Drew's 1st Birthday

Cannot believe my baby is one. It has been a crazy, wonderful year and Drew has definately been the highlight of the year. He has turned into a sweet, funny, incredibly smart and strong little boy.

He loves to cuddle

He is very independent. He can play by himself for hours.

He started walking at 11 months old.

He loves playing with his sister and cousins.

He says baba, dada, papa and Addy.

He has 3 teeth (one bottom and two top)

He wears size 18 month clothes (12 month pants sometimes bc his legs are short) and size 3 diaper

He weighs about 20 pounds.

He has started rejecting baby food - he wants to eat what we are eating. So far, he loves Chicken and Noodles, lasagna, stew and taco soup. For lunch he eats cheese, lunch meat and a banana or carrots.

He is drinking some out of a cup, but still prefers to drink out of a bottle.

We have started weaning him off formula and onto whole milk.

For his birthday we decided on a sock monkey theme. I found a cute idea for cupcakes on Pinterest and they turned out really cute and were really easy to make. Andrea was able to come down and celebrate with us along with my parents and Mindy and the boys. He loved his cupcake and got really messy, which the the big kids loved seeing him all dirty. We had a fun evening celebrating Drew.

Christmas 2011

After flying home on Christmas eve, we headed to my parents where we opened family gifts. The next morning, we spent a nice quiet Christmas at home. Although it was a little rushed and hectic due to Christmas being on a Sunday morning this year. We woke early, put breakfast in the oven and got the kids up so we could open gifts, eat breakfast and get ready to go to church and still give the kids a little time to play. After church we ate lunch with my family at Mindy's house and hung out there watching the kids play and playing the new Disneyland Kinect game. It was a good day.

Steamboat Springs 2011

On December 17th, we all headed out to Steamboat for a week of relaxing, skiing, and playing in the snow. We spent our days playing pool and games, watching movies, playing in the snow and relaxing. We were a little disappointed in the snow this year as there wasn't really all that much. The skiing was okay - as a result of their not being much snow it was a little icy. Addy spent two days in ski lessons with Brady and really improved over last year. She moved up to the 2nd bunny hill on her last day. I think she enjoyed skiing a lot more this year than last. We flew home Christmas eve just in time for to celebrate Drew's 1st Christmas at home.

Storytime with Grammy

Drew saying "you suckers" (he hated being out in the cold)

Future Skier

Drew did not like the snow (or being dressed up in his snow suit)

Making graham cracker Santas

Nutcracker Ballet

My mom got tickets for her, Addy and me to go to the Houston Nutcracker Ballet. Addy did great (especially during the first half). Hopefully this will become a great Christmas tradition for the girls.

Festival of Lights

We decided to try something different this year and instead of going to Santa's Wonderland in College Station we went to Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens, in Galveston. Unfortunately, I have no pictures because the evening started off kind of crummy (Addy threw up in the parking lot right after we got to Galveston) and we rushed through everything as a result. Scott, Drew and I enjoyed the lights, but Addy just wanted to be held. Unfortunately, I have no pictures because we rushed through it since Addy was not feeling well. Hopefully we can go back next year and all enjoy the lights.

Thanksgiving 2011

We got together with my family on Tuesday and had a wonderful meal. Then Wednesday we got in the car and headed to Arkansas to spend the weekend with Scott's family. While Drew did better in the car than the last long trip we made, he did scream for 1.5 hrs. (We thought it was funny for about 5 minutes, until he started his blood-curling scream and that continued for over an hour.)

On Thursday we got together with 80+ members of the Little Family at one of Andrea's cousin's house and had a wonderful meal. We took it easy the rest of the day and then Andrea, Susan, Jennifer and I headed out at 9:00 to go Black Friday shopping. I have been Black Friday shopping the last few years, but I not experienced anything compared to what I saw at Walmart over sheets and pillows -- CRAZY!! Let me just say they had to call in two cops - OVER SHEETS. Anyway, we shopped until just after 5 AM and then headed home to get a few hours of sleep.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and visiting and eating. We also celebrated an early Christmas with the kids before heading back home on Saturday afternoon.

Seaworld

This year we decided to have a late celebration of my mother's birthday in San Antonio. We stayed at Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch just down the street from Seaworld. This was the first weekend of the season for the Christmas lights at Seaworld and also all the Christmas themed shows. We really enjoyed seeing some different shows. They also had a Polar Express 4D show that was pretty neat. The kids of course had a blast. Drew loved all the shows and did his "dance" at all of them. I think we definately have an animal lover in him because he was much more observant than Addy was at his age.
Sunday we went down near the Riverwalk and ate lunch at Rainforest Cafe. We also went to a mirror maze that ended up being a disappointment.
All in all, it was a really fun weekend.

Pictures with Santa

I decided to take the kids to the mall this year for pictures with Santa (we have avoided the mall the last few years because we were able to see Santa in other, less crowded, places). When I sat Drew in Santa's lap he just stared at him with an "I'm not too sure about you look." We took the pictures and as I was walking up to get the kids out of Santa's lap Drew started crying. I'm glad we were able to get the picture done before the crying started.

Halloween

This year the kids dressed as characters from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. (Peyton = Jake, Addy = Izzy, Brady = Cubby, Drew = Scully the Pirate Parrot).

Our visit with The Mouse - October 2011

On September 31, we surprised the kids that we were taking them to Disney World for a week(really only Addy was surprised because Drew had no idea what was going on - he got really worked up off of Addy's excitement though, Addy was bouncing around the house). On October 1, we got on our plane and headed to Orlando. Unfortunately, we had a late flight and didn't get to Orlando until 8:30 and then didn't get to our hotel until 10:30, so we had to go straight to bed.

Our trip was wonderful. We were a little concerned because Drew is so young and has never travelled, but he did wonderfully. He loved all the people, sights and sounds. He was mesmerized by the characters and in awe of the princesses. We are so blessed to have two kids who love to travel just like we do.

I asked Addy some questions about our trip:

Favorite Ride: Tower of Terror (eeek, who knew she'd be a dare devil)
Favorite Princess: Tiana
Favorite Characters: Jesse and Woody
Favorite Food: Mickey Waffles (she asked for these every morning)
Magic Kingdom or Epcot: Epcot (cause I like Test Track)
Animal Kingdon or Hollywood Studios: Hollywood Studios (cause I like to ride Tower of Terror)