June 6, 2020

Wes Wild: 18 Months Old

Wes 18 Months
Wes! You are a year and a half old! This is such a cute stage and you are doing so many fun things now! Here are some highlights:

On Oct 11, you graduated from your helmet! It was such an emotional day for me. We went in for your checkup, did your measurements and they said you were looking fantastic and that you could be done wearing your helmet. They let you ring the little bell in the hallway, and we all took a group pic. I cried when I got in the car, just because your helmet had been such a big part of you for so long, and it was also something that you and I handled mostly by ourselves while your dad was deployed. And plus, you just looked so cute with it on! Everywhere we went, people wanted to talk about it because you were so cute. We came home and put your helmet in your memory box. I'll always remember you in it!

For Halloween this year, we dressed you up as a baby shark. There was a popular song called "Baby Shark" for kids, so we thought that was pretty funny. Daddy got a daddy shark costume - a big onesie - that he wore so you guys were twins! We pushed you in your toy car while your sisters trick-or-treated and you LOVED it. You seemed very excited to be out with everyone.
Wes 18 Months
For Thanksgiving, we traveled to Didi and Pops' house in Beaumont. We spent the week there hanging out with family, then went to Crystal Beach for Thanksgiving. You loved riding on the golf cart down the beach and fell asleep almost every time. You also loved your Thanksgiving dinner and ate so much! On our last day there, we went to Galveston to see an ice castle. We had to bundle up in giant jackets to go in. You didn't like being so cold in there, so me and you left early and went to the gift shop where you pulled all the stuffed animals off the shelves for 45 mins while we waiting on everyone else.
Wes 18 Months
For Christmas, Didi and Pops came to visit us. We decorated cookies and wore ugly Christmas sweaters and your favorite gift was a giant tunnel that you can crawl through like the one they have at daycare.
Wes 18 Months
In Feb, you started becoming more expressive with your emotions. You learned how to crinkle your eyebrows like you were confused and you did it all the time - it was the cutest! Daddy gave you your first at-home haircut in Feb, too. He did a pretty good job! We had a few snow days in Feb so that was fun! You loved bundling up and going out to play in the snow with your sisters. In Feb, you also learned how to crawl up into the dining room chairs and get to stuff on the table. This is the worst! Because whatever is on the table, you make a giant mess of. If sisters leave their crayons on the table, you throw them everywhere!

In March, we roadtripped to Disneyland and Didi and Pops met us there. You really liked Disneyland! You pretty much fell asleep on every dark, slow ride we went on (Small World, Little Mermaid, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc) and it was really cute. When we went to meet some princesses, you didn't want to go over to see them, so you stood by me and daddy. Your sisters went over and were talking to the princesses and Ariel said "Oh, who's that little Flounder over there? I bet he's silly. Is he silly?" and Elle said no and Ariel said "Oh, so he's more serious - more like a Sebastian??" The girls thought that was hilarious!

One of you favorite things to do that we tell you not to do is to play with the cats' food and water. You love to take cat food out, put it in the water bowl, put it on the floor, put it in little toy cups that you have. You like dunking things in the cat water bowl. You do it all the time even though we always tell you not to!

You also love to "sing" into microphones. Your sisters have a couple microphones and you love to carry them around the house singing. You basically open your mouth wide, shove the microphone almost inside then go "aaaaaahhhhhhhh" over and over again. :)

You also really love to play in the toilets - so gross! We put child locks on all the bathroom doors and we have to keep the doors closed so that you don't go in there, take the toilet brushes and make a giant mess by splashing water everywhere!

You really like to eat and you get pretty fussy around dinner time every day because once someone starts preparing food in the kitchen, you want to eat right then so you just follow them around and wine at their feet. You know so many signs from baby sign language videos daddy shows you. You can say water and cracker and so when you're hungry you point at your mouth and then hit one arm with the other hand, the sign for cracker. You also learned how to say "poop" in sign language, which is pretty funny.
Wes 18 Months
You are still so cute that your dad and I say it a million times a day - "why are you so cute??" We call you "bub," "bubby" and "brother" for nicknames. You are still a very happy baby and you have the best laugh. You love to be chased and to play hide and seek.

You've learned a lot more words lately. I think your first word was either "hot" or "bo-bo." Our grass outside gets hot in the sun, so we taught you that it was hot and now you say "hhh" for "hot." (Sounds like just the first part of the word - like an "h" sound.) You do say "mama" and "dada" sometimes, but not to us really, more like just walking around saying it. You know how to say "flower" but it sounds more like "flala." One time I swear you pointed to a picture of a cat and say "kii caa" - but you've never said it again so I'm not sure. When you do your "poop" sign, sometimes you say "poooo" at the same time.

We know you understand a lot of words because if we ask you to find something, you can do it. Or if we ask you to throw something away, you can do that, too. One time the TV remote was missing so we asked you where it was and you opened up a drawer where you keep your toys and got the remote out - haha!

You also really love to dig in the trash can. We put something in, you take it out. You are ALWAYS over there opening the trash and sticking your head in to see what's in there.
Wes 18 Months
You love to be outside and you love to play in water, whether it's outside or the bath tub. Water always makes you happy. You can play in the bathtub for hours, especially if we keep the water running for you, even just a trickle, because you like to be able to fill up cups and pitchers with water and then dump them out. You also like to stand up close to the faucet and stick your belly out so that the water runs down your belly.
Wes 18 Months
We still give you a bottle every night before bed because we just love snuggling you up close so much. We put you in your pjs and your sleep sack and snuggle you up - your dad and I take turns every other night. You don't usually fall asleep on us, so we usually put you in your bed still awake. Lately you've been standing up in your bed and pointing at your rocking chair, so we rock you for a few minutes then lay you back down.
Wes 18 Months
You love riding in your toy car that we push around. You sit in it and hold the steering wheel with your two little hands and just look at everything while we push you around. You love to hold a rock in one hand when you ride, so if you don't have one, you point at the rocks until we give you one. (In El Paso, everyone has rocks in their yards.) The front of your car lifts up for a little trunk and you love to put rocks in there and routinely stand up while we're riding to open your trunk and check out what's in there.
Wes 18 Months
You are very good at climbing. We had to take some steps off the swingset outside so that you can't climb up into the top part. You climb on the garbage cans in the bathrooms to get into the bathtubs. If there's a stool, you'll climb on it! You can finally climb onto the couch by yourself, which makes us nervous because we don't want you to fall off. You love to climb onto the benches of the picnic table on the patio - that makes us nervous, too.

You don't like getting in trouble, so when we do get you in trouble for doing something wrong, you really cry about it - like loud wails and run all over the house like you are just heartbroken. You have a very sweet personality and really are such a lover. You know how to blow kisses, you always want to be picked up and really are just happy if someone carries you on their hip around the house all day. You always give hugs and kisses if asked.

We just love you SO MUCH, and feel so lucky that you are in our family! Love you, little bub!

September 27, 2019

Happy Birthday, Wes!


All footage captured by Jon. Music by Dave Matthews. Full birth story here


Happy first birthday, sweet Wes! You have completed our family! And what a fantastic grand finale you are! You are the sweetest, best baby in the whole world. You bring so much joy to our family every day with your smiles and your snuggles and you bright blonde hair. We love you more than words can say, and we are so, so happy that you are ours! 

Wes Wild: 1 Year Old

Wes 12 Months
You are one year old, baby Wes!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The last month of your first year was an exciting one because you were trying so hard to walk! You learned to cruise with your walker. The only problem is you don't know how to turn corners so you walk straight until you run into something, then whine until we come and help you around the obstacle. :)

You walked for the first time on Oct 18 - so just a few weeks after your first birthday! It was so fun and we got it on video, even though they said you'd been walking a few steps here and there at school before we saw it for the first time.

Speaking of school, your favorite toy at daycare is a blue doctor dress up shirt that you can pull on yourself over your helmet. Your teachers say you wear it all day long, and they even took a photo of you in it and made it your cubby photo. You are smiling so big and I can tell you really love that shirt. HAHA! So cute!

For your first birthday, we decided to go with the "Wild One" theme since you are our Wes Wild. We decorated with play animals and greenery and got you a carrot cake to smash. You loved it, especially the icing! We invited the Brenneman's over and we all watched you smash your cake. Then we ate chili (and you loved that, too). For your big gift, we got you a car that you can ride in that we can push and you LOVE that. Months later, you still absolutely love taking walks around the neighborhood in your car. You stay in even though you aren't buckled and just sit and hold onto the steering wheel like you're really driving. It's the absolutely cutest. Your car has a front compartment like a trunk that you can put stuff in, and you like to put toys in it and then routinely open it to check on them throughout our walks. :)

We are so thankful that we get to be the ones to watch you learn and grow, baby boy! You are the best baby we could have ever asked for to complete our family. I love you x 100 million!!

Wes Wild: 11 Months Old

Wes 11 Months
Wes! You are almost 1 year old!! I can't believe you are 11 months old now!

You continue to grow like a weed and you are so smart. We put up a baby gate between the living room and the kitchen when you started crawling, and the gate has a pet door in it for the cats. Well, this month you learned how to crawl through the pet door - haha!! So we had to zip tie it closed! You were so sad when you saw it was stuck closed and you couldn't sneak through anymore.

You are now eating all solid foods at school and at home. You are a great eater and like everything. With your sisters, I did baby food for much longer, but you are ready to start eating actual food so that's what we're doing. You never really liked being fed with a spoon - you'd rather do it yourself. One of your favorite places to eat at is Chipotle because you love the rice and beans!

Another difference between you and your sisters is in how you play. You are very easily occupied playing by yourself with your toys. Sometimes, you'll wander down the hallway into your room and just play with your toys by yourself. We love that you can be self entertained sometimes! You like to study your toys and really seem curious about how they work. You also do this with things around the house like the baby gate or knobs on a cabinet - you can see your brain working trying to figure everything out!

You hate it when your sisters go in their room to play without you and close the door. You bang on their door until they finally let you in.

We just love you so much, little man! Now it's time to start planning your first birthday party! :)


Wes Wild: 10 Months Old

Wes 10 Months
You are ten months old, baby boy! You continue to be on the move and this month, we got you a brand new walker so that you can really get around the house! 

You had been using a wagon that your sisters have but we'd have to load it up with stuff to make it heavy enough that it wouldn't fall over while you were trying to stand with it, so finally I just ordered you a legit walker and you love it! You can't walk with it yet, but you love pulling up to stand on it and I can tell it won't be long before you're cruising with it!

You are still pulling up on everything like crazy. You've also started babbling lots of sounds - "lala," "mama" and "dada" are some of them, but you don't know what the words mean. It's still really cute to hear you say "mama," though! 

You really love to eat and your daycare teachers have started giving you more solid foods because if everyone is eating except you, you start to yell really loud - HAHA! So they put you at the table with everyone else and give you the stuff that you can eat. 

This month has been so fun with daddy being back. You continue to warm up to him, but I'm still you're go-to if you need to be comforted, especially in the night. 

I wish I could say you are a good sleeper, but you are not! It's probably the only bad thing about you! You continue to wake up multiple times a night and have since you were born. You are still sleeping in our room in the Pack 'N Play, but we've started talking about sleep training you and moving you to your crib. Now that daddy's back, I'm ready to do that, but I wasn't before. I've loved having you so close all these months. 

Love you more than anything, baby boy! Keep growing! 

Wes Wild: 9 Months Old

Wes 9 Months
Happy nine months, baby boy! This was a BIG MONTH for you (and for our whole family) because daddy came home!!

Daddy was SO EXCITED to see you! We went to the welcome home ceremony and it took FOREVER and we didn't end up seeing daddy until almost 11pm. You were so tired, probably wondering what in the world we were doing up so late and who in the world was this man we were so excited to see. You did not warm up to daddy right away - you still preferred me for a while - and daddy would joke that you thought of him as "man that lives with mom." HAHA! But daddy is just so happy to be home with us to watch you learn and grow and get to know your fun personality!

You also got your first tooth this month and started eating more solid foods. I still stay away from vegetables because I'm worried about making you sick so you get a lot of fruits, eggs and breads right now. You're also able to drink out of a straw now, so we got you your own water bottle to keep in the fridge - you love it!

You've become a super fast crawler and can jet all over the house to get whatever or wherever you want!

We went on a little trip this month to celebrate daddy being home. We loaded up and drove to Scottsdale, AZ. We stayed at a couple really fun hotels, which was both fun and challenging with you. Challenging because you crawled all over the hotel room and we'd find you digging in the carpet trying to find things to put in your mouth - SO GROSS! But so fun because you LOVED the hotel pool! (And we spent a ton of time in the pool because it was so hot in AZ.) You loved us holding you in the pool and were so relaxed. That shouldn't have been a surprise because you also love love love bath time - you are just a water baby! We had a floaty for you and you would float in it but you didn't love it - more preferred us to hold you in the water.

We also spent a lot of time at splashpads this month. I would just plop you down by a water spout and you'd sit and fill up, then dump out your buckets for hours. Your swim suit bod is my FAVORITE! Love you, little man!