Update

Ok, so I have been really bad at blogging for like the last month. I have digital scrapbooking to blame for that. I love sweetshoppedesigns.com. The community there is so fun and there is a challenge a day which I love! It is a lot of fun and makes me feel like I am accomplishing something for myself.

Onto the update. Walker is changing so much lately. He is getting more and more independent each day which is bittersweet. I love watching him grow up. He amazes me with every new thing he does. He is now waving to anyone and everyone. He doesn't say Hi yet, but he loves to wave! He also does this really silly "scrunchy face" as we call it. He scrunches up his nose and eyes and mouth lol. He does it all the time and breathes in really hard and almost snorts. It cracks us up, it is just adorable, I love it. Another one of his new tricks is to hand us everything, especially Macho's toys. He brings them to us and waits for us to throw them for Macho. If we don't throw it he practically throws the toy on you until you do it. He also hands me his bottle when he wants me to hold it for him so he can drink. He is drinking from sippy cups really well, though he won't always take his milk in them. We're working on it. Walkie also loves to roll around and play on the couch. When I am sitting on the couch he will come up to me and put his arms up until I lift him onto the couch. He will stand up holding onto the back of it and then flop down and lay on his side. He rolls all over the place and he just loves it.

He has this dog/blanket that my Mom got him that he is just in love with. No matter what type of mood he is in, if we show him the doggie and say "who's this?", he will automatically get a huge cheesy smile on his face and yell "dah!". He does the same thing with this big white teddy bear that my Mom got him. He calls it "teh", for teddy.

Our little man is walking like a pro now. He took his first steps on December first, and it took him about a month before he started really walking every once in a while, but then one day out of no where he started walking all the time! Now the only time he crawls is when he falls and can't find anything to stand up on. Though today he stood up without holding onto anything. He pushed off the ground to stand up twice.

He is so independent now when it comes to eating. It is funny but super frustrating for me lol. He only lets me feed him baby food when he is really hungry or has something to occupy his hands like the jar lid or a spoon. He wants to feed himself but doesn't understand putting the spoon from the bowl to his mouth, and he is so picky with finger foods that he just throws everything on the ground for Macho! The only things I know I can get him to eat any time are apple slices and chewy granola bars. As of right now he likes nutri grain bars, toast, and pancakes.

The 19th was Walker's first birthday. ::tear:: lol. I just can't believe that my little baby is one. It is unreal. Last night John and I were looking at pictures from when Walker was a few months old and I just couldn't help but cry. I wish I had taken more videos and cherished those moments more of him being so tiny and young. I just never realized how fast the time would pass and how much I would miss him keeping me up all night, nursing all day long non-stop, and crying every time I set him down. lol. I absolutely love watching him grow up, but I know that he, my first precious baby, will never be my little tiny pumpkin again and that kills me. lol.

On a lighter note, we had a fun day on Walker's birthday. Unfortunately, John was working a 24 hour shift that day so he was gone all day, but we were able to have breakfast together. I made chocolate chip pancakes for Walkie and he LOVED them! I put a candle in them and told John to keep him from touching the flame and before John could even think, Walker grabbed it! Luckily, he didn't even flinch. Needless to say, we sang him happy birthday with the candle not lit. lol. Later that day Walker and I went to lunch with Britt and my Mom. That night, John found out he was getting off early so we were able to spend a little bit of time together as a family before Walker went to bed. This Saturday is his party and we are really excited. Although, Walker has a little cold :o(. I am hoping he will be in a good mood. I am planning on waking him up early on Saturday so that I can be sure he will get a good nap in before his party starts at 2pm because I know that if he doesn't get a nap in we will be in big trouble. lol.

Here are some pictures from Walker's birthday.











Here is a video of the little man walking from January 8th. He is even faster and more steady now.

Whew!

I feel like we have been going non stop since before Christmas. We have had some down time, but I am totally addicted to digital scrapbooking now so that has taken up my free time.

Well, we had a great Christmas. Walker was completely spoiled just like John and I expected. We got him a few things and he loved each one of them. That made us feel good :o). My parents and sister got Walker tons and tons of toys and clothes. I am so grateful for my family. Not just for the presents lol. For many other reasons as well. Walker was a little too young to understand presents this year, but we still had a great time.

John got me a beautiful garnet necklace that i did not deserve at all! It is Walker's birthstone and I cried when I opened it, it is just perfect. John always outdoes me with presents. He tells me just to accept it lol, but of course I want to suprise him sometimes!

Today is the first day of 2009. I really can't believe that 2008 is over. I guess what I really am astonished by is that my baby will be one in 18 days. It seems like I was just holding my little 7lb peanut in the hospital. I can't wait to have another newborn, but I don't think I'm ready just yet lol. I am very excited for Walker's birthday! John and I can't wait to turn his carseat forward facing. Though I wanted to keep him rear facing as long as possible, the convertable carseat we got just does not fit in our car rear facing. He is already over 20lbs so I think he will be ok forward. I also know he is going to just love being able to see us and everything going on around him. He is so aware now, he amazes me everyday with the new things he can do. He is now walking a lot better. He walks 4 or 5 feet before stumbling, and he is trying to walk faster now. His fine motor skills are getting so much better everyday. He got a toy for Christmas where you put a ball in a little tray that spirals down to the floor, and he does it by himself after my showing him only a few times! He also got a shape sorting toy and he tries that by himself too! The funniest thing is that we have this bamboo foot stool that Walker likes to stand up on and put things through the holes. Then he bends down and gets it out and puts it back through a hole. He will do this for a while at a time. I never showed him to do this, so it is so amazing to me that he thought of this all on his own!

I'm pretty sure Walker's top teeth will be coming through anyday now. At least I hope. He had a fever the last few nights so I took him to the Dr. yesterday. Everything was great, so they said it must just be from his teeth. He is a little grumpy and is having a lot of trouble sleeping. My poor baby. I hope they come through soon.

With the new year I am going to try to do a few things different and a few new things. One new thing is a project called 365. I am going to take a picture everyday, and each week make a digital scrapbooking page of the 7 pictures. I am so excited about this project and am determined to stick to it! I will post my pages here each week :o).

Here is a picture from Christmas

Gimme Five

The snow is still falling. We are supposed to get 8" by the morning! It is beautiful, but I still need to get one more present for John! Only 4 days til Christmas! I can't wait :o).

Walker is getting more and more independent every day. He screams and throws little tantrums whenever you take something from him that he wants or when he's ready to get out of the highchair. He is a busy bee. I think his top teeth are coming in any day now. He has been really cranky and is having a little trouble sleeping. Hopefully they come in soon. I hate seeing him uncomfortable :o(.

On a happy note, John taught Walker how to give high fives! It is adorable. If you put your hand out and say "gimme five" he will hit your hand- usually twice lol :o). Then he gets really excited. He is getting so big! It is so exciting to see and hear all the new things he is learning everyday.

Well, I just started getting into digital scrapbooking, so I wanted to share my first ever page :o)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Brrrr! I can't believe it is still snowing! I know we usually get a little every year but I just love it so much, it always excites me :o). I have some cute pictures to post with this one. We went to ZooLights on Monday with my parents and Britty. It was freezing but lots of fun. Walker was little tired because he didn't have a very good nap that day, but he still loved the lights. I will post the pictures at the end of this post.

John has started the paper work to go Active Duty just incase we end up having to go that route. That way he won't be scrambling at the last minute to get everything done. Also, this way we have more time to think about where we would like to try and go if we have to move somewhere. We are thinking about Ft. Carson, CO. I think Colorado is beautiful. I have always wanted to go there. Maybe that will make it a bit easier to be away from home. We don't really have a say in where we go ultimatley, but they do "listen" to your top choices lol.

Anywho, I can't wait for Christmas to get here! Only one more week! I feel like it is taking forever to get here this year. John says it's because we shopped so early. I think it is because I am so excited to celebrate Walk's first one. Speaking of Walker, I wrapped his presents the other day and set them under the tree hoping he wouldn't try to touch them. He did great until today when he tried to stand up on the big one and ripped some paper right off lol! It was pretty funny. So needless to say, all the presents will probably stay in our room until Christmas this year.

Tonight I tried to make this ornament that I bought a kit for. It is this dough stuff that you roll out and press baby's hand onto and let it dry to make a handprint ornament. It is really weird though, almost like foam. It doesn't look too good right now lol. It was hard enough getting Walk to flatten his hand to press on there, but after I let it dry for a bit it started to undo the print! Ugh! lol. Hopefully it looks better when it dries. Oh well though, it will be funny to look back on and I know I will love it anyways :o).

I can't wait for Walker to be old enough to help me make Christmas cookies and homemade decorations and all that good stuff! Hopefully he likes crafts as much as I do lol. I might try to make Chex mix for my family's annual Christmas Eve party this year. My friend Allison gave me her recipe and it sounds so good!

Well, I have presents to wrap and other things I should be doing so I guess I should go for now.
Here are the pictures from ZooLights.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It's snowing like crazy outside right now! And it's sticking! We are hoping it will keep up all night so that Ft Lewis will be closed tomorrow and John can stay home :o). Probably won't happen though. I am scared though because I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow lol! I guess if it gets bad I will just go the few blocks to Fred Meyer's instead of all the way to the commisary.

Anywho, today was a pretty fun day. John, Walkie and I went to Target to get Walkie some long johns (so cute!). I love running errands with John. It is such a little thing but I guess those are the things that matter most to me :o). Walker is napping now so I just wrapped his Christmas presents! I can't wait for Christmas. I know Walkie won't really know what is going on but I'm sure he will love his new toys!! He is getting so big, he is bored with a lot of his little baby toys lol. We got him a walking/riding toy that is a lion. Daddy picked that out all by himself. I made him a blanket! It was my first real sewing project and it turned out great thanks to my Mom. She is a pro! It is Seahawks printed fleece and I sewed green silk trim around it. I think it is adorable :o). We also got him some animal magnets for the fridge with a little thing you set the magnets in and it tells you what animal it is and what the animal says. Walk is always trying to stand up on the fridge so I thought he would like those. The last present we got him is this really cute colors book with tons of pictures in it that tell you what color everything is. Walkie seems to like it when we read to him. He used to always squirm away but now he is pretty interested. We might try to get him some more things after we pay the bills lol. We just got him some new clothes but I decided not to wrap them since he is too young to understand presents. At least with the toys he will be excited to play with them :o).

Gosh, I look out the window and I can't believe it is still snowing so hard! I know we usually get a little snow each year but now that I am an adult and have to drive myself and my precious baby everywhere it is not as exciting as it used to be lol!! Now I worry about getting places rather than playing in it. I wish Walk was walking more so I could take him out for a few minutes, but I know he would just try to crawl and that probably wouldn't turn out so well lol. Next year.

Yesterday my Mom and I went to the fabric store to get some stuff because I am going to sew a sock for Walker. At the store they had one of those Christmas singing stuffed things lol. Walker loved it so my Mom bought it :o). Here is a video of him with it.

Well, I don't have much else to post right now so I think I'm going to go wrap some more presents while Walkie is still napping :o).

.....As I was waiting for the video to process there was a car accident right outside our neighbors house! Jeez, we get an inch of snow and people don't remember how to drive lol!

Here are some pictures of the snow outside!!

A firetruck went by right as I took this one lol.

First Post

I thought a family blog would be a great way to keep everyone updated on the happenings around the Minshall household and updated on our little Walk-man of course. Also, after talking to my friend Allison, I realize that this will be a wonderful thing to look back on in the future. I will be able to see what Walker was learning and doing, and what John and I were going through as well.

Walker will be 11 months old in only 6 days on December 19th. I can't believe it will be his very last "month birthday". My little baby is growing so fast. He took his first steps on December 1st, and has taken a few steps here and there since then. I believe the most in a row has been about 4 steps. He crawls like a pro and it is so funny to see him try and crawl fast. Instead of moving his knees towards his body, it's like he just shifts his little behind side to side. It's adorable. He cruises along all the furniture all day long. He also loves to stand holding onto the entertainment center and watch the tv when Daddy is playing video games. He tries and tries to get a hold of Daddy's controller every chance he gets. Speaking of the Xbox, John has had to get his video game repaired once already because curious little Walker decided to bang on the Xbox. I thought it was quite amusing...John, not so much :o).

Since Walker loves to pull up on everything and cruise, John and I were really worried about getting a Christmas tree. We thought he would not leave it alone, but I love them so much and since it is Walker's first Christmas, we couldn't not have one. To our suprise, Walker has been great with it. At first he didn't try to touch it at all. Now he is getting a little more brave and will sit real close, stare at the tree for a bit and then touch a branch really quick and pull his hand away lol. It's pretty funny to watch.

Walker has been very vocal lately and is just starting to try and copy things we say (time to stop the bad words while playing video games Daddy! lol). He says Dada and Mama all the time, but I think it's actually towards us just on occasion. He definately knows who we are though. If you say "Where's Daddy?" or "Where's Mommy?" he immediatley looks around for us :o). He tries to say Macho but it's more like "ma-mla", "ma-bla", or, the closest one yet, "ma-mo". Recently he also started saying dog. He is pretty close! It sounds kind of like "doc", but it's very exciting to hear :o). He also loves to squeal lately. He will crawl around and squeal so loud out of nowhere! Or he will blow bubbles and squeal at the same time, it's so funny. He also makes this funny noise all the time that sounds like a growl/hum.

One of Walker's new favorite things to eat is chewy granola bars. John and I gave him a bite of ours one time, and ever since then if he sees us with one he will make his growl/hum noise until we give him a piece lol. So i started getting him his own :o). Some other foods he loves are apple slices and toast. I tried to give him some toast with jelly on it the other day and he didn't like it. He prefers it plain. However he does like bread with jelly on it. Just not toast with jelly lol. What a silly boy. I still feed him some baby food purees since most of the food he feeds himself ends up on the floor or in the highchair seat. Of those he loves apricots and pears. He also likes sweet potatoes.

Recently I started turning on the Disney Channel in the mornings when Walker and I get up just for some background noise. The only shows he pays attention to at all are Imagination Movers and The Doodlebops. I think it is because they sing fun songs. He loves music and stops what he is doing to dance whenever he hears any. He's just like his Daddy :o). It's so cute to see him stare at the tv so intently lol. I didn't think he was really old enough to care about what was on, so it is really cute to see him start paying attention as soon as they start to sing. His favorite stuffed animal is a dog that my Aunt Molly got for my baby shower. It barks and he just loves it. No matter what he is doing if you make the dog bark he gets a huge smile on his face and crawls over to get him :o). Walker also loves anything that spins. He is amazed by wheels. If any of his toys has a part the spins, he will sit and play with it and nothing else on the toy. He also is mesmerized by lights. Since he was born he has always stared at lights. He loves our Christmas tree because of that and also the lights outside :o).

John and I cannot wait for Walker's birthday party. It is on January 24th at Pump it Up. This is an indoor play area that has tons of inflatable toys like slides and obstacle courses. We know he is a little young to know what is going on, but we wanted to do something memorable for us as well as our guests. I am a very sentimental person so his first birthday is very, very important to me. I plan on taking lots of pictures (of course) and videos, so I think it will be a lot of fun to look back on when he is older. I made his birthday invitations and it was so bittersweet. I am ecstatic that Walker so aware and getting to be so much fun to play with, but it's just a little sad that my baby is s0 big. Everyone told me it would go by fast, but I guess you just don't understand until you go through it yourself. I guess I am getting a little bit of baby fever lol. We plan on trying for miracle #2 in the spring of next year :o).

Speaking of next year, John and I may unfortunetly have to move out of state. John's contract with the Army will be up in May, and we don't have many options on what to do next. He is currently trying to go AGR (Active Guard Reserve) and be a recruiter, but if that doesn't work out, he will have to sign an Active Duty contract. If this happens, we don't really have a say in where we go or what John's job will be. Obviously this will be very hard for me especially, but I know it will not be the end of the world. It will hopefully be for only a few years and I know it could be so much worse. As long as I can be with John I am happy. I would much rather move away from home for a while then John have to go back to Iraq. I am being optimisitc yet staying in the frame of mind that we will be moving so that if we do it will not be AS hard to deal with. Who knows, it could be fun to see another part of the country, right?

Well, this has turned out to be a lengthy post so I will call it good for now. I have decided that I will try to post a picture or two with each one of these for more memories :o). So here we go:

These are some pics I took of Walker yesterday while he was eating some bread with jelly :o)

In the one below, you can see his two teeth that he got about a month or two ago! The two bottom ones :o)