Happy Birthday Aaron!!

One year ago, on December 21 at 10:15 pm Aaron Howard Herring was born. Yes, my Chubbs is a year old!

My sweet little angel babycakes! (sigh) I can't believe it.

Well, Aaron had his birthday party on Saturday at his great aunt & uncle's house. The entire Herring clan was there and a few close friends who were kind enough to sit through a 1 year old's birthday party! Aaron had an Elmo themed birthday party and got his own mini birthday cake. He opened up a few of his own gifts and mostly liked the wrapping (LOL) but loved the Mickey Mouse card he got from my friends Sara & Tom and he loved Grandpa & Grandma's rocker/tricycle toy they got him. When he got home, we took out a few more toys and he really likes the puppy on a string that his aunties Calena & Melanie got him too! He pulls it towards him and laughs!

Aaron will have his 1 year doctor's appointment sometime next week, so I can only guess his weight is around 28 lbs. He has 8 full teeth (4 on top, 4 on bottom) and his bottom 2 molars are halfway out and they top eye teeth are just starting to poke out. He always seems to get several teeth at once! Lucky us!!

He fully crawls now, pulls himself up on his own, walks from one piece of furniture to the next on his own by holding on to them, and he still loves foooooood. Right now he's drinking about 3 bottles a day and 2 solid meals. He loves Cheerios and has recently been introduced to Ritz Crackers (which bring a smile to his face) and plain pasta noodles. He still LOVES his YoBaby yogurt too.

Right now we're not buying anything smaller than 18 months in clothing for him and the Nowali moccasins are still the best things for his feet!

We saved a few gifts from his birthday party to open on his actual birthday so tonight, while watching Chicka on Sprout wish happy birthday to the viewers (we sent his name in!) we're going to open a few more gifts.

A few days ago he got his first professional haircut at this place that specializes in infant/kid hair and he did great! But now with his new haircut he looks even more like a little boy and less and less like little baby! I can't believe he's ONE!

The next celebration is obviously Christmas. That will be a post (or two) on it's own!

But here's my little angel babycakes today-- ONE YEAR OLD. Happy Birthday Sweetness. Mommy and daddy love you more than anything, ever. :)

(That his chocolate frosting all over his face and harms and MY hands from his birthday cake!)

11 months old!

My Chubbs is 11 months old! Can you believe it? The countdown to 1 has begun! I'm already thinking of scheduling a 1 year photo and what theme his party will be. He loves Elmo and Mickey Mouse so that's pretty narrowed down. :)

I've gotten a few inquires already (I'm guessing since the bday and Christmas are coming up) on his sizes and likes. So here it goes:

Aaron is currently in 18-22 month year old clothing. He runs warm like me so keep that in mind. He can't fit shoes because he's feet are too fat so he wears socks or I've found these Nowali moccasins that work perfectly in size 12 months (or 21-22 in Swedish sizes).

He wears size 5 in Pampers diapers (he gets a weird skin rash if we use another brand) and he's really into Mickey and Elmo. He can always use pants (elastic waist is best) because he seems to outgrow those first.

He has TONS of blankets so he doesn't need those. As far as toys go, we'd love for him to have a lot of toys, but we just don't have the room right now, especially for the big stuff. What would really be nice actually is a toy chest. Something softer or made of plastic so that if he bumps his head on it, the injury won't be that bad!

Aaron is pulling himself up now, standing with only one hand gripping onto something, crawling, army crawling and occasionally, still rolling. He's learned to shriek now, which is awesome (not) but he's totally cute so I guess I'll over look it. He still loves his bath time (if you'd like to see a bath time video and you're on You Tube, let me know) and he still uses the bouncer occasionally.

I'm planning on having a small birthday for him at aunt Kathy's but I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures, of course!

I hope you're all doing well and that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Aaron's pics from Thanksgiving are up on my Flickr site!

Attention People! My son is a genius!

Hola folks! So there have been a few developments lately that I thought I'd share (especially since I have not written ONE word in his baby book and need to remember this stuff some how). Aaron just recently started getting up on all fours and doing that rocking back and forth motion -- well, the other day he actually crawled! He only did 3 or 4 moves forward before he fell flat on his belly, but he actually crawled on all fours! It was fantastic! Since then he throws in a crawl here in there in between his current method of movement - the army crawl. He's moving pretty fast and I'm sure he'll be fulling crawling in no time. ;)

Aaron also had 3 full teeth on the bottom and now you can make that 3.5 and another one on the way towards the back! He's already got 4 full teeth on top too. Unfortunately, though he had no real symptoms when he was first teething except for crankiness galore, he is definitely showing physical symptoms this time around. His tummy is NOT doing well. Poor baby.

Which kind of relates to my next development - Since his tummy isn't that great, his little bum is suffering and my mom (who is visiting to help out while Josh gets used to his new job schedule) let Aaron go diaper free for awhile to "air out". I guess after about 20 minutes she decided to take him over to the toilet and see if he'd go to the bathroom. She held him on the toilet and asked him to go pee-pee and he had a little drop. So she asked him again and instead of peeing, he pooped! He pooped in the toilet! And then he peed which went all over the floor because he was in a sitting position and, well, he's a boy! But YES, my 10 month old boy peed and pooed in the toilet. GENIUS! Then apparently he reached for the toilet paper. No joke! I mean, he sees me do it all the time, so I guess he figured he was supposed to do it too! My mom tells me that her and her sisters used to take my uncle Anthony when he was 5 months old to pee and poo in the toilet and he would do it! Crazy stuff if you ask me! But genius!

PS - can you believe he's almost one year old!!? It's insane. More updates to come!

Aaron's First Pumpkin Carving

There are just way too many cute pictures of the pumpkin carving to post, but I love this first one so here it is! I had Josh carve a pumpkin for Aaron last weekend (all the pics are posted on my Flickr site) and Aaron was VERY interested in the pumpkin guts, of course. I think it was probably most fun for me because it's so fun to watch him experience new things and to learn about new things. Plus, he was half naked and half naked babies are always adorable!

In development news, Aaron started army crawling his way around instead of just rolling. And he can actually get on all fours and rock back and fourth, but no actual crawling on his hands and knees. And unfortunately, he's figured out how to open the dog cage. Yay! for being smart, boo! for getting in trouble. He's a little stinker already. He'll do something he knows he shouldn't be doing -- for example I have the stack of magazines on the bottom shelf of a side table and he always goes for them because he likes to tear them up. Well, we tell him "NO" when he does that and we move him away from the magazines. But he'll get back over there and touch the magazines with one hand and hold it there while he looks back at me! Then I say "no Aaron, those are mommies" and he takes his hand off, then immediately puts it back and looks at me again but with this little smile in his eyes. YEAH - a little trouble maker already! Geesh - what am I in for?

Anywho, his mistake of a haircut is looking a little better and most people are nice about it, saying they like it (psha, right!). Other than that, he's doing well! My Chubbas!

Wishing you all a Happy Halloween!

The Pumpkin Prowl! (A picture post)

Aaron being very patient, waiting for me to put his costume on.

Costume on, check out his new trick or treat bag.

Welcome to the Woodland Zoo's Pumpkin Prowl!

Josh & Aaron checking out some cool pumpkins.


Aaron checking out the little witches on my headband instead of looking at the pumpkins!


Family photo. Notice Josh & Aaron look spent. Not me - I love Halloween!


Aaron at home on the floor getting all his new found energy out before bed time!


I just had to mention the cool Vans I have. They match Aaron's outfit perfectly!

More Halloween themed photos to come!

Gap Casting Call

Ok, I know I already posted one today, but I really want to see if Aaron can win this!

I entered Aaron in the Gap Casting Call Contest and I need your help! Please go to the Gap Casting Call Website and vote for Aaron. His ID number is 678332615 and he's under the category "Baby Boy".

Yes, you'll have to register to vote, but do it for us! We'll love you forever!



Thanks!!!

P.S. - In case you're reading this Gap people - I love the Gap. Always been one of my favorite stores and I'm also a proud ex-Gap employee! WOOT! And I'm done whoring.....

Warning: If you let me cut your child's hair he'll end up looking like Llyod Christmas from Dumb & Dumber

Ok, seriously..... Don't ever let me cut Aaron's again. He went from having his sweet little naturally emo haircut:


to the Lloyd Christmas Dumb & Dumber haircut:




I'm pretty sure this might make me a horrible mother. Josh made fun of it for days. Needless to say, Aaron will be wearing hats for awhile. Poor kid (sigh).

Well besides the terrible haircut, Aaron has begun teething again and he's got good days and then very bad, awful, no-good days. We're doing all the things we're supposed to.... but mostly it's the waking up at 3 or 4 am that is driving me insane. I went from drinking an occasional cup of coffee to 1-2 cups a day.

On a different note, we went to our first "social function" together --- A wedding! My friend Sara got married this past weekend and we took Aaron. He did really well which was awesome. And pretty much everyone thought he was adorable, including the photographer! I'm sure he's gonna be in like, half the photos! I hope Sara won't mind! I took a few photos myself and they are up on Flickr.

In development news, Aaron rolls around everywhere and now he can get on his hands and knees and rock back and forth but usually ends up launching himself backwards instead of forward. He'll get it soon though, I'm sure! And just the other day, he pulled himself up in his crib all by himself! NO help from mom or dad whatsoever! He's still saying the "dadada"s and "bababa"s and occasionally the "mamama"s (which is strange because he started off with "mama", but whatever). And we're pretty sure he tries to say doggy too. It's funny because he knows Ulrich's name. So anytime I say Ulrich, he looks for the dog.

Other than that, everything is going well. We are looking forward to Aaron's first Halloween and plan to go to the Pumpkin Prowl at the Zoo. ;)

Hope all is well with you! More updates to come soon.