Michael's First Car

Michael got his very first car this weekend! Thanks Mimi and Poppa! He loves it!

Trunk or Treat

Tonight was trunk or treat at my parents church. Michael had just woke up from his nap, so he was a little out of it. But if you ask me, this is the cutest little giraffe I have ever seen!

Slipper Season

Well, I think the fall season is officially upon us. The temperature isn't supposed to get above 56 today and the low for over night is 33. So I figured it was time to get out the slippers. He got these from his cousin Charlie. They are so cute and I couldn't wait for them to fit him. He has been wearing them all afternoon and doesn't seem I care that they are on his feet. When I first put them on him, he smiled and kept pointing to them.

Thrift Store Friday

Every week Michael and I go see Andrew at work. I look aroud the store to see if there if there is anything good while Andrew takes Michael around to say hi to everyone. Since this has become a weekly thing, I'm going to start doing a weekly post of all my wonderful thrift store finds.

Here are this weeks treasures:
LL Bean fleece pullover - $1
Carter's long sleeve shirt - $1
Stride rite shoes - $1
Christmas board book $.25
Total spent: $3.25

Ikea Rocks

On Saturday afternoon, Andrew Michael and I made a quick trip to Ikea. I had a few things I wanted to get for Michael, and this tunnel was one of them. For $14.99 a one year old can have tons of fun. As soon as we got home we opened it up, and as you can see, Michael had a blast!

Fun on the Farm

On Saturday, we went up to Strawberry Hill with Andrew's family.
We went last year and had a great time, but Michael was only 2 months old, so I knew he would have a great time this year. 

It was a beautiful day again this year, but not as warm as last year. 

There were tons of pumpkins to chose from. 

We had a great time on the Hay Ride. 

 We got to feed some cows. 

Andrew also got to chase and catch a pig, which was a lot of fun to watch!

There were also two sets of twin baby cows. Michael loved the baby cows and he kept mooing at them and then they would moo back. 

He also got to pick a pumpkin right from the pumpkin patch. 

Thanks Mimi and Poppa for a fun day on the farm!

What Michael has been up to...

Since Michael turned 1, I decided not to continue with the monthly updates. But, I have found myself missing writing them, and I also find myself thinking a lot, "That would be a good thing to write down on his monthly update." So I figured I will just do posts like this at random times, when there are some milestones to report.

Big Boy!

 So, at 14 months, here is what Michael is up to:
- He is talking up a storm. Of course, I think Andrew and I are the only ones that knows what he is saying. He has started trying to repeat words back to us, and is really working on becoming more and more verbal. Words he says that everyone can understand are: Dadda, Momma, Dog, All done,
- He is learning sign language, and is doing a great job. So far he knows how to say: All Done, milk, more, eat, cereal, and cookie. We haven't done many other words yet, so now that he has those down really well, we will start with a few more. When we are playing and it is close to meal time or snack time, he comes up to me and does the sign for eat. Also, we were sitting in a restaurant the other day waiting for our food, he kept signing eat. I guess he was hungry and didn't want to wait.

Doing a little light reading

 - He has also learned a few animal sounds. He knows what a cow says and what a monkey says. We are working on a bunch of others, but he hasn't picked any other ones up yet.
- One of his favorite activities is climbing the stairs. So, now we are trying to teach him how to go down the stairs without hurting himself.

Daddy and Michael playing with the gun daddy brought home.
Not sure who had more fun.

 - We finally made the transition from formula to whole milk. He seems to really like milk, and he drinks about 4 or 5 cups a day.
- Some of his favorite foods are: chicken, yogurt, cheese, mixed veggies, grapes,

Check out those eye lashes!

 - He loves to feed himself! Either with a spoon or a fork. As I long as we give it to him already on the utensil, he will feed himself really well.
- He sleeps great, when he is not teething. So, hopefully we will get back to sleeping through the night again. He has a favorite blanket that he sleeps with, and also a stuffed Mickey Mouse and a stuffed Monkey that he got for his birthday that he loves. Every morning when I go in to get him, he immediately shows me his blanket, and his stuffed animals.

Michael loved playing in this car at Coleman's house.
I think I know what he wants for Christmas

- Michael now has 12 teeth! He started teething again right after his birthday, and I could feel his molars were all swollen. After about 2 weeks, he got his top right one. Then about every 2 weeks, he has gotten another one. It took a long time, and a lot of sleepless nights, but he finally has all of his molars. They were by far the hardest on both Mama and baby. Please, can we have a break from teething now?

Michael and Coleman having fun in the car

- He is wearing size 18 months clothes. That is what size all of his winter clothes are, and some fit him great, and others are still too big. That means he should fit into them all winter long. I would hate to have to buy him more clothes in the middle of winter.
- We haven started letting Michael watch a little bit of TV, now that he is one. He only watches while we are at work, and it is usually Mickey Mouse Club House, Baby Einstein, or sesame street. Here is his favorite thing to watch:
He would watch this over and over and over. He loves the  music!

So, that is what Mr. Michael has been up to these past couple months. He is definitely a toddler now, no more baby :(

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday, we loaded up the suburban, and made our way to Hendersonville, NC to visit the Pumpkin Patch.

In my car were 4 adults and 4 children, and in the other car were 2 adults and 4 children. We had our hands full!

Michael was excited about going to pick out a pumpkin!
Don't you just love this shirt?

 When we got there, we put coats on everyone, and boy was it chilly. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if it hadn't been so windy.

So Happy!

 We were there for a couple of hours, and I think everyone had a great time!

All the kids!
Michael and all his cousins (minus the 2 big boys)

 I have a feeling this will be an every year tradition. Here is our trip from last year.

Michael and Mommy

 There were tons of pumpkins to choose from.

Trying to pick out the perfect pumpkin

Michael ready for a ride

He kept Mooing at the lama.
I guess in a one year olds mind, this looks just like a cow.

We had so much fun and it's something I look forward to doing each year!

A Digital Dilemma

Just a little back story: As part of Michael's adoption, we agreed to send monthly updates to his birth mother for the first 6 months, and then yearly for 18 years. So, I gave her a scrapbook with our original profile book in it, and then a bunch of empty pages and told her that each month, I would send the updates in the same format, and she could just slide them into the scrapbook, and everything would stay together.  So every month, I would do a "What Michael is up to at __ months" page, and then have several pages of pictures behind it. I did this in my digital scrapbook program. Every month, I would print the pages on my home printer, and mail them to the agency, for them to pass along to his birth mother.

Well, after the 6 months, I decided I wanted to keep going, since it was such a great thing for me to have. Just to see how much he changed and grew over the course of a year is incredible. Well, after his birthday, I had to decide how I wanted to print all of the pages, 84 to be exact! The pages were formatted in 8.5 x 11 so I could print them on my home printer. Well, to print that many pages on quality paper, would have taken a lot of money, just on the ink and photo paper. To get them printed at a photo printing place, I would have to re-size all of the pages to 8x10 and it would be anywhere from $2-3 a sheet. Do the math - that is way more than I wanted to pay. So I had the idea of just doing a photo book. So I looked at my usually websites to see how much that would be. Well, it wasn't even an option, because none of them had a 8.5x11 size book. Then I looked at the website for my digital scrapbooking program, and it was not easy to use, and I couldn't ever see how much a photo book would be with all of the extra pages unless I went ahead and uploaded all of the pages to their website. But the price for 20 pages was $27.95. So I googled and found a great website:

www.viovio.com

I could see how much a photo book would be based on the number of pages and the different options. I could choose from softcover or hardcover, different types of paper, or I could print all the pages individually and put them into a traditional scrapbook. It was so nice to see all of the different sizes and options they had, and I didn't have to sign up for anything, or upload anything to get the actual price. So once I decided that I would use this website, I uploaded my pictures and then I could have them auto fill and put them straight into a photo book in the order they were uploaded. It was super easy and the best part, I only paid  around $25! I decided to get the cheapest options, just to see how it turned out. I didn't want to waste a bunch of money on something I wasn't sure would turn out good. Well, I got my book yesterday, and am very happy with how it turned out. I will definitely use this website again, and I may even order another one of these books with a hardcover and better paper this time, which would only put the price at around $50.

Here are some pictures of the finished product:

Now I just have to decide if I want to do all of my scrapbooks in digital form, or if I want to go back to traditional. It is a lot easier to do it digital, since all of the pictures are digital, but there is something to working with your hands to create a unique scrapbook. Decisions, decisions...

My Latest Project

I'm calling this: Project Picture Organization!

I hadn't had any pictures printed in several months! I know... I know... Not a good idea. Well, a few weeks ago, I set out to print all of my pictures from Michael's first year and get them organized. I had his first month and a half printed, but that means I had 11 more months to print.  

I had gotten an e-mail from snapfish about their print special for .01 cent prints! But before I could order any, I had to upload them all to the website. That took several hours just to load them all on there. I ended up ordering 450 pictures from snapfish! At the same time, the Kodak website was having a special. 200 prints plus shipping, for $1.99! So, I uploaded pictures to that website, and ordered just about 200 pictures. Also, at the same time, I had received a free print credit for a photo book from shutterfly. So I put together my photo book, and just for creating an account, I got 50 free print credits, and then for ordering the photo book, I got another 30 free print credits. So, I ordered another 80 pictures. So, I ended up ordering a total of 730 pictures!!! Then I had to figure out what to do with all of them when I got them.

First, I knew I wanted all of the candid pictures of Michael in a photo album, since that would be way to much to scrapbook. So, I bought these cute photo albums at hobby lobby. They each hold 200 pictures.  

The first album has from his birth through October.

The second album has from Halloween through his first birthday. 

Here are all the pictures I have left.

I have a Christmas scrapbook that I add to each year, so all the Christmas pictures will go in that. I also have a Disney scrapbook that I add to every time we go, so our trips we took in December and in July will both go in that.

I also have a photo album of pictures of me and and my friends through the years. So, all the pictures that we have taken with all of the babies together, and our trip to Charleston that we all took in June went in there.

That just leaves all of the pictures from the different things we did as a family. Charleston, Edisto, Pumpkin Patch, Baseball game, zoo etc...

My plan is to buy some more photo albums, and put all of those pictures together in chronological order.

The whole point of this project is to get the pictures off the computer and organized. I don't want to end up with tons of pictures that never got printed. Or with tons of pictures just sitting in boxes. Pictures are so important to me, and I want to have them in a place I can look at them and cherish them.

Now I am at the point where I have to decide what I want to scrapbook, or what just goes in a regular photo album.  But I have a whole other post about that planned for tomorrow.

So there you have it, my picture organization project. Let's hope it doesn't take another 11 months for me to print pictures!