Our Little Puppy Dog

Amos spent this week getting back to himself.  He also took another good spill, which is almost completely gone.

  

We also had a nice treat as Dad took a personal day on Friday.  

They had lots of fun playing on the floor!

Dad made an excellent jungle gym.

We jokingly call Amos "Our Little Puppy Dog."  He does a great job licking up his cheerios.

Carrying things around in his mouth.

And the tongue is out almost 24/7.

A few more photos from the week.  Somebody knows how to feed himself.

He can also maneuver under and through new nooks and crannys!

He's definitely keeping Mom and Dad on their toes!

Lastly, on a whim, I posted a picture of Amos in a competition on Mpix to win $100 gift certificate!  If you have time, please go vote at the following.

Mpix Mother's Day Photo Contest

Abigail submitted a photo to the Mpix Mother's Day Photo Contest for a chance to win a $100 gift card from Mpix.

Contests for Fan Pages enables companies & agencies to easily create & launch branded contests on Facebook Fan Pages within minutes. Available formats: Photo contests, video contests, design contests, logo contests, essay-based contests.

Happily Ever After

Our week started a with a nice spill by Amos Jack.  He actually cried after he fell, which was surprising.  After being checked out on the back of the head, I found this on his face.  The bookcase ledge left a nice mark.  I didn't think it was that noticeable until Jason's first words out of his mouth after arriving home were, "What happened?'

On Wednesday, Jason and I celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary!  He came home and surprised me with three red roses and I surprised him with gourmet cupcakes from our new "Small Cakes" shop in town.  Later that evening, we got out the fire pit and enjoyed the nice weather on the deck!

We are also celebrating in a month down in Mexico.  More on that here.

This weekend, we headed to Altamont for Aunt Audrey and Uncle Jason's wedding.  Among decorating, being a bridesmaid and taking care of a baby, I didn't get any pictures snapped!  Imagine that.  Here are a couple I pulled off of facebook!  It was a beautiful wedding and everything went very smoothly!  The happily married couple are down in San Antonio for their honeymoon.

Too bad for Amos though, he woke up from his nap on Saturday with a fever.  We first thought it was just more teething related fever, because he was still acting happy, although a little fussier than normal.

However, Sunday morning I had to wake him up and he was really warm.  His temp under the arm was 101.3.  All he wanted to do was sleep, which is very uncharacteristic of him.  He ate and immediately went back to sleep on my chest.  He wouldn't do anything but eat and sleep on Sunday.  Check out these pretty pathetic pictures.

We were pretty worried parents.  He's not really even been sick before so this was quite a shocker.  We took him to the doctor on Monday and he is doing much better now!  He's still not eating quite as well, so were hoping his appetite comes back quick!

I even got a short video of him standing!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today Jason and I celebrate our three year anniversary!  In the last three years, we've lived in three homes, Jason's had three jobs (all in education), got pregnant and had a baby!  And to celebrate, we are doing something a little crazy!  We're going on an all inclusive vacation in Akumal, Mexico.  It started out as just a idea.  But after thinking about it, we thought that if we wanted to do something like this, we better do it now.  Who knows when the next opportunity will present itself.  We are headed out the end of May and leaving Amos with Grandparents!  Leaving Amos for a week will be a challenge I'm sure, but we know he will be in good, loving hands.  Jason and I can't wait to have some uninterrupted time together, living in luxury for a little while!  We've heard all-inclusive is the way to go.  We can't wait to find out!

The BIG 4-0

We're getting entirely to close to a year old.  I think we should take a brief pause here and pick back up after it.  However, we all know that isn't going to happen.  Amos doesn't understand what a pause is.  He is always on the move.

Not a whole lot of "new" this week.  He's getting increasingly better at standing, he climbed up his first step, and he hasn't eaten baby food the entire week.  I found out that he isn't a big fan of scrambled eggs.  At least, not during the first go around.  However, he loves rice and potato salad.

We got to see both sides of the family this week as Josie, Aunt Amelia and Grammy came over for a visit, and we went to Lebanon for Easter.

We had a lot of parallel playing going on.  Not too much interaction, except to still each others toys.  I think both of them got whacked in the face once or twice too.

In Lebanon, we got to see Uncle Jeffrey and Grandpa in their church's Easter play.  The first night, Amos sat through the entire play on our laps.  He did a pretty good job, as long as he was eating something.  The next morning he visited their nursery and I got to really enjoy the play.

After church we headed over to Great Grandma Musgraves for Easter lunch and egg hunting.  Emma and Amos even got to be part of the fun.

Amos' favorite find was his water gun.  Imagine that.

Somebody was refusing to nap, so we had a tired boy on our hands. 

What a fun week!

Check out Amos' newest growl:

9 Months

Our sweet little boy is 9 months old today.  Time flies when you are having fun.  And boy does Amos have a lot of fun.  

His physical developments have been mastering picking up anything - even the small speck of fuzz on the carpet that Mom and Dad missed-, improving his one hand support walk and beginning to stand on his own.  He got his second tooth and is currently working on tooth #3.

In the eating department, he is almost solely eating table food.  He loves meat, pasta, cottage cheese, cheese, bread, bananas, potatoes, and well basically everything we have fed him.  He also started eating his breakfast with his hand!  What a mess.  But he loves it.  We got the go ahead from our doctor to let him eat anything we are eating, minus anything with peanuts.  Also, he said that we can start introducing whole milk! Yay!

He's jabbering up a storm this days.   The few words that he has no idea he is saying are:  "dada", "ball", "baby" and finally "mom" is back in his vocabulary.  He really seems to love music.  It doesn't matter if I'm singing, or Jason or just the radio, but he puts on his biggest smile and starts to "sing" along.  He's very independent and loves to play by himself, but from time to time, he'll let us join in on the fun.  Especially if we are going to scare or surprise him.  He still isn't too sure about being thrown up in the air.  However, just yesterday, Jason and I were throwing him back and forth on our bed, and he didn't want to stop.  In fact, after we decided we were done, he continued to climb back and forth between our laps trying to get one of us to throw him.

This month has also brought with the "whine" from not getting my way, and an angry cry.  Up until this point, it has been easy to think that our child is perfect.   But as we begin to see his self-will come out, we know that we must turn to Jesus and trust Amos and our parenting and discipline into His hands.  He loves Amos more that we do and will be faithful to guide us as we raise him.  The best is yet to come!

Mr. Mom

This was a busy week at the Vance house, so there are quite as many pictures to document it.  Jason had a bunch of meetings/school stuff, and I have been getting ready for our church's upcoming Easter Egg Hunt.  However, a couple of really exciting things still happened.

First, Grammy and Gramps came to visit us.  They have been out of the country traveling for the past two weeks and were excited to get over to Joplin and see the grand babies!  Amos and Josie had fun playing around on the floor and we got to hear all about their trip to the holy lands!

Second, I went up to Kansas City Saturday-Sunday for my sister's wedding shower/bachelorette party and Jason stayed home and watched Amos.  Every time I talked to him, he was telling me how well Amos was doing and what great naps he was taking!  And when I got home, Jason even said that we should do this more regularly!  I think they had a lot of fun just Dad and son!  I think they were glad I was back too.

This week, Amos got a little more hands on with his breakfast.  We mixed cheerios in with his normal cereal so that it would be thick enough for him to grab.  It was very messy, but a lot of fun for him.  He's getting better at getting it to his mouth and not making quite the mess.

Also, he's getting better at standing alone.  He's pretty timid about the whole thing, but I caught a short segment on video!

It's summer time!  Who needs clothes.