A birthday, a haircut and a little brother

Bryson has had a big month. He turned two, got his first haircut and we just found out he's going to get a little brother sometime in July.

His birthday party was at Estero Community Park so that the kids could play on the nearby playground and the adults could hang out in the shade. Of course it was construction themed. Unfortunately Scott was sick, very very sick, and couldn't make it to the party. He was so disappointed to miss out on the fun.

But Bryson was so excited to have all his grandparents there, except my step-mom Judy.
He got so happy when we sang the line, "Happy Birthday, dear Bryson," and he pointed to himself and clapped.

Oh, melt my heart, this kid is so amazing.

He has played with those "cake" trucks every day since his party.

 We decided that it was finally time for a haircut last weekend. Obviously his hair was getting out of hand, but we didn't want to lose his signature curls. The stylist at Bananas Salon for kids was great, and she even gave us a curl of hair to save.

He did great during the haircut too. Of course it helped that he was sitting in a fire truck and that they put on Cars the movie for him to watch. The stylist was also very quick.

 

 So now his hair is not too short, it's out of his eyes, and the curls look even better. I was so happy. If we had lost the curls, I would have cried. Like seriously bawled. Pregnancy hormones are no joke y'all.

In other news, we made it Facebook official. We are pregnant and expecting another BOY!

We were convinced it was a girl since this pregnancy has been a little different. But, as all parents know, kids are always happy to surprise us! I think he will be just as active as Bryson since I have been feeling him kick for a few weeks now. With Bryson, I didn't feel his kicks until the day after our 20-week appointment.

Someone had a birthday!

Last week Bryson turned one! It's really hard to believe it's been a year already.

  

For the last weekly photo, I decided to design some fabric in Photoshop and upload it to spoonflower.com. They printed it onto cotton fabric and shipped it to me. I'm quite proud of how it turned out. I used to word for "one" in many different languages and fonts to make the design.

From now on, I'll be doing his photos monthly. It's been difficult lately because he will.not.stand.still.

For his birthday party, we celebrated a few days early on Super Bowl Sunday while dad and Judy were in town. It was, of course, a football themed party.

 

I made him a Paleo cake made from almond and coconut flours and sweetened with maple syrup. I'm still not ready for him to have sugar and wheat flour. The frosting was really yummy and made from avocados, cacao powder and maple syrup. It sounds weird, but tasted just like chocolate pudding.

 

 He didn't really get into the whole smash-the-cake thing, but he did eat a little bit and seemed to like it.

 He got some great toys, including an airport and garage set from Mom and Billy and a big car from Dad and Judy. Emily and James came to town, and little James REALLY loved the car too. Here he is pushing Bryson in it.

Those two are so cute together, especially now that Bryson is walking like a champ.

We enjoyed a week with Dad and Judy. Again, they cooked, cleaned and helped take care of Bryson, which was so nice. I even got to sleep in a few days. 

On my birthday, they let me sleep until 10:00 am. Then I went to get a pedicure and ate a very nice lunch alone. It was heaven. Scott even brought me some Norman Love chocolates that afternoon. 

On Sunday, we took Bryson to the Edison Festival Junior Parade in downtown Fort Myers. He sat in his car for the entire hour-long parade and watched the floats go by. He was so good and seemed to really like it.

On Monday I took him to the doctor for his one year checkup.

 He weighs 21 lbs, 10.5 oz and is 29.5 inches tall. He gained one pound and grew one inch since his nine-month checkup.

Here's a shot of him playing in his room the other day.

 

And a shot of him napping on my birthday....so sweet.

He's been trying to transition to one nap a day now, but most of the time it's between two and three hours. 

Here's the other weekly photos since the last post......

Ooh, and check out this video of his new sinister laugh. 

That's it for now!

Grandaddy and JuJu

This week we had a visit from Dad and Judy.

It was dad's birthday on Thursday, so at the last minute, I decided to incorporate his big day into Bryson's weekly photo shoot. Bryson was turing 15 weeks old and dad was turning 3,016 weeks old. (That's 58 years if you're not into math.)

As he was helping me get Bryson to smile, I realized he was wearing a white t-shirt too, so I told him to get down onto the blanket. It took a little bit to get Bryson to look over at him, but I think it worked quite well.

I had to work the whole time they were here, but I did get to work early on Thursday, so we were able to eat dinner together and even got to go down to Scott's parents' house and go swimming for a bit. Dad  and Judy were happy to watch Bryson while I went to work that morning.

Before they left, we did another short photo shoot. I think we got some pretty good pics.....

 He loved playing with them. It was a great visit. Can't wait to see them again in July!

Turning 33

I turned 33 on Friday.

Luckily I was off work after a long two weeks of covering the Republican primary election. We went out to dinner downtown then walked around ArtWalk for a while. We were home by 8 p.m. and loved it.

When I was younger, I thought I would never want to spend a weekend night at home. I thought only losers didn't go out on the weekends. I don't know if it's getting older or if it's because I'm always out and about with my job, but I just don't want to stay out late anymore. Being at home with Scott is more than enough for me these days.

While we were out, there was a preview for the Art Fest, so we checked that out. For a few years now, we've been eyeing these really cool salt and pepper shakers. So this year we finally decided to buy one. This was one of my birthday presents.

My other present came from earlier this month. I was out at Goodland near Marco Island for a story. At the end of the day after photographing stone crab claws, mullet fisherman, the friendly postmistress and a few other local scenes, we heard that one of the original Highwaymen painters was selling his work down the street. If you don't know, the Highwaymen were a group of African-American artists from Florida in the 50s and 60s that sold their paintings often on the side of the road. They are part of what has been called "The Last Great American Art Movement of the 20th century."

I was pretty excited to be able to own a work of art by S.M. Wells or Sylvester Wells. He is now nearly blind and he's one of the twenty six original Highwaymen. I was just excited to have the chance to meet him and expand our small budget art collection. Here's me with him with the painting he sold me. It's a royal poinciana tree - one of my favorite Florida trees.

Here's a couple of other iPhone pics from Goodland - a fishing village with a famous mullet festival where they do a dance called the Buzzard Lope (apparently something like the chicken dance but uglier) and drink a lot of beer. And they have a Buzzard Lope queen. Man, I'd like to see that someday. We visited on a regular weekday, so it was just business as usual. But it was a good place for a few Hipstomatic iPhone shots.

sorting the mullet

Last week I also went to Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs for an assignment and came up with this photo of their flamingos.....

And this was parked in front of the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples during the Winter Wine Fest last weekend. A Packard, if I remember correctly.