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. 

Happy Birthday Alex

It's hard to believe that he is 1 year old today.  How far he has come.  From just 4 lbs 8 oz when he was born to over 20 lbs now.  And from a feeding tube because he hadn't developed his suck/swallow instinct yet, to now preferring to feed himself than even eat from a spoon.  He's growing so fast!

We had a busy weekend.  On Friday we went to the toy store to pick out his birthday gift.  We decided we might as well take advantage of the fact that he little yet and won't know that we were buying his birthday gift.  The toy store was lots of fun.  I think even more fun for Dad than it was for Alex. 

On Saturday we went to have some pictures taken.  It wasn't the best photo session we've ever had.  It was nap time, there were a lot of appointments booked for the same time, and I think our photographer was a bit new.  We were surprised that she got any smiles captured.  We got a few good ones. 

Grandma and Grandpa Meiners and Grandma and Grandpa Bruzek were her on Saturday to help us celebrate.  I made a Very Hungry Caterpillar from cupcakes.  He at a big dinner and then managed to eat all of his cupcake - well almost all of it.  A bunch of it ended up on his pants, on his face, and in the high chair.  Today he got to have another one which is when the picture was taken.

I can't seem to upload any of the other pictures to the blog.  Blogger and Google are having some sort of malfunction.  Mike checked it out and sounds like its some sort of erroneous message.  I'll try again in a few days or a week and see if I can get more pictures loaded. 

11 Month Photo Shoot

These photo shoots are getting more challenging the older he gets.

First Vacation

These posts are a little out of order.  In mid-October we went to visit my sister Amy in Richmond, Virginia.  I went first to a meeting in DC.  Mike and Alex followed a few days later and met me in Richmond.  I think it's fair to be impressed with Mike.  I am.  He negotiated the airport, security and two flights with a 10 month old on his first flight all by himself.  Its exhausting - even when there are two of you. 

We had a great time with Amy.  We went to a dinner, out for frozen yogurt, to the zoo and a big park called Maymont.  Alex had a great time and got spoiled by Auntie Amy.  We're excited to see her again at Thanksgiving.

We went to a frozen yogurt place the first night.  Amy is good at sharing

Cold, but yummy

Alex is wearing his new MN Wild outfit from Auntie Amy.

 

Happy (belated) Halloween

We celebrated Halloween a couple days early with the Meiners family.  Mike's sister Deb loves Halloween and has thrown a Halloween party every year (or almost) every year that I've known Mike. 

Mike's sister Tami with Abby the kitty (6 months), Mike and Alex the monkey, Mike's sister Kim with Kyle the giraffe (3 months).

A good number of the Meiners' grandkids.  The big kids are Ryan, Kristin and Tyler.  The little kids are Kyle, Kaitlyn, Abby, Grace and Alex.  Unfortunately, we decided to try to get this picture after Kaylie and Lindsey had left.  Also missing are Samantha, Ashley and Brandon.  We have to get them all at Christmas. 

On Halloween Alex wore his skeleton sleeper to daycare.  The pictures don't show how it also glows in the dark!  Pretty fun.  And comfortable.

 

Alex was not too happy when I put the monkey costume back on. 

He got over it when we got outside.  We went trick-or-treating to our neighbors across the street and that was it.

We hope you had a great Halloween.  We bought too much candy and still have a bunch left.  Hope your waistlines are all doing better than ours!