Joshua's Big News

Behold, the Christmas Tree

When we put the Christmas tree up a few weeks ago, Joshua was an instant fan. It was assembled while he was down for a nap, and when he woke up, it stopped him dead in his tracks, and got a "whooooaaaa" out of him. After that, every morning he had to present the Christmas tree to us. He would march out to the kitchen to where the tree is, and walk toward it with his arm outstretched and his palm up, as if to say, "behold, the glorious Christmas Tree!"

18 Month Update

Just wanted to update you all on our big guy... can't really call him a little guy anymore. Joshua went to the doctor for his 18 month well-baby check up, and we were amazed to find that he has grown almost 4 inches since his first birthday!!! He now stands at 34 3/4 inches (97%) and weighs in at about 25 lbs (40-50%). We couldn't get an exact weight, as Joshua is not a big fan of the doctor's office right now. He is scared of the scale, so in order to weigh him, they had to weigh mommy holding him, and then weigh mommy by herself (which mommy as SO happy about!) =) But he's still a tall and skinny dude. Everything else checked out perfectly. He's such a healthy kid, and we are very thankful for that.

One of his favorite activities is still stacking blocks. He is very meticulous about it, and can stack up to 12 at once, all by himself! He even will straighten parts of the stack that aren't exactly flush. His doctor said that he will be the one in all of the honors classes. =) If the whole NBA thing doesn't work out for him, he has a bright future in engineering. He also still really enjoys books, and we hope that this love is here to stay. His mommy and daddy were both big readers when they were younger, so we hope he will follow in our footsteps.

Spoon Master

Joshua has perfected the art of eating with a spoon...

Ho! Ho!... Im not so sure about this!

This week, Joshua went to get his picture taken with Santa. He was happy to see Santa, as long as Santa kept his distance. But Santa was nice enough to make room for Mommy on his chair so that we could all get our picture together. I think he was a little traumatized by Santa, since the rest of the afternoon and into the next day he was super cranky and clingy, but he's recovered now, and we got to begin to chronical Joshua's second Christmas season. Next year he should be a little more excited to see Santa. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Slip Slidin' Away

Joshua shows Mommy how he uses the slide all by himself.

Crackin' Up

Snackin and crackin... up

What's up with the J-Bird

Sorry yet again for the long gap in posts. But there is never a dull moment in the Maple house with the J-man around! He has really been cracking us up lately, and learning so many things. So here's what's up with the J-Bird over the last month...

Joshua is beginning to realize that his mouth can be used for more than shoving food into, and he has discovered some words... actually we think he is deciding to bypass single words all together, and go straight for sentences. His favorite thing to say is "Don't touch it." (Gee, where did he get that?) He also says "what is it?", as well as Copper, fishy, ma ma, da da, and he tries to say his own name. His teachers are amazed at how much he understands, and tell us that he is way ahead of the curve in that area for his age. It seems that everyday he is doing something new. You just never know what he's going to do next!

Joshua took his first trip to the zoo a few weeks ago, and had a blast. His favorite part was the petting zoo. He chose one goat that belonged to him. Whenever anyone else would want to pet "his" goat, he had to go make sure they were not going to take his goat away. As he gets older we're sure he will grow to really enjoy all parts of the zoo, as he really seems to love animals.

For Halloween, Joshua dressed as Superman, and was the cutest kid on the block! Our neighborhood was so festive... everyone got in on the fun. We had such a good time taking him trick-or-treating down the street, and meeting some neighbors we had not yet met. He was really getting the hang of trick-or-treating. After a few houses, he knew what to do, and would take off running for the front door once we were half way up the driveway.

Well, I guess that brings you up to speed on our little J-Monkey. Make sure you check out his photos!

Goofball

Where's My Nose?

Our little genius points out various body parts...

Hot Diggity Dog

Just a short clip of Joshua chowing down on a hot dog using a fork. Enjoy... he sure did!

Long time, no update

Well, life has been a little crazy these last few weeks, so the Maples sincerely apologize for slacking. On the Joshua front, the little man is full steam ahead in the walking department. He really decided he was completely done with crawling right after we moved into our new house. I think he loves the open space that we have now. Plenty of room to run around and places to hide and get in trouble (i.e., fireplace). He is also really starting to show us his silly side. He sits at the dinner table (no more highchair)and makes funny faces at us, just to get our reaction. He is able to identify many animals, and is great at following directions. He definitely has his stubborn streak (gee, where did he get that?), but most of the time makes good choices and does what he is asked to do.

Now that he has hit the big 0-1, he has been promoted into the big-boy classroom at daycare. He loves to participate in the activities with the other kids, like painting (more on him, the other kids and his teacher than on the canvas), blowing bubbles and dancing to music. He no longer sleeps in a crib, but on a little cot, and all of the kids eat together around these little round tables. Joshua took a few days to warm up to sleeping in a non-confined environment, but after a few days, he was back to normal, taking naps of more than an hour.

On the family front, for those of you who don't know, the Maples call a new house home. We moved into our "dream house" about 4 weeks ago. This is the same house (same floorplan, anyway) that we almost bought three years ago. It's a little bit bigger than our old house, has a HUGE back yard and the best part is.... its ONE STORY! It's an older house, so there are a few fixer-upper things, but that gives Andrew a chance to finally get all those tools dirty!

I suppose that is enough of a novel for now. We promise to try to be better about posting (Andrew has finally showed me how, so it's not all on him anymore.) So until next time...God bless!!!

Test

Video!

Our old digital camera died a few weeks ago (after we had squeezed a little over 4 years of life out of it). We missed out on a couple weeks of pictures, but our new camera has the capability to take decent video clips, and it is much easier to upload those instead of our video camera. I posted a cute clip of Joshua playing and running around, check out the link:

One Giant Leap For Mankind

Like Neil Armstrong on the moon, Joshua finally took one small step for man. Actually he took a whole bunch of little ones! Yes, the world as we know it is going to be forever changed. Our little J-Bird has finally figured out how to walk, and is slowly but surely finding out that he can use this newfound skill to take him places. On July 3rd, we bought one of those cheap rubber balls from Walmart, the kind that are about 2 feet tall, figuring that Joshua would love to push it around. Little did we know that it would be the motivation he needed to walk! We were rolling it back and forth, when he pulled himself up on it. He pushed it back over to me, and was left standing there, holding on to nothing, in the middle of the room. We gave him a little encouragement to come on over to the ball, and much to our surprise, he took 4 or 5 wobbly steps! Brenda and I both looked at each other like "Did you just see what I saw?!". He has done it plenty of times since then, with and without the ball, and is slowly but surely walking instead of crawling in some situations. What is so cool is that he is SO excited about being able to walk! He doesn't have this unsure, "oh crap" look on his face. No, he has this like of sheer joy, a bright beaming smile, laughing half the time. He loves it!

Birthday Party

Yup, I am finally writing about his birthday, a few weeks after it actually happened. Better late than never! We had his birthday at Gymboree Play and Music, and it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun! For those of you who don't know what that place is, it is pretty much an indoor playground for little ones. Indoor parties are pretty much a must when your birthday is in June in Arizona! In any case, all of the family was there, and lots of little ones too. All the kids ran around and wore themselves out for a good portion of the time, and they do lots of singing, dancing, and playing with different toys and bubbles. Cake was, uh, interesting. Joshua's aversion to all things mushy led to about 3 licks of frosting and thats about it. We tried a few times to get him to dig in and make a mess, but I think the feel of the frosting grossed him out or something, cuz he wasn't havin' it! The J-Man got a lot of great presents as well, and seems to like all of them.

Checkup

Joshua had his 12 month checkup on Thursday, and it went very well. He is still a little stringbean: 31 inches (90th percentile) and 19 lb 5 oz (5th percentile). But he is still gaining weight and growing taller, so they are not concerned at all, and neither are we. After all, Daddy is tall and skinny as well! The news that we are happiest about is that he does not have to take his iron supplements anymore!!! Apparently the numbers from his finger-prick test are good enough now that we don't need to give him his 2X a day supplement. He actually kind of enjoyed them I think, since every time we broke the dropper out he would open his mouth wide. Yes, our kid likes to take his vitamins =) We're happy because those little gray spots on his teeth caused by the iron will finally go away. However, we are going from one supplement to another. Instead of giving him cow's milk (since he is old enough now), the doc suggested that we give him either Pediasure, or whole milk mixed with Instant Breakfast. We'll try the Pediasure first, but we'll see how long our wallet will let us do that. On a sad note (at least for Joshua), he got three more shots; 1 in each arm, and 1 in the leg. But he took them like a trooper again, so lets hope any side effects are gone by party time on Saturday!

Here for a Year

The big day has come and gone, and Joshua Andrew Maple is now a one-year old. Yikes! Heaven knows where the past year has gone, but it has definitely been an amazing one, unlike any year we have ever had. A year ago today we were still sitting in a hospital, ready to go home, even though we had no idea what we would do once we got there. And now here we are, hardly experts at this, but definitely much more comfortable with it than a year ago. It all sort of comes by second nature now, although there always seem to be new things popping up that test your skills (and we haven't even reached the speaking stages yet!).

His birthday was a good one. We didn't do too much out of the ordinary on the actual day. Brenda took him to the mall to play on the indoor playground they have, and he went in a pet store for the first time. He says "ga-ga" in a distinct way when he sees doggies, and apparently he was very excited because he just kept shouting that over and over. He also had a warmup for his birthday party; we gave him a whole cupcake for the first time. He stared at it for about 15-30 seconds, then started leaning over and eating it without using his hands. Very cute. His birthday party is this coming Saturday and we are very excited. It will be at Gymboree, and in addition to family, there will also be 8-12 kids of varying ages there as well (most closer to his age). Should be fun!

Not a ton of developments over the past month. He still has no interest in walking, although occassionally in the backyard we can hold his hand and he will walk along side of us. If he really wanted to he totally could, but he's just so good at crawling that he has no interest in it. He is also becoming a somewhat picky eater, very picky about the textures. He loves crunchy food, probably because he has TWELVE teeth to use now. But getting the kid to eat fruits or meats is a test. He has begun to show us how smart he is. He knows where our tummys and toes are, knows what "put the binky in the crib" means, and in the past few days learned to tell us what sound a cow makes. Sure, he doesn't know what a cow is, but he knows what they sound like!

There are tons of new pictures on the web page, be sure to check those out. I will post again after his birthday party and will post pictures of that as well. Until next time...

11 Months!

Okay, so much for updating more often.

Physical - Still not walking! In fact, we think he is pretty content with crawling, since he does it so well. Why walk when you can fly around on all fours?! He can actually stand quite well on his own, until he notices that he is standing by himself, then he grabs for something to hold on to.

Health - Not sure what his weight is, since he doesn't have another weight check until his 1 year checkup, but he sure feels heavier. Either that or we are getting weaker. In other news, I think that we actually had an alligator. In our last update, he was working on tooth #9, a molar. #9 has barely broken through, and he is also working on #10 AND #11, both molars as well. So he is pretty much cutting THREE molars at once, and he is not enjoying it. At most times during the day he usually has 1 or 2 fingers in his mouth, he;s drooling like crazy, and he has been extra cranky (at least for him). No other health issues really... we were blessed with a very healthy kid.

Development - It seems like Joshua is doing something new everyday, and we are having so much fun with him right now. He has discovered that he has a tongue, and if you stick yours out at him, he will stick his right back. Just last weekend he discovered that he could clap while sitting in his high chair at Grandma B's. He doesn't really copycat clap, just does it randomly. He also LOVES to wave bye-bye, usually while going "ayaayaayaayaayaa". We do have a few words that we are pretty sure he means to say: "dada", "mama", "gaga" (we think this is Copper, because he says it and looks directly at her), and "HI!". Not "hi", but "HI!". Brenda also taught Joshua to blow kisses to people, which is very cute. He is rolling right along with the foods, and we think that he is getting tired of eating baby foods, because we are having to fight him more and more with them (although that could be a teething thing too). He loves to eat things big-boy style... a few of his favorites are pickles, waffles (a new discovery), Nilla Wafers, Club crackers, Zwieback toast, Cheerios, sometimes a Gerber meat stick. He's not so fond of fresh fruit yet, still kind of prefers that in a jar. But he loves his crunchy carbs!

Hopefully it won't take me another month to update. Until next time...

Update

Okay, so I am a slacker. Readership is now probably down to about 2 people on this blog, and that includes me =P So, here is a super-sized update:

Physical - Joshua is crawling around at light speed. It's actually kind of amusing when he gets going because his arms and legs kind of flail out a little bit, and for some reason he looks a little like a spider. Copper is not very amused by the crawling though... he has taken to charging her at full speed and head butting her side. He can pull himself up on just about anything these days, which means our end tables are now very clean and our glass patio door is not. He can cruise quite well, but no walking just yet. We bought him a push-behind walker (which for some reason is made to resemble a mail-cart. Reach for the stars kid... you can work in the mailroom when you grow up!!!) and he absolutely loves it. He is getting the hang of pushing it around and will do laps between rooms with it. He resembles a little old lady while he's using it though. He pushes it out in front of him, then takes a couple steps. All he needs are the little yellow tennis balls on the front and he's set.

Health - He had his weight check today, and he gained a full 1 pound 6 ounces in the past month alone, which means he is now up to 18 pounds 11 ounces (13th percentile). He was in the 5th percentile last month, so that is a great improvement. His iron actually registered a little lower than last time, but the doctor said that since he is gaining weight and developing normally, she is not too concerned about it. He is going to stay on the iron drops, and they will probably recheck it at 12 months. Teeth numbers 7 and 8 have officially broken through and are no longer causing him pain. However, tooth number 9 is working its way out, and this one is a molar, so we are having lots of fun. He is actually handling it fairly well and is still sleeping good at night. But he has had his rough patches during the day. Hopefully it will break through soon so the little guy won't be in so much pain. Not much else to report, the doc said everything was perfect.

Development - Toys are becoming more and more fun for the J-Man. He has developed the motor skills to put balls into the right holes in his toys, and loves to take things out of one thing and put them in another. We just bought him a shape sorter, so that should be a hit in the coming months. The coolest thing is that he has started to mimic some of the things we do (no more flipping the bird on the freeway Brenda!!! j/k). The two things he mimics most often are smacking his mouth with his hand to make the ba-ba-ba sound, and blowing razberries on one another. As far as talking goes, we don't have words just yet, but he is babbling a ton, and he understands what a few words mean (mama, papa/dada, puppy, "fall back"). He will probably be a late talker, as I was a grunter as a child, and Brenda was apparently a squealer (spare us the pig jokes please!).

That is about it for now. Hope everyone is doing well, and I will try to post a little more often. Until then...

Having A Ball

In our neverending quest to get a few minutes of freedom, we have discovered a great distraction for Joshua: balls. A couple of his toys have come with bright plastic balls, and he will spend up to 30 minutes at a time picking them up, aimlessly tossing them 5-10 feet away, crawling after them, and repeating the process. He has even started throwing them underneath the end table and then crawling through it to get to them. Whatever makes him happy... we're just glad to have a few moments of peace!

For the most part, Joshua has been such an amazing joy in our lives lately. Sure there are the back-of-the-mind worries about his weight/anemia, and the afternoon feedings and naps will have Brenda's hair turning gray soon. But he is just developing the sweetest, most playful personality, and he just lights up the room with his smile. He keeps amazing us with his growth and development. One of his toy balls went behind and between the trash can & recycle bin. Instead of giving up and finding a new toy, he tried to get it from a few different angles, crawling on all sides of it. He still couldn't reach it, but you could see him using a little bit of logic to figure things out, and that is just so cool to see him figuring stuff out like that.

Update

Nothing super exciting to post, but I had the time so figured I'd throw something on here. Joshua has been babbling up a storm lately, and is especially amusing when he is practicing his "P" sound. He will sit there making a soft, breathy "puh" sound over and over, like a little puff of air. Tooth #7 is still trying to work its way out. It doesn't seem to bother him too much, although he did have a little trouble getting to sleep last night. He has really picked up the speed crawling, and can turn on the jets if he wants to. We should enter him in some baby races! He can take the entire flight of stairs in about a minute now, which is pretty good considering there are about 15-20 steps (I'm too lazy to walk down the hall and count them). He has been much better eating in the evenings; we moved his 3 PM breastfeeding to 6 PM, and his 6 PM solid foods to 4 PM, and that seems to have done the trick. And we've also discovered that the boy has a hankerin' for the Nilla Wafers. If you ever want 5 minutes of silence, hand him a cookie (that works with daddy too!)

Happy Birthday!

No Joshua isn't 1 year old yet, we've still got 3 months to go before that milestone. But he does want to wish a happy birthday to his newest cousin, Chevlynn Ann-Renee Smith, who was just born on March 18th at 7:44 PM! Congratulations to proud mommy and daddy, April and Dan!

9 Month Checkup

Joshua had his 9 month checkup yesterday and it went fairly well. They apparently screwed up measuring his length last time, because they said this time that he was 29.5", which is just about what it was last time. He has definitely grown since December (the crib rail hides less of his face), so they goofed somewhere. In any case, that is in the 75th percentile, so he has slowed down a bit in his quest to be the world's tallest baby. The doctor was a tiny bit concerned because his weight was only 17.5 pounds, which is in the 5-10% range. A quick blood test showed that he is slightly anemic, not enough to be worried about, but enough that the doctor prescribed him some iron drops and scheduled a checkup in a month. She said that having anemia may cause him to be a little skinnier, so hopefully these iron drops will fix the anemia and fatten him up a little bit too =) We're not really worried, as he is hitting all of his developmental milestones. We just don't like hearing that something is wrong with our little man, and you can't help but feel that it is something that we are or aren't doing properly. But more likely is that no baby is 100% perfect and this is just one of those little things that we'll barely remember a year from now.

On the brighter side, the doctor said that the reason that he has been fighting his dinner is that he may be bored with baby food and may want to try to feed himself a little more. She suggested that we cut up food into smaller pieces and let him try to self feed at that meal (which provides a nice quiet distraction during our dinner as well). We tried eggs, strawberries and toast last night... he wasn't quite sure what to make of it but got a few bites in his mouth, and more than a few in his lap. I'm sure he'll be an expert in no time!

Catchin' Up

So by now, anyone still reading this has lost all hope of getting a weekly update. Time and brain power definitely seem to be at a premium these days. The little man is ALL over the place. I love the kid to death, but dude, sit still for like 5 minutes! No wonder he's so skinny, he never stops moving =) But it is so cool to see him crawl all over the place, cruise on the furniture, pull himself up on absolutely everything, and to think that at one point all of us were doing the exact same things.

Joshua seems to have finally kicked cold #2 or 3 (can't remember how many he has had). Still has the remnants of a cough, but the rest of it seems much better. We also think that he may have had a mild case of roseola, which is very common and harmless. Basically they have a fever for a couple days, then a flat rash for a couple days, then it's done. The rash seems to have gone away, so we're not even going to bother with the doctor, especially since his 9 month appointment is on Monday anyways.

As you have probably figured out by the last post, we now have the ability to post videos online. I didn't say we had the time to download them from the camera and edit them, but we can certainly post them!

As far as development goes, he is moving right along. He is eating like a little piggy, mostly in the morning. He is eating about 18-20 ounces of baby food, 16-20 ounces of milk, and 2-3 ounces of water a day. He is still babbling, hasn't quite put words to objects yet. He is also finally holding bottles by himself. Apparently he has actually been doing this for a while, but he rarely gets a bottle at home, so we never really see it! On the downside, Joshua has discovered that he can hit things. It's cute when he hits his toys, his high chair tray... not so cute when it is our faces, the dog, a food-filled spoon, other kid's faces at daycare. Okay, so the last one is kind of funny, at least in the mental image sort of way. Oh, and we also think that he is working on teeth #'s 7 and 8.

Joshua still loves the light on the stairway landing. He has also discovered the joy of bubble baths, although I think Mommy enjoys them a little more than he does =) One of his new things is to carry a random toy around with him when he is crawling around.

I'm sure I am completely forgetting some things, but that is about all I can remember. New pictures are up, be sure to check 'em out!

Video Test

Long Time No Post

Wow, it has really been a long time since I have posted to this thing. I don't really think that Joshua has done anything majorly groundbreaking since the last post, but he just continues to develop in such an amazing way every single day. He is crawling like nobody's business now, finding every little nook and cranny of the house. Each day we find ourselves saying "Joshua found such and such, guess we need to find a new spot for that now!" "Such and such" would include Copper's water and food dishes, the dish towels hanging from the oven door, the coasters from the end table, and a million other things. He has also mastered crawling up the stairs, although we definitely don't let him do that alone. He loves the hallway light on the landing, smiling and laughing everytime he sees it, so that gives him a little extra motivation. He is also pulling himself up on everything, including stuff that is shorter than him (he kind of hunches over stuff... being so tall he better get used to it!). He is babbling like crazy now, and we think that he may actually know what "ma-ma" means. He says it quite a bit when Mommy is around. He is currently getting over cold #2. This one hasn't lasted as long, but the cough/congestion has been much nastier. You can hear the gunk rattling around in his chest from time to time... I need to teach him to hock a loogie so he can get that out of there. He was doing much better today, so I think we are on the tail end of this one.

Mommy and Daddy finally got their new computer (we are hoping to reenact a scene from Office Space with our old one), so once I get the right cable and play around with some software, I should be able to post some movies online. We just added some more 7 and 8 month pictures to the photo album, so be sure to check those out!

Observation

A few observations of mine today (at the risk of sounding like the parental version of Jeff Foxworthy):

You know you are officially a parent when your kid is sitting on your lap and makes a puke sound and you instinctively hold out your hands to catch whatever might come out (luckily it was a false alarm).

You know you are officially a parent when you can walk around all day with someone else's boogers all over your shirt and not really care.

I'm sure Brenda could add about a million more of these...

Sick Boy

Joshua is in the middle of his first real illness. After 7 months of having nothing more than a sniffle or cough here and there, he came down with a pretty nasty cold. His fever has been hanging around for the last 2 days, his nose is running like a faucet and when the Motrin starts wearing off we get the saddest looks we have ever seen. The doc checked him out and said it was definitely just a virus and not an infection, so no need for a prescription, just keep giving him Motrin, booby juice, and water. I'm sure he'll be fine by Monday morning, and it is definitely amazing that we haven't run into a cold until now!

Jungle Book

It's probably just the little goofball trying out new things, but we may have a Mowgli on our hands (watch the Jungle Book if you have no idea what I am talking about). On Monday afternoon, Joshua was apparently getting in his crawling position, then raising his butt straight off the ground while keeping his feet and hands planted. Funny stuff.

Off To The Races!

At 7 months and 1 week (this past Friday), Joshua finally decided that he wanted to be mobile and started to crawl. He had been taking 1 or 2 crawling steps throughout the previous week but never more than that. But Friday, after coming home from daycare, he finally put it all together and made it across the living room. He's not zooming all over the place, and he hasn't 100% caught on yet to the fact that he can now get wherever he wants to go, but if he sees something across the room that he wants to explore, he knows that he can get there now.

In the back of our minds, we had kind of been wary of him learning how to crawl, just because it opens a whole new world of things to worry about, but honestly, we are both so excited for him that we're not even thinking about that. The only real changes now are baby-proofed cabinets and trying to remember to close the bathroom door.

Copper is the one who should be scared. Joshua has always been fascinated by his puppydog, and has always been tempted by her big floppy ears and constantly wagging tail. Previously, whenever Joshua got close to her, Copper could just move over 6 inches or so and be out of his range. Now that Joshua has unlimited range, she's going to have to learn a new trick (not easy for an old dog... ba-dum-bum). He did snag her tail on Saturday night, which she was none to pleased about.

This past month has just been amazing to watch this kid. He has learned to pull himself up to standing all by himself, he's crawling and has been babbling like crazy the past week or so... including the "m" sound today... "mama" could be the next big thing! It is so awesome to see him develop into this little person, with his own little personality, and even though every baby learns how to do all this stuff, we can't even begin to tell you how proud we feel right now.

Stay tuned, he seems to be doing something new every week!

Sit JBird Sit... Good Boy

Apparently these past few weeks Joshua has decided he is going to do EVERYTHING. Last night while we were eating dinner, Joshua was on his tummy getting kind of ticked and scooting backwards a little bit. Then he got one of his legs underneath him, did a pushup, scooted back some more, and voila! He was sitting up! All by himself, with no help from mommy or daddy. Shortly after that, he got himself on all fours and was moving around his hands, moved them forward a bit, then one leg went forward with it!!! So he kind of crawled, although it was only one step. He's not racing around the house yet, but it can't be far away!

Look What I Can Do

Just a quick update on the boy who is growing up way too fast. We aren't quite to crawling yet, but he has taken a big step forward. A few times over the last couple days, he has been able to get up on all fours. He doesn't spend a ton of time in that position, but he has definitely learned how to get himself in that position, and will be crawling before we know. On one hand, we are sad to see him grow up and are a little wary of what this new mobility will bring (I'm sure Copper won't be too fond of the fact that he'll be able to chase her). However, it is so exciting to see him develop, and even though it is just something as simple as crawling, you feel so proud when he hits those big milestones.

Also, he has suddenly decided that he can pull himself from a sitting to standing position. Don't remember the exact day, but one of us had our hands out in front of him, and he just grabbed on with both hands and yanked himself up! No help from us, just a little counterpressure, but no lifting on our part whatsoever. Of course now anytime we try to do something to him while he is sitting, he tries to pull himself up. It makes putting on a jacket quite an adventure!

Christmas (A Week Late)

J-Birds 1st Christmas was a busy but memorable one. We started out the holiday weekend with a trip to great-grandma's. Later on, Joshua had his first church ministry experience when he helped Mommy and Daddy welcome people to the 3:30 Christmas Eve service. That was followed up by attending the 5 PM service with Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa Maple, and Auntie Andrea. We couldn't have asked for a better behaved child. He sat quietly in his stroller while we greeted, fell asleep as soon as the 5 PM service started, woke up with about 5-10 minutes left and played quietly on Mommy's lap. After church we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Maple's to open presents and have dinner. Joshua did a fantastic job opening his presents, and was happy to see all of his other relatives as well. Once we got home, Joshua opened his first ornament from Mommy and Daddy. We have a tradition that we buy each other one ornament every year, and it has to somehow relate to something that happened during the past year. It makes decorating the tree much more fun.

Joshua slept great that night, and we opened our presents when we woke up on Christmas morning. Santa brought Joshua's favorite present, a LeapFrog Learning Table that keeps him entertained for extended periods of time (it's our favorite toy too!). After opening all of our presents, we drove out to Grandma and Grandpa B's house for breakfast and presents and a fun time with the Grandparents, Aunt Kerri, Uncle Paul, Great Grandma Eleanor, Auntie April, and Uncle Dan. Joshua got a ton of presents, including what seems like half of the VeggieTales DVD library. All the gift unwrapping must have worn him out, because he took a hardcore nap afterwards.

Christmas Day ended with a visit from Grandma and Granddad Duncan, Auntie Lori, Uncle Dom, and Cousin Jacob. We had a great Christmas dinner (free Honeybaked Ham is the best kind!), and opened a bunch more great presents. Afterwards, we all piled in our cars and went to see Christmas lights in 2 different neighborhoods (another Christmas tradition). One of the houses even has a walk-through version of Bethlehem in their backyard!

It was great first Christmas, and Joshua was so amazing throughout the whole thing. He didn't get too fussy, despite all of the travelling around, did a great job unwrapping his gifts, and got to see all of his family. Hope everyone else had as merry a Christmas as we did!