In the Dog House...

Yesterday afternoon Hunter snagged my cell phone off of my desk and then crawled into one of the dog crates. I was right there when he did this. I'm wondering if he was planning on calling me if he wanted out.

13 Months

Here's me and Hunter hanging out before his bedtime.

It feels like our baby is still just a year old but nope time flies when you're having fun.

Lately we've been calling him the mooch because he eats whatever you give him plus he wants to eat whatever you have. If I sit on the couch and I'm eating a snack I get approached by him and our two dogs wanting a bite of whatever it is. It's like 3 kids sometimes!

He babbles constantly and sometimes if we want him to try to mimic a word he says "Dad" in response. Doesn't matter if I say "Momma" it's "Dad" that comes out.

If he's in front of a mirror he automatically sticks his tongue out at himself. He loves looking at himself in the mirror haha.

Sorry for the upside down pic but he's getting tickled by his dad.

Happy 13 Months Hunter!

Hunter Ate This....

...Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili (Korey approved) and he looked like this.

Take note of the "shelf" on his belly that is holding leftovers.

Hunter's 1st Birthday Party

Finally blogging about the partay!

After Hunter's cousin Brandon turned 1 I knew we had to get into full party planning mode and pick a theme. 6 months isn't too early! We decided to do a monkey theme because Hunter sleeps with a stuffed monkey every night and we would take it everywhere with us if we knew we would be getting near his bedtime. Soooo monkey theme = monkey cake.

I decided we needed a practice run because I knew we didn't want to be figuring this out the night before his party. I referred to Smitten Kitchen's website for a monkey cake tutorial. I baked two nine inch pans of cake and then took a knife and freehanded a smaller circle cutout so he could have a smash cake. I then iced it all over with chocolate icing.


Then I showed the picture to Korey of what it needed to look like and he did the face outline and filled it in with the cream colored icing which I made by mixing a little bit of chocolate icing in with vanilla icing. The ears were supposed to be cupcakes but that didn't work so we took nilla wafers (ok Korey did) and stuck them into the cake on either side and then he squirted chocolate icing on top. And then some cream icing to make it look like ears.

Then we let Hunter practice smashing the cake because of course we wanted a good performance for his party and practice makes perfect right? Wrong. Let these next couple of pics show that Hunter did smash a cake it just wasn't during his birthday party. :(

Here one of us is holding him back because it's like he innately knows what to do. He was born with the ability to smash a cake...just not in public.

And it's smashed! And enjoyed! I assured myself that since we made a fabulous practice cake and Hunter smashed it so well that we would just have a better time at the party.

Enter the night before his party. Korey's mom came in so we all went to my mom's house, ate pizza, and did the party preparations. We had to make at least two dozen cupcakes plus his smash cake. What was I thinking? I think I only cried once during the whole night.

Korey is icing the cupcakes...the master is at work. Of course I don't have pics of the three batches of cake batter I made for the cupcakes and the cake and the two batches of icing I made. I was exhausted!

Finally, it was Saturday which was party day. Here is Hunter and his cousin Brandon hanging out waiting for the guests.

The Hunter is 1 banner got hung outside the two tents in the backyard. It was hot people, really hot.

And my awesome dollar store find, a blow up monkey got taped up, too.

We had a pool party and my sister and her hubby brought over there awesome Target-purchased pool with the drink holders. These made for great sippy cup holders for parched infant swimmers.

The cupcakes! And the cupcake toppers made by Korey. I think he put them on Etsy if anyone is interested.

And here's monkey smash cake #2 with my baby's precious smile.

Hahaha. He didn't want to smash it. We tried helping him but he just wouldn't have it. Oh well.

Of course what should every one year old get for his first bday? A new car! Thanks Aunt Kristin and Uncle Coco.

I guess I didn't get pics of the rest of the party people playing in the big pool. I'm sure someone did. After we swam we moved the party inside and opened presents.

Hunter enjoyed his gifts!

The last pic of the day...we put Hunter and Brandon in the bathtub together. However, Hunter would not cooperate. We're not sure if he had ant bites that bothered him when they mixed with the water or what. Just a long day for him.

Thanks to everyone for helping with his party and Happy Birthday to my baby. We love you Hunter!

Freak Out in OKC

After Hunter's 1st bday party was over I asked Korey if we could go to Oklahoma for the weekend. Me and my friend Amanda had been talking about it for a month or two. She and her husband used to live in Frisco but then they moved to OK and are living really close to Brandon and Mandy whom (who?) I cyber-introduced them to.

So we pull up to Amanda and Will's house after a 4 hour drive and the heat of course followed us from TX. We took the boys out to the patio and let them play with Kellis's water table.

Kellis and Hunter are splashing away!

That night Mandy and Brandon came over and Will grilled for us and Mandy brought a strawberry pizza for dessert. And I'm such a great photographer that I don't have photos of Amanda or Mandy! But here are the boys playing away. Andy is still super cute!

Here are the guys doing their guy thing in the kitchen of all places...Korey, Brandon, and Will.

Sunday morning Hunter enjoyed the wide open spaces in their house so he could practice his walking. He's saying, "Kellis eat my dust!" But really Kellis can walk already so he schooled Hunter in that.

And Will made us homemade waffles for breakfast! I'm telling you I didn't know that Korey and I were going to end up at a B&B for the weekend. They were delicious!

It's dualing high chair snack time!

For lunch on Sunday we went to Arcadia and stopped for lunch at a place called Pops. It's on the historic Route 66. They have all kinds of bottled sodas...stuff I never even heard of. Root beers, orange stuff, strawberry stuff...

Here we are standing in front of the building.
And here are the glass shelves inside that are lined with all the sodas.

Kellis and Hunter who were side-by-side lunch buddies. The food was really good and not expensive at all.

After lunch we visited this big round barn. It had historic antiques and stuff related to Route 66.

And then soon after we got home we packed up our stuff to leave and that's when everything took a turn for the worse.

We left their house about 2ish and not even 20 minutes later we were broken down on the side of the road in downtown OKC. We were in Korey's Honda. It sounded like we had a flat tire but when we got out the tires were fine so Korey thought it was the brakes. Well thankfully he has roadside assistance through Honda so he called them to send a tow truck.

I'm sitting in the back seat of the car, doors open, with Hunter trying to make him chug water and looking at the huge convertible car seat in the back seat. We had just switched it from the infant seat right before we left TX. Enter freakout mode. My brain starts processing the fact that some dirty old tow truck is coming and we are about to have to load our stuff, the car seat, and a baby into it and hopefully go back to Amanda's house. I don't think so. I start frantically calling Amanda. She doesn't answer. I call Mandy because thankfully I still have her number from when she babysat Hunter. She doesn't answer. I call Mary Margaret because I want Brandon's number so I can call him. She doesn't answer. Yep that's right it was 3pm on a Sunday afternoon and what does everyone do at that time? Take a nap. We had literally just left Amanda's house and here she is not answering her phone. Really? Today of all days at this time? So I sit and wait and pray and continue over analyzing. Mandy finally called me back after who knows how long and I told her the situation and asked if Brandon could come get us. What else do you do on a Sunday afternoon? You golf. Yep, Brandon was playing golf. So Mandy called him to see if he could come get us. After a few minutes she called me to say Brandon was leaving his golf game and heading our way.

The tow truck guy arrived first. A young kid with tattoos. No way was I getting in his truck with a baby and a car seat. We were about to head down the road towards a hotel we saw if someone didn't show up soon because it was miserably hot which was actually offset by a nice breeze. Poor Hunter's cheeks were red.

After several phone calls with Brandon on exactly where we were because we didn't know exactly where we were he showed up. I think Korey and I both apologized at the same time for making him leave his golf game. He then had to install Hunter's car seat in his truck, load up our stuff, and then we sat in the truck to cool off while Korey talked to tow truck guy. Brandon kindly pointed out that his truck thermometer said 115 degrees. That's ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN DEGREES!

By this time I had gotten in touch with Amanda who had silenced her phone and gone to take a nap. I asked her if we could come back to her house and she said yes, of course.

Half an hour later Brandon dropped us back where we had come from. You don't really think about how much stuff you have until you have to start taking it in and out of everyone's house and cars. He also told us that he got a refund on his golf game!

At Amanda's house in the awesome air conditioning I fed Hunter dinner and then called the airport to get a rental car. I had to get home because I had to go to work the next day. When you're new you just don't want to be missing work if you can't help it. Bring on the freakout tears. I think the second round of the day. So Korey and I agreed that he would stay in OK and take the car to the dealership the next day and I would take Hunter home with me that night so I could go to work.

Within an hour we were at the airport renting me a very expensive car because it's not cheap when you're dropping the car from OK into TX and not returning it. But go figure they did give me one with TX plates. Then Korey and Will had to install the convertible seat yet again in the rental car, load up our stuff, and I said bye to Korey and Hunter and I headed south.

By this point Hunter was just not having an easy day and he cried the entire time in his car seat. There was noone in the back seat to entertain him and no mirror for him to stick his tongue out to his reflection so he cried. And what does any good mom do for her son? She sings. Driving down 35 singing "Do, Re, Mi" as loud as I could which helped him to calm down and not cry. But then as soon as I would stop singing he would start crying. This momma was stressed out.

I finally stopped for dinner and let my backseat buddy join me in the front. After changing his diaper and handing him some crackers he was super content to look out the passenger window. But once we headed out the crying started again. Ugh.

I called Korey and told him Hunter wouldn't settle down. We were in the process of weaning him from his bottle but Korey asked if I happened to have one with me. I said yes. So he came up with the idea for me to get Hunter some milk and just give it to him in his bottle. I finally stopped at a gas station where the checkout guy was smoking an electronic cigarrette (really?) and sat in the back seat next to Hunter so I could fill up his bottle. As soon as he saw me take it out he grabbed the nipple part and started sucking on it. Poor guy. And when he did that it made me drop the bottle pieces into the dirty parking lot. Yep. Germaphobe me got to kick into survival mode and I grabbed a washcloth I had and my bottle of water and started washing the pieces. Once I had the bottle filled with the milk and gave it to him, he would take a drink and say, "Aaahhh." Like you do when you take a drink of something refreshing. Korey taught him that. Then he started to do his baby cooing sounds and he was so sweet it made me want to cry. After he chugged the bottle I gave him more, we set off, and I didn't hear a peep from him the rest of the way home. Thank you Lord! I wish I had taken a picture of him then but I didn't. But it was definitely a sweet memory.

I had also been praying the whole way home that I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom. Because when you don't have a baby that walks and you don't have an infant car seat that you can put him in, what are you supposed to do with your child while you use the bathroom? I have no idea. And thankfully I didn't have to stop at all.

This was my dinner companion. Notice how red his eyes are. Poor thing.

Munching away on his crackers!

When I arrived home my dad met me at my house because he had been at my sister's house repairing her broken AC. It was just a day for my family. He helped me unload the car and get the dogs inside who were beyond thirsty because we had thought we would be home earlier but we weren't.

I'm so, so thankful for such great friends who helped us get home and were our chauffers! And who got their naps and golf games interrupted so we could barge in on them again! And who let us (Korey really) stay another night at the B&B.

As I was freaking out, Korey reminded me that we hadn't been in a wreck, we were fine, and it was going to be ok. Yes it did work out and we were ok but it was still stressful!

To top it off when Korey got to the dealership they told him that a bolt on the brakes had come off which had made his brakes go out. The tow truck guy had pointed this out to Korey when he picked it up. The cost of that bolt? $1.88 plus tax. I wish the rental car had been that cheap. Korey drove home that Monday afternoon. He called me about 11ish and said he would leave in the next hour but his cell phone battery was low. Whenever I tried to call him later it went to voicemail because it was dead. So how does a wife find where her husband is? I checked the bank account and sure enough there was a purchase at McD's outside of Stillmore. OK check...Korey has left. Then when I checked the bank account a couple of hours later sure enough there was a purchase at DQ in TX. My hubby had crossed the state line. I just had to follow the food trail! (Disclaimer-tracking him via the bank acct is only done in emergencies like this. I don't stalk his purchases!)

Korey ended up taking my car into the dealership the next day after he got home because my brakes had been making funny noises. And I ended up having new front brakes put on. I feel like we are still recovering from all those unexpected purchases!

Other than the car mania on Sunday we had a fabulous time. Thanks to Amanda and Will being such awesome hosts. And she had the most awesome laundry room I've ever seen. It had a table in it that could hold a sewing machine! And a utility sink. And room for a dog crate. You could hold a dance in it! And to Brandon and Mandy for letting us interrupt their Sunday afternoon. They were God's provision to us that weekend!

Numbers

5 - The number of days we had family in town during Hunter's birthday weekend

4 - The number of vehicles it took for me to get home from a weekend in OKC.

3 - The number of illnesses our house got the week before and the week of Hunter's birthday. I had two of those. One didn't allow me to eat for a whole week. Ick.

2 - The dollar amount it cost to replace the bolt that came off the car in OKC that caused us to breakdown on the side of the road. Yes, really.

1 - Very tired, cranky baby who had to be sung to on the way home from OKC. And one mommy who was also tired and cranky and really needed some cookies on the way home from OKC.

Detailed posts to come.