Drew's First Trip to the Sacramento Zoo

Today we went to the Sacramento Zoo :) Drew really liked to see all of the animals and he even posed for a couple of silly pictures :) He even got to try his first frozen lemonade drink...see picture slide show for his reaction...HILARIOUS! We were on our way to go into the reptile house when...drip drip drip, Drew's diaper sprung a leak. No problem, we will just change it. WRONG! Mommy forgot to check to make sure we had diapers. Great. Luckily there were plenty of mom's there and I was able to bum a diaper off someone :) On the way home, it took all of 5 minutes before he passed out :) Here are some pics from the day...

Time for Drew's 1 Year Checkup

Today was Andrew's 1 year checkup! We got to the appointment a little early so we had to wait in the waiting room a bit. The little ladies man made 3 girlfriends in like 5 minutes! He would crawl around and the baby girls would all run and crawl after him lol Then is was our turn to go back too see the doctor. The medical assistant weighed him (he's back down to 18 pounds), and took some measurements then the doctor came in an explained everything to us. He is only in the 1th percentile in weight. That means that 99% of children are bigger than him! The doctor wasn't concerned, she told me her son was in the negative percentile when he was Drew's age and he's a total beefcake now! Drew is now 30" tall (2 feet 6 inches) which puts him in the 46th percentile for weight (perfect!) and his head measured 18.5" which puts him in the 62nd percentile for head size (perfect). I told the doctor all the words Drew can say and she was AMAZED when I told her he can say "I did it"! She said that was a sign of incredible intelligence at this age that he can form more than one word at a time and have it make sense (as if I needed to be told that my kid is a genius! haha)! She told me to give him whatever he wants to try and pack on some pounds...bring on the Velveeta Shells and Cheese! lol

Next came the not so fun part of the visit...shots! I decided it would be better to space out his vaccines a bit so we are waiting on the MMR shot (Measles, Mumps & Rubella) until his 18 month appointment. She also assured me that all shots he receives are completely Mercury free and have been since 2000 (which people have been concerned with causing Autism). Today he got a VTAP (Diphtheria, tetanus, acullular pertussis vaccine (mostly a Tetanus shot), a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (prevents diseases that cause pneumonia, deafness, and brain damage), and the Varicella vaccine (chicken pox shot). He took the shots as well as could be expected and cried (we both did) but then he got over it as soon as I picked him up. We weren't done yet tho! The doctor wanted Drew to get some blood drawn to test for Lead and Anemia (just as a precaution). So down to the lab we went...as if the shots weren't enough for us to handle! At this point Drew is all smiles and waves, so we sit in the chair and wait for the nurse. She comes over and tells Andrew how handsome he is while she puts the tourniquet on his arm, I turn my head and she sticks in the needle...still no crying. Did she stick it in yet?? I look and yes, it's in and the second I said, "he's not crying?" he belted out a huge cry! After what seemed like an eternity, she got her two vials of blood from poor little Drew's arm. She put a cotton ball on it and slapped a band-aid on it...he liked it and still gave them smiles and waves when we left. I am so glad today is over! We won't have to deal with this again until the end of November :)

Today Was a Big Day for Drew!

Today was a very important day for our little man...we got him his very first big boy, front facing car seat! He is supposed to be at least 20 pounds (he is 19) so we thought, what the heck,. he's close enough! We sat him in it to try it out and he checked out every little square inch of it, including the armrests :) On the drive home, he was so happy! He could see outside his window and he could see mommy driving! I think he is going to like car rides a lot more now :)

Andrew Update + Daddy Gets A New Job!

This is the first summer of Drew's life that he gets to fully enjoy a pool (last year he was too little to get all the way in, but he still stuck his feet in) and like I expected, he's a fish! He is always pointing out the door to go to the pool no matter what time it is :) He loves his floaty pool toys and he thinks it's hilarious when Smokey (our Jack Russell) jumps in and swims with him!

He's getting so big and trying to talk a ton! He says, "hi", "hat", "dad", "I love you" and the kicker..."I did it!" He's amazing :) He just started trying to blow kisses and wave bye bye too :) Still no more steps since a couple weeks ago...I chalk it up to him being faster at crawling so he figures he will stick with that for a while ;) Oh well, no rush! He can stay my baby as long as he wants to!

On a doubly positive note, Daddy finally found a job! He will be working as an estimator at Blazona Concrete and he starts Tuesday. They are a bigger company than his first job (Mitchell Concrete) but smaller than the last company he left (Urata & Sons Concrete). Hopefully this company will take better care of him!

Andrew Walks With The Aid Of A Toy! (Video Push Play!)

HE WALKED! HE WALKED!!

Exactly one day after his year birthday, he finially did it...he took 2 steps on his own!! I was playing on the floor with him and he was standing. I reached out my hands and encouraged him to walk to me (like I always do but never get anywhere) and to my amazement, he took one...then two steps to get me! Of course he didn't want to do it again for me, but I saw it and I couldn't be prouder!!

Drew's birthday Dinner at Red Robin (2 videos)

Sorry for the bad quality (It was taken on my dad's cell phone), but you will get the jist :) The first video is of Drew getting his very first Restaurant birthday song at Red Robin and the second video is of Drew eating his birthday sundae with a spoon (the first time he used a spoon correctly!) I hope he had a fun day today :)

It's time to Par-tay!

Today we celebrate Andrew and his first year of life! We had his birthday party this past Saturday and boy what a turn out! We ended up having more than 60 people show up! I told Drew that he was loved by a lot of people, and those were just the people who could come :) Thank goodness we cleaned out the garage a bit and were able to put a couple of tables in there for people to sit down! By the time the presents were ready to be opened, Andrew was pretty tired but he pulled through! He opened one and then pretty much only played with that while mommy and daddy opened the rest. Next was cake! We thought he would just rip into it but it was quite the opposite...not one blob of frosting was tasted! He could of cared less, but he was interested in giving some to mommy! haha Oh well, I'm sure next year will be different and a little bit more exciting :) Once everyone left (around 6pm), Birthday boy was really tired! I tried to give him a bottle before I put him down and he drank half awake and the other half, he was pretty much already passed out but he managed to get it all down :) He slept almost 13 hours that night!



For his actual birthday, we went on our first bike ride with Andrew's new trailer we got from the Maurers & Yvonne! You can't tell from the picture, but he really did enjoy himself :) Thank you to everyone that was able to make it to his birthday party, we are so blessed that we have so many people that love us!