Little guy turns 1

Brothers

Baby's first year flew by so quickly. We can't believe he's already 1! For his 1 year check-up, he shot up to 85th percentile in weight. This was not surprising since he loves to eat real food. We never really made separate baby food for him, but ground up the food we made for the rest of us. This meant he got the good flavorful food earlier than his brothers. By his birthday he had 8 teeth already, so had graduated to small pieces of food he could pickup and chew. He kept going with breastfeeding until after 13 months old, but had to stop because Mommy's milk supply just couldn't keep up with his demand.

He started walking before 13 months old. Within a span of 2 weeks, he went from taking a few timid steps to speed walking. Now at 14 months he is so fast on his feet that it's challenging to keep up. He loves to dance too.

Speech is coming along. He started saying "bye bye" before his birthday. Now he'll pretend to talk on the phone and say "hi". He can say "baby" for Baby Margaret, and will find her if you ask him "Where's Baby Margaret?"

His lovey "blanket" is actually a plain white hand towel. In fact he likes any kind of towel. If he sees one lying around, he will bury his face in it. If there's one in the clean laundry basket, he'll dig it out and start chewing on it.

One area for improvement is his sleeping. He doesn't sleep as well as his brothers did at this age. Somehow he's turned into a very light sleeper. He'll wake up to the sound of us coming into the room. This has led Mommy and Daddy to retreat to sleeping in the living room on sleeping blankets. HMC gets the whole master bedroom to himself. He is the Boss Baby.

Disneyland!!

Mickey's Paradise Pier breakfast

In February we took our first major road trip as a family of 5. We went to Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa. The kids had a great time. We first stayed at a house not too far from Disneyland. The first day there was raining. We met Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Pluto and Stitch at the character breakfast. DT was the most excited. When he saw the first Disney character Daisy walk up to our table, he quickly ran up with a huge smile to give her a hug. After a couple of pictures, Junior mostly just wanted to eat his breakfast in piece. After breakfast we spent a couple of hours walking around downtown Disney. The highlight of that area is the huge Disney-themed Lego store.

We picked a great time with low crowds, so we were able to enjoy our favorite rides multiple times a day. Junior really loved the Goofy Sky School ride. DT was still too short for many of the rides, but he loved the Mater's tractor ride. He would raise his little arms over his head during the fast spinning parts. Junior actually rode Hyperspace Mountain with Grandpa. Afterwards he said, "It was scary, but not that scary."

Whee!!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, Mommy and Daddy got to sneak away on their own to ride Hyperspace Mountain and Radiator Springs Racers.

Little HMC was too small to ride most of the attractions except for a few. He got special attention from a beautiful princess Cinderella so his trip was also a success.

Up close with Cinderella

Junior turns 5!

Legos!

Our Junior is already 5 years old! We threw a great lego birthday party at the duck pond. We were able to buy a huge tub of used legos for cheap, and Junior was able to wait very patiently until his party to start playing with them. He was very excited to share his new treasure trove legos with his buddies.

Just a couple of weeks before his birthday, Junior lost his first tooth. A few days later another one fell out. So far he's lost a total of 3 teeth. The tooth fairy left $1 bill for his first two teeth. The third one fell out at preschool and was never recovered.

At preschool, he's the big man on campus. Teacher Debbie says that he helps teach new kids and even the new teacher the rules or where things belong. Many of his closest buddies from last year moved to different schools, but Junior never really complained and has been able to get along with the other kids at preschool.

Original lego creation

DT turns 3!

Admittedly we're a little behind with posting this, but our handsome DT turned 3 this summer. We had a fun birthday party at the duck pond, and GM & GP Y happened to be visiting also. For his birthday all he asked for was 2 more each of his "favorite red car" and "favorite green car" hotwheels. Mommy and Daddy were happy to oblige.

little gymnast

He's matured quite a bit since turning 3. He start preschool in the fall, and the teachers have been really impressed with how well he is getting along with his friends and teachers. He even started the routine of hugging everyone hello and goodbye, so now everyone in school does it. We have him go to preschool by himself without Junior on Mondays. At first he didn't like going alone without Junior and would complain. Now Teacher Debbie thinks he's really grown as an individual little person thanks to those solo days.

First day of preschool

Getting tall