will sit for a bit now and then to play with play-doh, or scribble with markers.  We also got a hand-me-down slide that's intended to be an outdoor toy, but for now it lives in our living room.  It isn't too big, and it gives Bruce something else to play with inside, so I don't mind.

In keeping with leaving babyhood behind him, Bruce is definitely getting more opinionated!  He now will shake his head "no" and even run away from me when he doesn't want to cooperate with whatever it is I may be asking of him.  Or if I'm holding up the "wrong" jacket for him to put on, he'll run into his bedroom and pull the one he wants out of the hamper.  What?  Who knew such small details were so important to him.  So I give in when I should, compromise when I can, and put my foot down when I have to.  Isn't that they way it works?

To compensate for his little rebellions, Bruce has gotten a lot more affectionate these days!  He's been hugging his animals for months, but will now finally give us a hug (usually) when we ask, and can even blow kisses (sort of).  He also is without a doubt saying mama and dad all the time now.  Charlie is usually dada or dad, and I've been various forms of mama, mom-mom, mum, ma, sometimes all together... I'll take whatever I can get! 

 

So how are we ringing in the New Year this year?  With a lot of elbow grease!  Well, for Charlie anyway.  When we bought our house almost five years ago, we did a lot of work updating things around the house.  At that time though, we couldn't do much with the bathrooms other than a few little things.  We've finally decided to take the plunge though and do some major renovations in both bathrooms.  And we're also putting in new ceiling fans in our bedroom and the living room.  So far Charlie has installed new recessed lighting in those rooms because the fans we're getting don't have light fixtures attached, and installed exhaust fans in both bathrooms.  It's so nice being married to a handyman!  We've been looking at tile options for the bathrooms and will hopefully get started on that project soon! 

We may not be staying up, playing games until midnight tonight, but that doesn't mean we're not excited about the new year!  We've had such an amazing year, and are looking forward to what awaits us in 2013!