First Haircut

I had avoided getting Alex's first haircut.  I knew he would look older once we did it and I wasn't ready for him to look like a toddler.  But really his hair was getting too long.  And after his uncles said it looked a little too "business in the front, party in the back", we knew it was time.

I wasn't brave enough to try the job myself.  He's so squirmy, wanting to get his hands on everything, that I wasn't very confident about having a scissors in my hands.  (This is also making taking pictures a lot more difficult.  As soon as he sees the camera, he wants to play with it.)  So we went to The Barbershop.  I had called ahead and made an appointment and asked for someone who was good with squirmy one-year-olds.  We got Jordan.  And she was great.  She certainly had her work cut out for her.  Alex thought it was a torture session.  I have no idea how she ever cut it evenly - but she did!  Our apologies to all of the other patrons in the shop. 

In the end, he does look a little older, but he just looks so handsome!  I love it. 

Before

I thought one of us would hold him while the other took pictures.  That lasted about two minutes.

 

We of course brought a few items to entertain him.

But really most of the appointment went like this....

In the end, I think it turned out well.

Later in the day - a lot happier. 

It looks so cute in the back.

Merry Christmas 2012

 Oh, how different this Christmas was from last Christmas. 

The nurses at the Special Care Nursery last year, sure did their best to make it special.  As we were putting up the tree this year, we found the ornament they made.  It's a glass bulb with "Alex's 1st Christmas" painted on one side.  And his little footprints are on the other!  He also got little onesie from the nurses and a nice flannel burp cloth made by one of the nurses grandmother's.  His nurse took our photo together on Christmas Eve.  But honestly, it sucks to spend Christmas at the hospital and go home without your baby.

Last year, we had just a few Christmas decorations up at the house and no tree.  We came home from the hospital to have dinner with my family who came down for the day.  And then back to the hospital.  Back and forth, back and forth.  On December 28th, just two days before he came home, Mike was getting ready to go to work, and I was getting ready to go to the hospital, I said to Mike "I feel as if every day for the rest of our lives, we are going to go to Methodist Hospital.  He's going be a baby forever and we'll have to go there every day to see him."  It felt endless. 

This year was much more fun!  We got to put up a tree with all of the lights and ornaments.  We took Alex to pick out the tree the weekend after his birthday.  It was pretty warm and he had fun. 
 

Christmas Day 2012

We spent Christmas Eve with the extended Bruzek family and Christmas Day with Grandma and Grandpa Bruzek, Auntie Amy, Auntie Beth and Uncle Cory. 

And the next weekend we went to the farm to spend time with the Meiners family - All of the Aunts, Uncles and Cousins were there.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of pictures at the farm, because I forgot to charge the camera battery, but we did manage to get one of all the cousins before the camera died.

In the front:  Brandon the oldest grandchild.  On the couch from left to right: Kaitlyn (3), Grace (almost 3), Samantha (19), holding Kyle (5 months), Kaylie (8), Kristin (14), holding Abby (8 months), Lindsey (11), Ashley (16), holding Alex (1), Tyler (16), and Ryan (16). 

First snowfall of 2012-2013

In early December we had a nice snowfall.  It wasn't too cold, so we bundled Alex up and went outside.  He seemed to enjoy it. 

Gettin' ready to go outside.

With Daddy.

Grandma and Grandpa were here too.  Checking out the baby snowman that we made. 

We made Mike, Laura and Alex snow people. Which lasted only about a week.  The next week it rained and we had headless, leaning snowmen.