i'm so glad when daddy comes home

i'm sorry, but how CUTE is a sleeping baby? i just love him.

tommy has been in california the last three days for some interviews. i was so bummed and worried about him being gone before he left (although, i know, it's just three days! i am so totally spoiled) because most days, it feels like we need him to come home to survive the last two hours of the day. so i just made sure to plan outings to keep dane from getting too fussy and bored at home, and we survived. it wasn't bad at all. but i sure am glad he's getting home today! i've had fun watching every rendition of Pride and Prejudice that i could get my hands on every evening by myself (and reading the book), but everything just feels out of whack when tommy's not here. both dane and i have missed him.

the main outing i had planned yesterday was to go to the durham museum of life and sciences (free on wednesday for durham residents!). we've been plenty of times before but never actually by ourselves. i'd planned to meet up with someone, but they didn't make it. and i had so much fun with just the two of us! we went to all of these exhibits and play areas we'd never been to before. they have lots of animals to look at and a butterfly exhibit, and dane LOVED watching the butterflies and the animals. i would point them out to him and he just stared and watched them so intently. we also went on the "dinosaur walk," where they have dinosaur statues, and he was so excited about them. this was his reaction to the biggest, scariest, t-rex-like dinosaur:

he couldn't get enough of looking at them and touching them. we might have a dino-lover on our hands.

i swear, this is my favorite part of being a parent. you get to watch the lightbulbs turn on in their mind every DAY and see them learn and appreciate and love new things as they grow. i never thought i would care that much about the dinosaur exhibit, but i loved it yesterday because he had never even noticed them before and now couldn't take his eyes off of them. i had maybe even more fun than he did, just watching him be so happy. every week he's learning new things and figuring things out--and it is so, so fun to be there to see it happen and help it happen.

on one last note: camille sent dane this ADORABLE cowboy outfit for his birthday and i could not get over how cute he was in it. maybe this could be his halloween costume? although we have so many halloween costume options for him i don't know how we're going to decide.

dane at one year

Dane on his birthday walk this morning.

Okay, I know I've already written two other blog posts commemorating Dane's birthday, but here are some cute facts about Dane right now, for his uncles on missions and grandparents who don't get to see him very often.

as of Dane's birthday, he:

-probably weighs around 21 pounds (his dr's appointment is tomorrow)
-has NINE teeth (including one molar!)
-loves walking with his walkers, but crawls like a madman
-keeps his tongue sticking out with concentration whenever he's playing with his toys
-loves reading books--favorites include Mama Mama (which he now says "mama mama" at whenever we pull it out), any touch and feel book, Goodnight Moon (he can now point out the moon on every page), and our puppies book with pictures of dogs
-LOVES dogs--whenever he sees one, he starts cooing at it and giggling and can't take his eyes off it until it walks away
-is 100% a daddy's boy. he gets mad when mom tries to take him away from his daddy.
-eats just about anything, but especially loves bread, cheese, meat, bananas, peaches, peas, corn, graham crackers, and doesn't like it when his food is refrigerator cold (picky picky!).
-loves drinking milk, water, and juice, but insists on it coming from a real cup. none of those baby-ish sippy cups for this guy.
-loves bubbles and balls
-is the worst napper ever about 50% of the time (like 30-minute naps and cranky afterwards), and does decent at it the rest of the time
-loves giving open-mouth kisses to mom and dad. he signals that he wants a kiss by opening his mouth and looking up at you and saying "Ahhhhhhhhhh" until you oblige him
-loves it when mom and dad crawl around on the floor with him--he thinks it's the funniest thing EVER
-has a cackling laugh whenever he's proud of himself for figuring something else
-likes throwing toys through the gate down the stairs
-loves his blankie that he sleeps with and gets excited whenever he sees it

He is just the best. It's been crazy reminiscing the last few days and realizing that it really has been a whole YEAR since he was born. For that first week after Dane was born, while my mom was here, I was super emotional and all over the place (as is rather common during the first week postpartum, I am sure). The thing that I cried the most about, though, was that I was so, so SAD that our newlywed stage, our stage with just Tommy and I, was all over. I just thought, "Those were the happiest years of my life! It will never be just Tommy and me together by ourselves again!" Of course I was happy to have Dane, and I even realized that those thoughts weren't even true, but I was very emotional about this huge change in our family.

But there definitely isn't even a competition. This last year has been the happiest we've had so far. It's just amazing how peaceful and happy I am at the end of the day (most days) thinking about how wonderful our boy is. Every night, we go into Dane's room right before we climb into bed at night and look at his beautiful sleeping face, and every night, all the frustrations I might have felt during the day melts away and all the love I have for him makes me so happy. Oh man, I know that this boy was meant to be a part of our family.

The last month has been a kind of rough one for me and Dane. He had this molar come in, and got a cold which turned into a terrible double ear infection, and he's still figuring out how to deal with being babysat and having me watch another baby with him. There has been a lot of whining and crying from both of us. But just looking at the pictures of him from this whole first year, and watching him play with his daddy with a big grin on his face--it's worth it. That's what we've found--the highs outweigh the lows (which can get really pretty low!) in this whole parenthood thing.

So I think we'll keep him.

dane's birthday parties

i've been saying for months that i didn't want to throw a party for dane's birthday, because i didn't want to have to stress about it or plan anything and whatnot. so of course, once his birthday rolled around, what did we do? throw TWO parties for dane's birthday! they were both very minimalist, so i actually didn't feel stressed about them, and there were bubbles and balloons and cake involved at each one, so dane thoroughly enjoyed himself. what more can a baby ask for?

on monday this week, we hosted our group FHE at our house with a few other families in our ward. we blew up balloons for the kids to play with, gave a brief FHE lesson, and then went outside and had cupcakes and sang happy birthday to dane. it was so awesome and easy.

dane is a big fan of balloons right now, and basically anything ball-shaped. he was crawling around pushing these around very excitedly.

we had birthday hats for all the kids, and the cupcakes were just a texas sheet cake recipe poured into cupcake pans. (they were delicious, if i do say so myself.) 

dane didn't hesitate--he plowed right in and finished off his cupcake in under a minute.

so we gave him another one, and he almost finished that one off too.

we turned on the bubble machine and it was a huge hit for all ages.

and then yesterday, we wanted to have an end-of-summer barbecue and combine it with a birthday party for dane. so we made burgers and hot dogs and cake and brought the bubble machine out again, and had a good old time with some other friends.

dane's birthday cake, round 2. this time we made him a "smash cake," made out of a giant cupcake pan one of my friends let me borrow. it was giant, a whole cake mix worth of cake.

and he dove right in with two hands.

look how much cake he ate: he DEMOLISHED this cake! and he was so serious about eating it all.

he got a few presents too, from our friends and his grandparents.

check out how much cake he finished!

and the bubble machine was once again the hit of the party.

he loves this.

both of the parties were just what we wanted: low-key and relaxed with good people. dane got to eat some birthday cake and got some presents, and i didn't feel like we had to go overboard or anything. we got to celebrate our boy and tried to make him happy all weekend long. 

happy one year of dane!

one day old:

one month:

two months:

three months:

four months:

five months:

six months:

seven months:

eight months:

nine months:

ten months:

eleven months:

twelve months! one year old today!

teaching again

I've kind of fallen off the blogging wagon lately, haven't I? There hasn't been too much to report lately, I guess. I love that we are back in a routine and that life has a normal rhythm again (after our summer of craziness). One of the best things about this fall has been the addition of several things to our (that is, Dane's and my) schedule: me teaching and watching his little friend Indie one and a half days a week. Having a few more things adds a little life to my schedule and makes things move so much faster.

I'm teaching one English class at Durham Tech, the community college just about three miles from our house. It's a Saturday morning class, so Tommy can be home with Dane while I'm teaching. I was kind of nervous about it before starting, but it has been SO AWESOME for me. Let me repeat that: SO AWESOME. I am LOVING the chance to think about something different, something else, even just something as small as one class, for a change. It is so fun to go through the challenges of planning a course and writing assignments and every individual class meeting.

Other than the Saturday work, I have one day a week where Dane goes over to Indie's house and gets to be watched by Becca while I plan and grade without him whining nearby all. day. long. (And that's why I watch Indie later in the week--as a babysitting swap.) And that one day a week of time off, time to think about classwork and not about baby stuff, has just done wonders for my state of mind. Not that my state of mind was extremely depressed before doing this, but I have just been so happy with the variety that this arrangement gives to us.

I think it's good for me to take on something that's not overtaking my entire life. My life so far has been pretty fragmented: first I was a student, and then I graduated and became a mom. But now I'm a mom AND a teacher, and it's kind of fun going somewhere where the fact that I'm a mom isn't the most defining characteristic I have. And while I love being teaching, I have no desire to let it overrun the rest of my life--it's just a small portion of everything else going on in my life, which is so different than it was when I was in school (when Tommy and I were both working all day long).

I've taught three classes so far, and I think it's going pretty well. I have yet to get any of their papers (in two weeks I'll get their first ones) and then I'll have to revisit my least favorite part of teaching: grading. But I think it'll still be worth it, and I'm hoping it continues to work out in the next semester as well.