Happy Birthday Steven!

I can't believe my little baby turned one yesterday!! Both TJ and I don not feel like we've had him for that long... Time flies when you're having fun! We decided to have a little party for him with a few of our friends and it was so much fun! We had pizza,

opened presents,

and ate cake! He pretty much inhaled it.

He was being pretty grumpy, though, and wouldn't let anyone else hold him. Every time they tried, he would start crying, and sometimes he would just start for no reason.

Still, it was tons of fun!

We are so lucky to have great friends that came to show their love for steven! Ty and Kami,

America and Tyler,

and (not pictured because they had to leave a little early)Katie and Mckay.

Happy Birthday Steven!!! We're so lucky to have him in our family. He brings so much joy into our lives and we just love him more than I thought was possible.

Most Favorite/Least Favorite

Every night at dinner at the Christopherson house, everyone gets asked what their most favorite and least favorite thing was that happened that day. I wanted to do that for my trip. Since I was there for 10 days, though, I think it's only fair that I'm not limited to just one thing in each area.

Most Favorite - My new nephew!! Henry Atticus Christopherson is just the cutest little guy. His first week and a half in his new home was mostly spent sleeping, but when he did open his eyes, he always looked very skeptical of this new, bright world. I loved being reminded of what new babies are like :)

Most Favorite - Nieces/cousins. Spending time with Juniper and Olive, Jennie's two daughters was great. I got to take them to school and pick them up almost every day. Some days were a little challenging, but I definitely had lots of time to bond with them. So did Steven! And this video proves it...

Most Favorite - The beach!! It was especially great to be able to take Steven there and let him play around. Hopefully he'll learn to love it as much as his mom.

Most Favorite - The playground. I went there with Junie and Steven and it was so fun! It was such a nice area and such a nice day! There weren't any wood chips or anything for Steven to put in his mouth, so it was perfect for him. And I got to introduce him to the slide which he loved!

There were, however, a few not so favorite things that happened.

Least Favorite - Throw-up. Everyone in the house (accept Henry, thankfully) got sick at one time or another. Luckily Steven and I weren't sick at the same time, and it was only a 24-hour thing. It was my first time dealing with Steven throwing-up, though, and that was not so pleasant. The first time he threw up all over the rug, himself, and me right before church. (You would never guess that was about to happen in about five minutes following this picture)

That night he threw up all over his crib. I only had to scrub the throw-up out the of the latter (you're the best, Cody!!) but I think it's safe to say that was my least favorite thing. It might have even been worse than throwing up myself, which came a couple days later.

Least Favorite - Pulling hair. Steven decided pulling hair was his favorite past time, especially Olive's beautiful blond curls. This made it almost impossible to keep them next to each other (like in a stroller) or to really let him around her at all unsupervised.

Least Favorite - Driving home. The drive there was really not as bad as I thought it would be, even going on about 4 hours of sleep. We made good time and Steven was really not that unhappy. The drive home, however, was filled with taking the long way, getting lost, taking an even longer way, getting a ticket, crying, Steven having a huge blowout, and finally getting home at 3 am. No bueno.

Overall, though, it was pretty much just an awesome trip all around. I loved being able to spend time with my sister and Cody, too!

11 Months

I'm not really sure when Steven turned 11 months, but it happened sometime in the last week :) He's doing great, and is such a happy guy, especially when he's around people besides us. I can tell he's going to be quite the social butterfly. Something that I'm sure has contributed to him having some not so happy moments recently is the fact that he has 4 teeth coming in right now. Poor guy! He loves to play with our cell phones, and seems to know a lot about them already! As I was importing some pictures from my phone the other day I discovered this one...

I'm not even sure how to take these on-screen shots, but apparently Steven does! He's getting closer to being able to stand up on his own, but doesn't seem in a huge hurry to conquer that milestone.

He also has starting doing some other cute things. When he gets really excited (or if I do it first) he scrunches up his nose and breathes really fast through it. It kind of reminds me of something that my family used to do (I can't remember why... I guess it was an inside joke I was somehow never a part of)

Also, just today when we were taking his pictures, we were trying to figure out the best way to pose him and discovered the rocking chair worked well. We also discovered he likes rocking in it. Now, there have been a few injuries in my family that I know of involving rocking chairs, so I don't plan on letting him do this often, but it was still cute.

Trip

I just got back from a trip to IL for a few days. It wasn't the happiest of reasons to go home (my Grandma passed away), but as always, it was great to see my family. All of my sibling came except for Jennie (who is due on the 12th, so that would not have been a good idea!) and we also go to see Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. It was great! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so I just took a few pictures/videos with my phone. Everyone loved Steven. It was really great to have him there. I was a little unsure if a funeral was the best place for a baby, and though it was hard to keep him quiet all the time, he brought a lot of joy to an otherwise very sad situation. It was impossible for people not to smile at him, and he always smiles back. He started reaching for everyone when he was being held, and ended up just being passed around between everyone. I really got a break because everyone was so great and helped take care of him. Anyway, I wish I would have taken more pictures/videos, but this first one is of Hillary playing with him at my Grandma's house. I just thought it was super cute :)

This next one is of Steven with my Uncle Perry. He had just been doing his Donald Duck voice, which Steven loved, but I didn't catch it. I still thought this was precious, though.

The flight there and back were a little difficult, however. On the flight there, Steven was pretty happy most of the time, but didn't sleep at all. That was no good, since we didn't get into St Louis until 11:45. The night before the flight back, Kelly and PJ were nice enough to let us stay with them so we didn't have to wake up so early, but I still had to wake Steven up before 6, which he didn't love. Once we got on the plane, I started thinking a replica of the flight there wouldn't be so bad. I wasn't that lucky. Steven was really unhappy and I could tell he was just exhausted. Unfortunately, Steven will almost never fall asleep with me holding him. So instead, he screamed for probably 45 mins straight. I didn't want him to disturb the entire plane, so I put my hand over his mouth a lot to try and muffle the sound. I'm sure that didn't sound very good either, though. Finally, after 45 mins of him screaming, me rocking back and forth and trying everything I could think of to comfort him, he finally wore himself out. With him looking like this, I almost forgot what a terror he had been just a few mins before.

At that point, he luckily slept for almost the rest of the flight, and was much happier when he woke up.

Overall, it was a really good trip. Pretty exhausting both physically and emotionally, but good.

Steven's favorite things

Here are some of Steven's favorite things:

He LOVES eating. All the time. In fact, he is so impatient when it comes to eating. In between every bite, he basically yells at me. He also can't stand it when we're eating and he's not, even if I just fed him. So, we give him whatever we have. Once, it happened to be a pickle. He didn't seem to mind at all.

He also loves the bath/shower. Recently, I realized that it was much easier to just bring him in the shower with me than trying to shower while he was napping (since that usually wakes him up for some reason). I found out that he loves it and so does double duty in letting me shower and keeping him very happy. Also, I've come up with a system where after I get out, I fill up the bath and let him play while I get ready. It works great! I think his favorite thing to do is pull everything off of the side, into the tub, and then splash a lot.

Steven loves making a clicking sound. Every time he's unhappy and I make that sounds, he smiles so big and gives me this look like, "finally! you're speaking my language" and then he always makes the sound back to me. In fact, I was watching this video on my phone earlier and he heard himself making the noise, and so from the back seat of the car, he started clicking too :)

Last of all, Steven loves being read to! He especially loves it when TJ reads because he does it in a much more entertaining way than I do...

Me stuff

So I don't love doing posts about me... before I had Steven, I had a really hard time finding things to blog about. Anyway, there are a couple of things I wanted to post, though, that are basically just about me. So, bear with me...

First of all, when I was visiting my sister over christmas, she re-taught me how to knit. It was great! I loved doing it, and this is the finished product! Sorry about the weird pictures... it was really hard to take pictures of myself.

This next thing isn't so much about me, I guess. My sister Jennie, knowing my love of scarves, made me this for christmas. I love it! She wanted me to take some pictures for her to put up on her blog (shapeofaspoon.blogspot.com - check it out! It's awesome) and so I thought I'd put them up on here too.

10 Months

Only two more months till Steven is a year old! It's happening so fast! I keep looking at pictures of him when he was first born and I can't believe how much he has grown! It just makes me so excited to see what he will become. One thing I really miss about when he was really little was when he used to snuggle with me. He doesn't do it very often anymore, but every once in a while, when he's really tired, he still snuggles, and I love it.

Anyway, here are some pictures we took... We tried putting some gel in his hair and it made it really curly. We thought it was so cute!! So, we might have gone a little overboard with the pictures