A Year In the Life of Davis

Happy birthday Davis!!  I know Davis turned one almost an entire month ago but this has been such a busy month that I haven't had time to really sit down and write about where he right now.  We took him to his 12 month appointment a few weeks ago and he weighed 21 lbs (25%) and was 30 1/4" tall (75%).  I looked at Harrison's growth charts and he weighed 19.8 lbs and was also 30 1/4", so they are almost exactly the same in terms of height and weight!  They each have their own look, but it will be fun to see if they continue to stay in the growth patterns. 

I know every mother says this, but I just can't believe how fast time flies by, especially with the second child!  I am just not ready to not have a baby in the house anymore, but I think my days are numbered.  Davis is picking up new skills everyday, the most recent is walking!  He has taken a step here and there for about a month or two now, but in the past few weeks, I have seen him really try.  I think its only a matter of a few days before he is really off!  He is so funny, because for a while now, he has preferred to "walk" on his knees.  He will stand up on his knees and inch across the room to what he wants. 

 I love that each child always finds his/her own way of getting to where they need to go!
A few things that Davis is into lately:

*ANYTHING that his big brother is doing.  This is nice sometimes when they will play nicely together, but can also be hard because Harrison doesn't want his brother invading his space all of the time

*Cabinets, cabinets, cabinets!  My counters have been a mess lately because he pulls out everything that he sees from all of the cabinets that are within his reach.  I only have 2 cabinets in the house that are baby-proofed, so I am having to rearrange everything that could either break, suffocate him, cut him, etc.
*When he is not getting into cabinets, he is trying to climb the stairs!  He is actually quite good at them, but it still scares me.  I have a gate at the bottom of the stairs but Harrison knows how to take it down.  This is nice when Harrison needs to get upstairs and I am busy in another room.  This is bad when I'm busy in another room and Harrison takes it down quietly enough that I can't hear him, so that he and Davis can play on the stairs.
*  Imitating - Davis loves to imitate what we are doing now, which I love.  He tries to put sunglasses on, tries to talk on my phone, tries to play peek-a-boo, etc.  Its fun to watch him because you can tell he really studies Harrison when he is playing.  He tries to drive his cars on his race track just like Harrison, etc.  He is usually awake for about an hour before Harrison wakes up from his afternoon nap.  This is nice because he has a little bit of time to play with ANY toy that he wants without someone taking it away from him.  Its always fun to me to see what he goes for when is brother isn't around!
*  Drumming - I think he gets this from Lance.  He loves to pat things as if he is playing the drums.  Anything he touches he likes to pat.  Lance has always wanted to play the drums and would be very good if he had the chance, so maybe Davis can fulfill his dream.
*  "Bububububu" - he loves to make that noise where he moves his lips up and down with his fingers to make that funny sound (I cannot for the life of me think of how else to explain this).  He learned this cool trick from his friend James.  He does this all the time now - so cute.
*  He is turning out to be a great sleeper which is nice - he takes a 2 hr + morning nap, about a 1.5 hr afternoon nap and sleeps about 12 hrs at night which is so nice!  He is still a light sleeper, but he is such a happy little guy.  I have to attribute some of this to how well he sleeps.
*  He is funny because he is either very serious, especially around new people - he likes to scope everyone out, or he can be very smiley.  His happy, silly personality really comes out when we are just hanging out at home.  He gets tickled at a lot of things - mostly things that involve his brother.

I also was behind on planning his birthday party but we finally celebrated this weekend with some family.  We just had a small family party at our house and it was nice because it wasn't quite so overwhelming.  My parents, my sister Julie's family, Lance's parents and his cousin Hunter came with his girlfriend Ellen.  In the past, Lance has made all of Harrison's birthday cakes, so he kept up the tradition and made a beautiful cake for Davis.  Since his birthday was on the fourth of July, we did a red, white and blue theme and Lance put together a flag cake.  I seriously think he missed his calling!

 

Harrison was such a big helper and showed Davis how to blow out his candle...

I think its safe to say that he liked it...

Grandmommy and Granddaddy Koeppe were so excited to get to help celebrate...

and so were Grandma and Granddaddy Randolph

Harrison was so excited to get to hang out with his cousins, it was all he talked about all week.  Say cheese!!!!

I wish I would have thought to take a few more pictures of the group, but we thank everyone who was able to help us celebrate Davis' big day!  Happy birthday to our sweet boy, we love you and can't wait to see what this next year has in store for you!!

And we're off!

I wouldn't officially call him a walker yet but he sure could be if he wanted to! I finally caught a video of him in action. He has seemed much more interested in trying to learn this week!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tennis Camp

I got an email from the Kennesaw Parks & Recreation dept saying that they still had some summer camps open for kids.  I really did mean to sign Harrison up for a camp or two this summer, but I completely slacked and never ended up signing him up.  So, this email came at a great time, because I have been looking for something fun for him to do.  I noticed that they had a "munchkin tennis camp" for 3 - 6 yr olds and I thought he would love it!  This is his first official lesson of any sport, so it was fun to watch him this morning.  There were about 5 kids in his lesson, so he seemed to get bored when the other kids were taking their turns, but overall I think he did very well.  They had the kids balance a tennis ball on their racquet and they practiced hitting over the net, while standing right in front of it.  It  was so cute to watch him!

Most of the kids were pretty quiet during the lesson, but I could hear Harrison talking the entire time to the teachers.  When he wasn't talking to them, he was yelling to me, "Mom!  Are you watching me??  Wait till you see me hit this ball!!  Mom, keep watching okay??  Mom, I just found a penny, want to see??..."  So cute, it was hard not to laugh.  I had to just keep telling him to try to pay attention and listen.  Its only a 3 day camp, for 45 minutes each day, but I hope the next two days go as well as today!

From shakes to popsicles...

This was one of those days where I felt like things just kept getting spilled and the kids kept making a mess, which oddly enough, made me laugh more than it made me want to scream. ha! 
It started when Harrison woke up this morning and he wanted to have a vanilla milk shake like me (ie protein shake), so I put some in a small cup for him.  He is usually very good about not spilling, so I didn't think twice about it.  After I made it, I walked into the family room and sat down on the couch to look through my email.  A few minutes later, Harrison walked in to tell me that Davis had some shake on his face.  I said, "how did he get shake on his face??"  He said, "He was trying to drink my shake off the floor"  eewww!  Thank goodness I actually mopped yesterday!!  I'm not sure if you can see very well in the picture, but he had shake all over his face.  I'm still not sure if Harrison spilled his drink or if he intentionally poured it on the ground for Davis.  Not sure I want the answer either!

It ended when I told Harrison that he could have a chocolate popsicle that I made for him a few days ago.  I started eating one as well and Davis freaked out because he wanted one too, so I gave him mine.  I think I went through 20 wipes trying to contain his mess which looked like this...

He had such a serious look on his face because he did not trust me...he would scream to the point of shaking when I would periodically take it out of his hands to clean off his fingers.  Poor guy, just wanted to finish his popsicle!

In The Summertime When the Weather is Fine...

...you can stretch right up and touch the sky...One of my favorite summertime songs to sing and I feel like I sing it in my head all summer long.  I was definitely singing it to myself 2 weeks ago when our dear friends the Nesmiths invited us on a last minute trip to go to Kiawah Island with them.  I mean, how could I say no, right??  Kiera went a few days early to visit her parents so I picked up Lance and Brad from Home Depot on Friday afternoon and off we went to the beach!  We had such a great trip, and Brad's parents were so gracious to let us intrude on their quiet abode!  I was not the best at taking pictures, but thanks to my iPhone, I was able to get a few.  We only had a few days, but I feel like we made the most of the days that we were there.  The house where we stayed was just about a 2 minute drive to the pool and beach which made it easy to get back and forth with the kiddies.
We made it to Kiawah fairly late on Friday night and Kiera drove in on Saturday so we met her down in the little town for some coffee and a bloody mary.  It was just so picturesque and serene and wonderful - I felt like I was in the middle of a movie set.  After getting settled and doing a little grocery shopping, we took the kids down to the beach.  As many of you know, Harrison had a rough  time on his first beach trip, but at this point in time, you would never know it.  He was playing in the ocean and the sand like a champ.  The best part about the atlantic beach, come to find out, is that the sand is really packed down. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the gulf, but it was so nice that I could sit Davis down and he could crawl around and play.  The other nice thing was that the ocean was very warm so Davis and James just sat in the water and splashed and played without thinking twice.
Mary and Harrison liked having the daddies take them to the beach on the bikes - oh the life of a 3 year old!...I think Mary was a little freaked out by Harrison and his "silly faces" that he likes to make all day!

In heaven -

I'm not sure what this stuff is, but it tastes great!

Harrison and Mary loved splashing around in the water, but Harrison was super excited about the ice cream man that drove down the beach!  He was actually telling his doctor about it today at Davis' check-up.  So funny, the things they remember...

James and Davis splashing around in the ocean.  The water was very shallow near the shore so the boys had a blast just splashing and eating sand...

The kids also had fun playing in the pool.  This was so cute b/c we put James in the float and Davis just pushed him all around the baby pool. (not sure why this picture is coming up so small??)
We ended up going out to dinner one of the nights, to a pizza place in the little town area and we met up with some of the Nesmith's friends who have kids the same age as Mary and James.  After dinner, we let the kids run around the park and as you can tell, Harrison thoroughly enjoyed himself. 













 

 One of the mornings, we took turns getting to work out in the morning.  Kiera and Brad went for a run and Lance and I went for a bike ride.  About halfway through our ride, we noticed a lookout tower so we stopped to walk up to the top.  Later, come to find out, Brad let us know that was "make-out tower" - ha!

On Monday night we all went to a park on Kiawah where they had a big fourth of July party and fireworks.  We of course, told Davis that it was a big party that we planned for him! :)  Harrison actually had a fever all day but was such a trooper and made the most of it.  Right when we walked in, they had a big face painting tent, so Mary and Harrison both got fireworks painted on their cheeks.  This is one of Harrison's favorite things right now - he looks so focused!

Daddy and Davis waiting during the face painting...

I love this - I feel like they are saying "you are so funny", "No, you are so funny", "No, you are so funny"...

I thought Harrison would get his picture taken with this guy, but he got too nervous when we got up close...

Sweet brothers...

"Grrr, I just love you so much Davis"...

We bought some cupcakes so we could sing happy birthday to Davis on his big day.  To say that he liked the cupcake would be an understatement!

 Dig in birthday boy!

Yummmm!!

We were able to finally get a group shot at the end of the night.  Of course the fireworks started just as the guy took the picture!

 It was a beautiful ending to a wonderful day and a wonderful trip...

We had such a great time and many thanks again to Kiera and Brad for including us on the trip!