I finally captured a video of my son pretending to be a puppy. He LOVES puppies, and being outside. And, when he is outside, he can hear the neighbors’ puppies barking, which makes him want to pretend to be a puppy. And, with the gorgeous fall weather we have been having we spend a lot of time outside … which means a lot of our day is spent doing this:
Because we had gone all-out for Marshall’s premature birthday party, his actual day was rather low key. Marshall got up extremely early and wouldn’t go back to sleep. In fact, I tried rocking him and singing a lullaby version of the Happy Birthday song to try to lull him back to sleep, but he started dancing to it. So, we got up and played.
We made him a birthday breakfast, as is tradition, and I sang him all 10 birthday songs, which he also danced happily to. We then went to church and afterward I made some lemon cupcakes with raspberry frosting, which Marshall ate three of. They were supposed to be lemon cupcakes with a raspberry filling, but I was having a hard time injecting the filling into the middle, so the raspberries went into the frosting instead. And that was his birthday. A little bit boring, but that is okay. Here are a few pictures I took to commemorate the day:
The Birthday Banner went up, of course, because I made it and am quite proud of it 
I am not feeling very creative today. So I am sorry for the lack of a clever title to this post. Deal with it
We had our 12-month check up today. Babybeans is still in the 75th percentile for height, weight and head circumference. He is 30 inches tall and weighs 23 lbs. 11 oz. Right on track! Which is a relief, since I feel like he hasn’t grown at all in the past 4 months. He also had to have 4 shots, poor baby. But he got some Tylenol and a sucker the minute we got home and all pain was quickly forgotten.
Do you see those pots and pans in the bottom right corner of the picture up above? For some reason, Marshall has been taking off his socks and putting them in those pots lately. I don’t know why he thinks that is a suitable place to store his socks, but there is usually at least one sock in them at all times, even though I keep taking them back out.
The doctor asked if Marshall is saying any words yet, and Adam answered, “No.” But that simply isn’t true. Adam just isn’t listening hard enough. Marshall says a lot of words. He can say:
Dadda
Uh oh!
Please
Socks
All done!
No (and shakes his head)
Yes (he doesn’t say this one very often, and he cannot nod yet … his head goes in a more circular motion than up and down)
Cow … moo!
Bah bah sheep
ruff ruff! (when he sees a dog)
ooh ooh ah ah (when he sees his sock monkey)
And I am pretty sure he said, “Duck” today while we were reading his book about farm animals. But I couldn’t get him to repeat it.
I know I have a lot of back blogging to do from the past month. I’m working on it, I promise. I have a few things to post on my creative blog too. Be patient with me and stay in touch!
xoxoxoxoxox
Today is Marshall’s first birthday! We actually celebrated last month when we were in Idaho. I made the banner, my talented artist of a sister, Brianna, did the adorable Dr. Seuss decorations, and Landon, my darling photographer of a brother, documented the event for us. Thanks guys!
Grandma and Grandpa Green have some fun new toys (and yes, I am sick, that’s why I sound weirder than normal):
We went to Sea World for the first time! Babybeans was quite the little trooper. He especially liked the beluga show.
We borrowed my friend Rushell's stroller. Best stroller ever!
Waiting for the Beluga show to start.
Photo-op in front of the flamingos! It was really hot, so Marshall wasn’t happy. But doesn’t he look darling in that hat Grandma bought him?
Daddy arrived just in time for the Shamu show to start
It was really loud in there
But Marshall still thought it was pretty cool
What a great day! Thanks Grandma!
I have a peculiar child. Darkness doesn’t scare him. The vacuum? Bring it on. But I turn on my sewing machine and he screams and is then still trembling half an hour later. And, if I ever take him into my office, he is sure to give the sewing machine a suspicious glare and a wide berth. I wonder what it is about that sound that scares him?
I don’t have much to say today. Today was one of the longest days of my life. Not for any particular reason, it was just long. Babybeans usually naps from 9-11 and then from 1-3. But today he napped from 8-9, 11-12 and 4:30-5. Which meant that 9 AM felt like 11 and noon felt like 3. So, essentially, my day was about 3 hours longer than usual. Did I take advantage of those extra 3 hours (don’t we all usually wish we had more hours in our day?) and get a lot of amazing things done? No. Because Marshall was tired – his naps were not long enough, but he just couldn’t sleep. So we played. We played every game we could think of. We even went outside with a bowl of cornmeal and a measuring cup and made a lovely mess of it. And then I looked at the clock and it was only 10:30 in the morning.
We would have walked to the nearby park if it hadn’t been 102 degrees outside. So we stayed inside, and it was a long long day.
I caught myself vocalizing the following (in public!) yesterday: “Where are my keys? Keys! Where are you?!? Oh, look! I found my keys! Hello keys!”
I guess being a parent really does change you.
We have been trying to teach Marshall “hello” and “bye bye”, so I say each to various objects throughout the day.
We have also been teaching him to turn off the lights when we leave the room. He loves this. He especially loves to turn off the bathroom lights because it means he can watch himself in the mirror while doing it.
Adam turned on the hose and let Marshall loose with it the other day. He had a lot of fun until the ants came and tried to carry him off for their food storage. Well, not really. But he had an ant on his leg. And ants are different in Texas than in other places. Their bite is seriously brutal.
