Tag Archives: growing up

Working on Walking and Her First Encounter with Santa Claus

My blogging goals have been falling somewhat short lately in that I’m not capturing the happenings of our daily life as much as I used to. Instead, I have a Word document filled with several pages of blog post ideas I keep thinking I’ll write. You see, I’ve been trying too hard to write some deep, insightful post on things like “Why Dads Should Encourage Breastfeeding” or something related to being an at-home parent instead of just writing about our life.

I still type my ideas on the Word doc as they pop into my head, but until the time arises, I’ll stick to what I intended to do when creating this blog. Sharing the story of my at-home dad life with a beautiful working mom/wife, Kelley (a.k.a Going Mom) and our precious daughter, Avery. In addition, I’ll frequently write reviews on parent-related products and healthy food as well as my thoughts on the fitness and nutrition world.

I feel I have a lot to share when it comes to food and exercise, and hope anyone reading is able to benefit from what I have to say. Please, if you ever have any questions or thoughts of your own, feel free to share and I’ll respond as best as possible.

Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk walking. No, Avery’s not a full-blown walking yet, but she sure is close! First, I commend her for never giving up as you might’ve seen on Instagram….

But just a couple days later and she has shown improvement….

It’s been a lot of up and down (literally) since then, and although she still doesn’t have walking mastered (does anyone?), she’s getting better each day. Sometimes she gets really confident and even tries to bust out a few dance moves.

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She also thinks she owns the place now and has been doing some rearranging of the furniture.

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I guess having a stool beside the oven and refrigerator could prove useful. Maybe she’s just lashing out at my decision not to put a shirt on her. Sorry, Avery.

This past weekend was fun seeing her take a few steps, fall, and get up to try again without thinking twice, and I’m glad Going Mom and I got to experience it together. Another thing we got to experience together was Avery’s first visit to see Santa Claus, and we even received a pleasant surprise from our growing girl.

She freakin smiled! Of all the facial expressions we were prepared to see once we handed her over to the strange guy with a giant white beard and a red suit, smiling was not one of them! All it took was the photographer, one of Santa’s not-so-little elves, to ring a bell and wham, she smiles!

We were shocked! It made standing in line for over an hour in the cold as we passed our squirmy, increasingly heavy, daughter back and forth all worthwhile. It even rained on us a little. But, $20 for one 5×7 photo of our smiling baby on a stranger’s lap made our day complete. Sounds weird, huh, that something like that would make parents happy?

No matter, we’re told next year is when she’ll probably cry once she understand more of what’s going on. Looking forward to it! Sense my sarcasm.

How long once your little one starting taking steps until they got it mostly down and began terrorizing the house and any pets you have (or had)?

Any good visits to Santa stories you’d like to share?

From Full of Mush to Full of Life: Our Baby’s 2nd Thanksgiving

To those who are celebrating, Happy Thanksgiving! To those who are not, Happy Day…..hopefully!

It’s Avery’s second Thanksgiving and we’re celebrating at our house just like last year, only this time it’s just Going Mom, Avery, and myself. We’ll miss seeing our families, but it just worked out this way and that’s okay. Plus, I know we’ll have many more future holidays to spend with our family.

Looking back at pictures from Thanksgiving last year, I can’t believe our little ball of mush has grown into a bigger (but still little) ball of life!

Here she is, motionless, last year…

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…and one more, still motionless…

Avery and Daddy_Thanksgiving 2013

But noooowwww, we’re lucky to get her to sleep during the day (or ever!), and she’s full of life and gives us wide-grinned smiles every day.

Letting us know she's fluent in tongue.
Letting us know she’s fluent in tongue.

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Yeah, they grow too fast, huh? Now we have an active little girl on the verge of walking (we think), talking (we also think), and constantly learning about the world around her. Hopefully, she’ll start learning how to help in the kitchen and maybe lend a hand next Thanksgiving. Too early?

I cooked everything but the turkey yesterday and the plan is to drink copious amounts of coffee, go for a family run/walk around the neighborhood, and watch as much of the videos we’ve taken since Avery was born last November. Oh yeah, and enjoy our small Thanksgiving feast.

Our menu for day includes goat cheese garlic mashed potatoes (Kelley’s favorite and #1 request), mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon and stevia to sweeten, roasted brussels sprouts and garlic (my favorite), microwave cranberry sauce sweetened with stevia, free-range turkey, and crust-less no-bake pumpkin pie.

It’s not much, but I’m excited, and as long as we have goat cheese paired with mashed potatoes, my wife is excited too! Hopefully Avery will enjoy the spread too, and maybe NOT throw it on the floor.

Whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or not, hope you have a great day!

Do you have any traditions you must do every year? We don’t, but I’m hoping to create them now and celebrate them every year with Avery and Kelley.

The Bear is Back, But Where is Our Baby?

It’s been 9 long super fast months since experienced really cold weather here in Texas, and it’s rearing its ugly head once again. I like the heat, if you can’t tell, so I’m less than thrilled to say goodbye to by garage sweat sessions. Now I’ll be huddled next to our space heater trying to keep warm with Avery before a garage workout!

When the cold came in a couple days ago, Avery’s bear suit came out. I shared a post about our experience with the bear suit last February and March, and Going Mom and I couldn’t get over how freakin’ cute she was in the thing!

Free Bear Hugs!!
Free Bear Hugs!!

The floppy, over-sized arms and legs were just un-bearable and all you wanted to do was hug and squeeze (gently) her all day!

But now, it was a bit more difficult trying to get Avery in the same bear suit. Aside from being sized 3 – 6 months (oops!), her activity level has increased approximately 500% over the course of 9 months. Guess it’s similar to development in the womb!

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So, it “fit”, but I’m pretty sure her mobility was compromised a bit. Just so you know, I only kept it on her for the duration of our cold walk, and then it came right off once back inside. That said, she didn’t complain one bit while we walked, and she actually seemed quite content chewing on her paws.

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Although she still didn’t seem all that thrilled to be in the tight-fitting bear skin….

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Sorry, dear, but it’s much better than your lips turning blue. Like the did later that day. Double oops!

We just placed an order on Amazon for a new bear suit from the same brand, just bigger size and can’t wait for it to get here. Judging from the pic above, I’m thinking Avery is anxious for its arrival too.

Since it’s her birthday in 2 days, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on the past months and thought it would be neat to do a side-by-side collage of Avery in the bear suit back in February to 9 months later in Novembear (just getting my corny dad jokes warmed up!).

Avery Bear_Feb to November_2014

Kelley is off today and tomorrow to get things ready for Avery’s birthday party and hopefully Avery will take her first steps while Mommy’s home too. We’ve been saying she’s going to walk soon for the past 3 months, but hey, you never know!

Have you ever tried cramming your kid in clothes that just won’t fit anymore?

What do you think about the cold? Love or hate?