Holden Beckett: 10 Months Old!


A few days late this month but with all that we have going on here, I think I get a free pass this month! :)  Since your last monthly update, Mr. Holden, we have listed our house, sold our house, packed {some of} our house, and we are prepping to move in just one short week!  Never did I think we'd be celebrating your first birthday in a new place...a brand new place, at that...but it's official, which means this was your tenth--and final--monthly photo shoot in this house where we brought you home.  You will never remember this place, but I can tell you it's where you learned to roll over and smile and crawl and eat solids and stand and walk around things and laugh at your brother.  It's where you climbed stairs for the first time, and also fell down them, and spent lots of time in your doorway jumper.  It's where you've morphed from a newborn to an infant to an *almost* one-year old!  I'm pretty sure you've enjoyed your first ten months here; yet, I'm sure you will enjoy our new place even more!!  So here's to all the future memories we will create in the months and years to come!



10-Month Update:

Size | No idea.

Words | Mama, Dada (still not in reference to anyone), and lots of other babbles

Activity | Speed crawling on your knees, standing with support, and climbing on everything

Food | 4 bottles per day - 6 to 7 ounces each time.  Solids three times per day - a good mix of rice, oatmeal, fruits, veggies, and meats.  Pureed meat (gag!) is still a fave.

Sleep | Nights are no different.  You are still a fabulous nighttime sleeper, about 10 solid hours + another hour or two after an early-morning bottle.  Naps may be improving ever-so-slightly!  They are getting more consistent (twice-per-day) and they are getting longer!  However, 30-minute naps are still very normal around here.

Bedtime/Waketime | Bedtime around 7pm.  Wake time is as early as 5am, but we give you a bottle and you usually fall back asleep until 6 or 6:30.

Hair | Light brown.

Eyes | Bright blue

Teeth | I noticed your fourth (top left) coming through just today!  Your bottom two front teeth and other top front tooth have been through for awhile now.

Wardrobe | 6-12 months

Diapers | Finally made the full switch to 3s, thank goodness!  You were blowing out of the 2s too often than we liked!

Likes | You are such a Mama's boy and I love it!!  You also love your brother Brantley, Miss Stephanie, splashing at bathtime, Kinnick, snacks, your doorway bouncer, toys (mainly whatever Brantley is playing with), playing peek-a-boo (you will pull a blanket over your face and play on your own these days), climbing on anything and everything, blowing bubbles and spitting, especially while eating, which tends to make a major mess.  And then Brantley laughs at you and you feed on the attention and it's a never-ending circle.

Dislikes | Being tired, being hungry, having your face touched, having your hair washed, showers with Daddy.

Mommy's Fave | I know I mentioned this above, but I love having a Mama's Boy!  I definitely did not have that in Brantley and though I know he loves me, it's fun being someone's favorite. :)



Show and Tell Tuesday: Meeting the Hubs!

A couple of the blogs I follow have been participating in this Show and Tell Tuesday link-up.  Today's Yesterday's topic: how you met your mate!  Which sounded like a super fun post to document in writing.  So here we go!

The year was 2008.

(Craig remembers it because that's the year KU won the national championship...)

I was nearing the end of my first year of teaching and it had been about 10 months since I had moved to KC.  In that time, I became pretty close to my co-worker, Allison, and spent many a weekend nights with her and her group of friends.  It was around March-ish when she asked me if I wanted to join a Crawl for Cancer team with her, her friend Lindsay, and a bunch of Linsday's guy friends.

In case you're unaware, Crawl for Cancer is an organization that originated right here in Kansas City.  Basically, it's a pub crawl you do with a group of friends (team members).  Each team member pays something like $40, which goes towards a team t-shirt and all the beer you can drink (there's a limit, but it's enough) at a handful of scheduled bars.  The remainder of the funds goes towards finding a cure for cancer.

An afternoon of drinking + new friends + a good cause in Westport?  She didn't have to twist my arm!  Happily, I agreed.  Not having any inclination that is where I'd meet my future husband!

As the pub crawl neared, we realized that it was the same day as our high school's graduation.  Since it was my first year and I had only a handful of seniors, I decided to skip graduation and continue with the original pub crawl plan.  Allison, however, decided to bow out and attend graduation.  Because I knew the other girl, Lindsay, pretty well, I had no reservations about doing the pub crawl without Allison.  Though I could have easily backed out with the excuse of graduation, something told me I needed to continue on with the original plan.

May 17, 2008 turned out to be a perfectly gorgeous, warm, summer-like day.  Near 80 degrees, bright blue skies, and sunny.  The kind of spring day you long for after a long and dreadful winter.  We met at Lindsay's apartment near Westport for some pre-drinking pizza.  I knew two other girls in a room of about 12 people.

As I was scarfing down my pizza, Craig introduced himself.  I barely remember the specifics, but his initial reaction of me was that I was 'stuck up'.  Hahaha!!!  I totally didn't mean to be, but I know I can come off that way.  I'm just very shy around new people and have a hard time striking up good conversation until I feel comfortable around someone.  He claims I gave one-word answers to his questions and didn't at all reciprocate in the conversation.  Sounds about right, especially considering I was eating my lunch.  Girl likes her food!

It should also be mentioned that Craig only knew a couple of other guys on our team, as well.  A few days prior, a softball teammate of Craig's (and one of Lindsay's guy friends) mentioned that his Crawl for Cancer team had a few empty spots to fill.  Since Craig is a pretty big fan of beer, he thought "Why not!"

Around 1:00 that afternoon, we headed to our first bar.  The afternoon consisted of lots of beer, bars, and flippy cup competitions.  As is always the case, the more beer I drank, the less shy I became.  And despite many of our team members not knowing each other beforehand, I think it's safe to say we all felt pretty comfortable with each other after just a few hours.

Here is our team at Harpo's after a mean game of flippy cup.  Did I mention the day was just plain gorgeous??


Here are the lone girls on our team.  (And Craig, being Craig, in the background.)


This was a few hours in.  It's mildly inappropriate, but much better than some other pictures I took that day...


And finally, Craig and my first photo together!  Ahhhhhhhh.... :)


After drinking since around noon that day, I had my friend Erica come pick me up around 8pm.  I would have loved to stay out, but my stomach (and my brain) knew better.  Good things never come from drinking for more than eight hours in a day.

Since I crashed so early that night, I was up the very next morning at 7am.  With a smile on my face, I couldn't quit thinking about all the fun I had the day before.  I was so thankful I stuck to my original plan and went on that pub crawl.  I knew I liked this Craig guy...and I got the impression that feelings were mutual...but quite honestly, I didn't know if I'd ever hear from him again.  Especially since I didn't have his phone number and I went home at 8pm the night before (I'm sure he thought "LOSER!").

Lucky for us, our team started group emailing pictures and funny stories from the crawl.  Since Craig and I both had Gmail (and Gmail has a chat feature), we started chatting.  We exchanged phone numbers and the rest is history.

Actually, not really!  He asked if I wanted to hang out sometime.  I said yes, but my parents were in town for a week.  He thought it was a cop out and my way of turning him down without actually turning him down.  A few days later, on June 2, after my parents had gone, I texted him and asked if he was still up for hanging out.  That night we went to Johnny's on K10.  Again, I barely remember this, but he says after one beer, the waitress asked if I wanted another and I said no.  Craig took that as a hint that I was uninterested and ready to go home.  Clearly, I give out wrong signals!

And that is the story of how we met and started dating!  Not exactly through a mutual friend, but through a chain of mutual friends.  And not exactly at a bar, but sort of at a bar.  And not exactly online, but Craig likes to tell people that.  Because, really, if it weren't for our group emails and G-chat, we probably never would have spoken to each other again.

There haven't been many days since June 2, 2008 that we haven't been together.  Oddly enough, we both lived in Lenexa, a mere few miles away from each other!!  (And now it's weird that we're moving back to Lenexa!)

A month after we started dating, we spontaneously went to St. Louis for the 4th of July.





And then later that month, he met my parents in the Ozarks.

First trip to the Lake!

(I had already met his in June, a few weeks after we started dating.)

In Wichita for the first time.  Ummm....look how similar we are!

It all seems crazy now, but I guess when you know, you just know!  In fact, we were at my apartment swimming pool about three weeks into our relationship when I asked Craig if he thought we were going to get married!  I remember it like it was yesterday!  Pretty gutsy, I was, huh?  But I just knew, and I also knew based on our connection that he knew as well.  And I knew that asking that wouldn't freak him out in the least bit!  He just laughed and said, "I don't know, do you?!"

Not a picture at my pool, but a photo from our first summer dating nonetheless!


Ten months later we bought a house.  (Well, he closed on it alone, but I was very much involved in picking it out.  We didn't want to get ahead of ourselves or jinx anything by putting my name on the mortgage when we were still just dating.)




Four months later, we got engaged.  I blogged all about that here.



And 11 months later, we tied the knot!  Here we are out our wedding rehearsal.


And our wedding.


And a few more pre-blog/pre-marriage photos.  Because it's always fun to look back!

First few weeks of dating | June 2008
Summer 2008


Jack Johnson concert | August 2008

Boulevard Brewery Tour | August 2008
 
First Iowa football game | August 2008

First trip to the pumpkin patch | October 2008
 
First Halloween | October 2008

The day we got Kinnick | December 2008

First NYE | December 2008
 
Random night out | March 2009

A friend and future groomsman's wedding | June 2009

Our second 4th of July | July 2009

Second trip to the Lake | July 2009

KU Football Game | October 2009

Halloween | October 2009

Trip to Colorado | November 2009

Not our first Christmas, but the first time we spent December 25 together | December 2009

NYE - My famous quote, "We're getting married this year!!!" | December 2009

And for the record, we organized a team and participated in Crawl for Cancer two times since that glorious day that we met!  Although neither time quite lived up to the original, both were great times reminiscing of that special day back in 2008.

C4C 2010
C4C 2011

So there's my Show and Tell Tuesday.........on a Wednesday. :)  Here are the rest of the topics.  Maybe I'll participate, maybe I won't!


Linking up with Momfessionals

 

Monster Trucks with Daddy

Last weekend, Craig took Brantley to the Monster Truck show with some co-workers and their kids. Fine by me, that's about the last outing I'd be interested in attending and it gave me some one-on-one time with Holden!

He bought Brantley some headphones and prepped him for the loud trucks the few days leading up to the show. They even watched YouTube video after video in preparation for the show. And then I think Craig got nervous when Brantley mentioned that the big trucks were "scary". But low and behold, he loved the show! He came home and told me about Grave Digger and Scooby Doo and the other big trucks that went "high in the sky"! Sounds awesome, huh?

Being the good husbandhe is, Craig snapped a few photos for me and the ole blog. How cute is this kid in his headphones and coordinating shirt? Totally unplanned, by the way!

I think Brantley has high hopes of going back to see the monster trucks again next year! And perhaps Holden can go, too, and they can make it a yearly tradition? Mama wouldn't mind. Nope, she wouldn't mind that, at all... :)



Fanfest



This is always a boring time of year, in my opinion.  For a girl, I'm a pretty big lover of sports, but my love of basketball is basically non-existent in comparison to my love of baseball and football.  I blame my alma mater for my lack of interest, as they had such a poor basketball program while I was in school that I just never got into it.  But that's beside the point.

My point is, it's always around this time of year that I'm really itching for the start of baseball season.  So when I found out Royal's Fanfest was scheduled for the last weekend in January, I put it on our calendar and we headed to Bartle Hall!  Coming off of an amazing post-season run and being one run away from World Series champions, this city is pretty die-hard right now.  And it was obvious upon walking into the pre-season celebration.

Fanfest was...well, kind of like it sounds.  A festival for fans.  Lots of advertising (read: free crap), some interactive activities for kiddos, t.v.s blaring the postseason highlights (which was pretty cool!), and then there were the players.  The lines to meet the players were redic, so we made due with the cardboard cut-outs.

I've always loved me some Alex Gordon...


And the boys next to Hosmer.




Brantley loved running the "bases".  We waited in line over and over again for his turn.  It was pretty cute, if I do say so myself!







Since we didn't meet any of the players, our highlight was most definitely meeting the next best thing: Slugger!  We saw him as we were getting ready to leave, so we made a beeline for the Slugger photo line! Brantley adores Slugger and yells, screams, and laughs in excitement each time he sees him on t.v.  So to say I was excited when I spotted Slugger would be an understatement.  However, the pictures...well, they are kind of weird.  Craig asked Slugger if he'd hold Holden, but Slugger thought he meant Brantley, so then he held both boys and well, it just looks awkward.  We even debated going back for round two, but didn't want to be those crazy parents.  



So although the festival was just okay and probably not worth the $14 we paid per ticket, it was still a decent wintertime outing.

In other Royals news, we booked a Spring Break trip to Arizona for Royal's Spring Training in December.  We found an amazing, seemingly-kid-friendly resort (with a waterpark) and we were so excited to sneak away to some warm weather and enjoy a couple of pre-season Royal's games. Unbeknownst to us, in the meantime we would list our house, sell our house, sign a contract on a new house, and close just 11 days prior to leaving for our trip.  So low and behold, and against every bone in our body that wanted to go, we knew better and cancelled our trip.  We didn't want to miss the opportunity of a week off of work to unpack and organize our new home, when we can always plan a new vacation next year.