New puppy?

No, we haven’t lost our minds and added a third dog to our clan….just one cute little boy who likes to hang out in the puppy kennel!

 No kidding, this is what I saw when I rounded the corner. I motioned for Matt to come look and grabbed my camera.

This face says, “It was fun in there, Mom!”

Dinner Disaster

Do we know better than to try to take this little boy to dinner? Yep. Did we do it anyway? Oh, yeah.

First, we went to Wal-Mart to grab a few things. Matt was carrying Zane around on his shoulders….more proof that he’s not a baby anymore. Zane kept laying his head on Matt’s head, giving him “love”. Then he would grab his face and look down at him. Pretty much my fave. Matt called me a tourist because I was taking pics in Wal-Mart, but how could I not capture this?

We then went to one of our favorite places, Jim’s Razorback Pizza. Taking Zane to lunch…usually no problem. He’s just had a nap and is pretty hungry, so he’s occupied by food. Taking Zane to dinner….usually not such a great idea. He’s tired, cranky, etc. We thought he seemed to be in pretty good spirits and JRP is a family-style, sport-themed restaurant, with video games. Loud enough to drown out a loud one-year old. Things started out well enough.

We thought we had forgotten his sippy cup, but super dad had bought some a while back to keep in his truck. Cheap ones. Zane couldn’t get anything out, so Matt took out the little valve-thingy. And we hadn’t brought any juice, so Matt ordered him Sprite. Apparently taking out the little valve-thingy….not such a good plan.

A few minutes later we can’t find the sippy cup.  Where is it? In Zane’s chair.  Upside down. Empty. Before we got our food.

 Dripping wet. And sticky. Just lovely. And in case you’re wondering, No. We didn’t leave. We dried out his seat and finished our meal. Yep, parents of the year that we are, we made our child sit in soaking wet, sticky clothes until we all finished eating. Then Matt stripped him down in the truck and put a new diaper on him. I’m sure he was ready to slap that camera out of my hand, but I couldn’t stop laughing at the little naked boy in the truck!

 He thought he was a pretty cool cat riding home in his Dad-o’s shirt. Precious boy.

Matt had just turned his carseat around facing forward before we left the house. He looks like such a big boy!

ps. The high chair thing we have is a MUST! It clamps on to any table, so you never have to use the high chairs in restaurants. Or if you go to someone else’s house, you’ve brought your own high chair. They can sit right beside you in a booth! And it’s easy to clean. It’s called Phil & Ted’s Me Too Hook on High Chair.

One Year Old and randoms….

 

It’s true what they say. “They”, being moms, dads, grandmothers, anyone who has every had a child. They say, “They grow so fast. Before you know it, they’ll be a teenager. They’re not a baby for long.” It’s true. All of it.  So let the clichés begin.

I can’t believe how fast this past year has gone. In many ways, it was the longest year of my life. I definitely was awake for more of 2009 than any other year of my life…well, according to my mom, maybe I was awake for a lot of 1980, also. Paying for my raising?

The other night while Zane ate his dinner, Brandie and I sat at the table and discussed how much a baby learns, grows, and changes in just the first year of life. He went from being a helpless, tiny infant to….this.A very independent little person, with his own little personality. He didn’t want that birthday hat on.  And he wasn’t going to stop until he got it off!

Back to him eating dinner….He was in “performance” mode, so we had him do all of his tricks.  They included, but were not limited to: the popeye face, patting his head, patting his tummy, calling the hogs, “feeding” the dogs, fake coughing, growling, and fake yawning.

Fake yawning is a new trick. We say, “Zane, are you sooooo sleepy?”  and he will open his mouth really wide and pat it with his hand. He will also go and lay his head down on his blanket in the floor. Not for long. Just long enough to get an, “Awww, sweet baby. Him’s sleeeeepy.” And then he’s back up!

He likes his rocking chair. He’s still figuring it out, though. For now, backwards is the cool way to sit.

When he gets really mad, which he does, he has this huge vein that pokes out on the left side of his neck.

 He only walks now. No more crawling. He loves pushing the buttons on the TV, even though he knows he’s not supposed to. He’ll walk up to the TV, slowly turn around and look at me, wait for me to say, “no, no”, and then…push it anyway. He’s already “pushing my buttons.” Sorry, i couldn’t resist the pun.

The clinginess started during Christmas.  We were around so many people and went from house to house to house. Then we had his birthday party, with lots of people here. So if we’re around lots of people, mommy has to hold him. I’m no expert, but I try not to encourage this. I do want him to feel secure, but I also want him to be comfortable without being on my hip. Usually, it follows the old saying, “out of sight, out of mind.”  But if he’s sleepy or frustrated or hurt, he wants his mommy. Aaaand….I love it!  Here I was trying to take his picture and he was O.VER. IT. Reaching for mommy.

 

One last thing. One of those melt my heart moments. When he hears Dad-O come home, he stops whatever he’s doing and looks up at me. He gives me that big, toothy grin. Then waddles toward the door saying, “Da-da, Da-da”. Grinning the whole way. We love this kid.

Swing on by and have some fun…

Our little monkey turned ONE!

 

How did we celebrate Zane’s first birthday? With a Monkey Party, of course!

 

I’m way behind on getting this posted, and it won’t be a short one…..so get ready!

We had Zane’s first birthday party on his birthday, December 27th.  My plan was to keep the party small, but that’s impossible to do because we wanted all of our family to be there! I believe there were about 30 people who came to help celebrate with our little monkey.

Here’s a little monkey with a hat on his head, wearing a shirt with a monkey with a hat on his head! Obviously, he’s not a huge fan of his outfit, but I thought he was pretty stinkin’ cute.

Here’s the food table, before all of the food was put out or the balloons were tied. We had chips & Mexico Chiquito cheese dip, cream cheese chutney dip, monkey cupcakes, banana cookies, and of course….the cake!

The spread

Monkey Cupcakes

Banana cookies

The cake. It’s from the blue cake company. Top layer: red velvet, Middle layer: chocolate, Bottom layer: vanilla. The whole thing: fabulous!

The party favors were Hershey bars with personalized wrappers. The front says, “Happy 1st Birthday, Zane! December 27th, 2009”. The back says, “Nutrition Information: 100% cute, 100% funny, 100% silly. Serving Size: 1 Birthday Boy. Thank You For Monkeying Around With Me!”  Too bad that I forgot to give them out until most of the guests were gone.

I saw these cute birthday banners on Etsy and decided to make one myself.  I’m the least crafty person I know, but I think it turned out ok. I used the monthly pictures of Zane (Dec 08-Nov 09).

After everyone sang “Happy Birthday”, Zane got to enjoy his smash cake. The kiddo’s got a sweet tooth, just like his momma.

Dad-o showing him how it’s done…

SMASH!

    

Our friends, Phillip & Allyson, were sweet enough to come and bring baby Parker! I love these pictures because Allyson and I were smiling for the camera….and Phillip was totally focused only on the boys. Hilarious! Zane was first giving Parker some “love”, then “patting” him on the head. Parker will be one tough little boy, all thanks to Zane!

 

Happy 1st Birthday, Zane Thomas Bell! Your daddy and mommy love you more than monkeys love bananas!

Christmas Day 2009

Christmas morning was so exciting! Before we all went into the living room, we changed Zane into his Christmas pj's. He had fallen asleep in the dirty turtleneck from the night before! We were all excited, and I think Zane was excited, too. He was looking all around, like 'what the heck is going on?' We all went into the living room....and guess what?! Santa had left gifts for Z everywhere!

*Here's Z in his blowup car/ball pit. He's clapping. Must mean he likes it :)

Santa also left a new pony for Zane! At first he was a little hesitant about Butterscotch, but quickly warmed up to him. He loves combing his mane, hugging him, and most of all, feeding him his carrot...and feeding us the carrot...and making sure we give Butterscotch a hug. He's still not too sure about riding the pony, though.

After a quick lunch at Craig & Dana's, we headed to South Arkansas. Since getting married Christmas day has always been stressful....add a baby to the mix and things just get more hectic. We have Christmas morning in Conway, pack up our week's worth of clothes, Christmas presents, Zane's clothes and presents, and two dogs and then head south. But first we stop in Little Rock to unload some of that stuff and reload presents to take to Hampton. Whew. I'm worn out again just thinking about it.

On Christmas Eve, my mom had called to see what Zane thought about opening presents. I told her that he was currently sitting in a cardboard box. She said, "Ok, I'll make sure there's a box here for him to play in." Believe me, she didn't disappoint. When we got to Hampton, Zane had his very own cardboard box house, complete with a door, window, and chimney!

*This was one of his favorite gifts. A little camping chair. He also got a tent and sleeping bag so he's all set if anyone wants to take him camping.

*He also loved this blanket that I got for Christmas. He rolled around on it, bit it, played peek-a-boo under it, etc. He's so funny!

We had a great night of eating and opening presents at mom and dad's house with Mama Lou, the Patterson's, the Chambliss's, and the Shankles family. The next morning we headed to Mammaw and Pappaw's for our final Christmas. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures there.

Although this Christmas was crazy, busy, hectic, chaos.....we really did enjoy our first Christmas with Zane! He is so lucky to have so much family to spend the holidays with.

And the craziness was not over.....because then we headed back to Little Rock to start preparing for the first birthday party.....

Christmas Eve 2009

Guess who the lucky pharmacist was that got to work on Christmas Eve? Again? Yup, that's right, ME! Fortunately, Tina came in and worked the last three hours for me, so I was able to spend the afternoon with Zane and the rest of the Bell family. My fear was that I would have to work until close and that Zane would already be asleep, meaning that I completely missed his first Christmas Eve, and I am SO thankful it didn't happen that way!

It looked like Santa's workshop when I walked into DeeDee and Skeet's house! It was a full house with me, Matt, and Zane, DeeDee and Skeet, Erik and Lindsey, Tyler, four dachshunds, and a lab! Wow! Some were wrapping last minute gifts, some were making fudge, some were gathering gifts to take to Kaye Kaye's house for our get-together that night, and most were watching Zane. At some point we said, "Enough madness! Let's watch a good, wholesome family movie!" So, we all sat down to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. What else? It's a hilarious movie and so much fun to watch with the whole family.

We then went to the Christmas Eve service at church. I love that our church always has family-style communion on Christmas Eve. It's nice to be with family and celebrate the true Reason for the Season.

After the service the Bells, Dells, and Cummins' all headed over to Greg & Kaye Kaye's to eat, laugh, and open presents.

*Kaye Kaye & Z

*Typical one year old, enjoyed the box more than the gift!

*Zane-in-a-box with Sock Monkey Jack-in-a-box.

My favorite part is his foot propped up on the side.

*Zane's new Radio Flyer from Mama Doot

*My beautiful baby boy

Well, it's already January 5th, and I'm just now blogging about Christmas Eve. The things that come to mind when I think about that night don't involve who got who which present. I think about Zane having coffee breath because Kaye Kaye and Kara gave him coffee punch (decaf!). I think about Erik reading us the Christmas story. I think about Zane walking everywhere. I think about the funny story Josh told me. I think about me and Matt sitting at the table eating with Zane and how incredibly dirty his turtleneck was by the end of the night.

I think about Uncle Bo Joe. Just as he was about to leave, I took Zane over and we sat with him for a few minutes. Zane and I both gave him a kiss on the cheek. I wish I had taken a picture of Zane with him. I said, "Bye, Uncle Bo Joe. We love you." We didn't know it at the time, but this was our last Christmas with Joe. He lost his battle with cancer just nine days later. When I think about Joe, the words "straight and narrow" come to mind. He always seemed to be a perfectionist. We always joked that if we needed a picture hung, just call Joe. He'll get it straight! I loved his deep voice and great laugh! Although he will be greatly missed by all of us, I think we are all thankful that he didn't have to suffer, that he was strong, and that he was not afraid. He knew that this wasn't the end, but the beginning of his eternity in Heaven! I can't find a picture of Baby Zane and Joe together, so instead here's a picture of Zane in what we call his "Bo Joe" hat.

More Christmas Week 09, to be continued.......