Arizona, 1st haircut & Elmo!

This past week Xander, Grandma Nancy and I took Xander's first road trip ever to Aunt Sami's house in Mesa, Arizona! A short 6 1/2 hour drive. We left Wednesday around 4:30 and Xander slept most of the way. It was such a beautiful drive, and on the way home Xander say several Chugga, Chugga, Choo Choo Trains! Ha ha I have gotten Xander into Trains lately, he LOVES them! It all started by neccessity, when Thomas the Train would come on tv Xander would get bored and cry so I would pick him up and say, "Look Trains! Chugga, Chugga, Choo! Choo!" and bounce him up and down, eventually he caught on and now everytime it comes on he gets oh so excited! I think he was really thrilled to see a real train, and it got me thinking maybe we should take him on a trip this fall to see a real train up close! I think he'd really love that.


Aunt Sami, "uncle" Kevin, Xander and I

So getting back to our trip, it was wonderful to see Aunt Sami and who we now like to call "uncle" kevin! Their new house was great, Xander really enjoyed crawling around a new place and opening all their cabinets! haha The dogs were a bit scared of Xander at first, probably because he chased after them excitedly, but they warmed up by the end of the weekend.

Also Xander got his first haircut! Don't worry I saved those first sweet locks of golden curls! Since Aunt Sami is a cosmotologist, we have been holding out so she could give him his first haircut. It turned out great after we distracted him with fruit snacks! haha She also did a fabulous job on my hair and mom's too, I have to mention! Aunt Sami also took all of us to see her work at Runway magazine, Xander enjoyed crawling around the offices picking up everything little thing off the floor and trying to eat it! lol The joys of motherhood!

Xander has learned alot of new words lately, he seems to be just picking up new words left and right! The cutest new word is Elmo! He likes elmo and I got him a book in AZ with elmo and when I showed it to him and said, "elmo" he repeated it and pointed to elmo right away! He says it alot now, it's very cute! He also is saying book alot. He loves his books and I even caught him pretending to read to the dog yesterday! It was absolutely adorable! He was going on and on in his gibberish and showing the pictures to Bailey, very cute!

Getting Bigger by the minute!

Xander will be walking anyday now. As you can see he loves to walk and run using the walker toy mommy and daddy got him for his birthday. He walks along the walls, the furniture, anything. He has ventured out and taken a step or two independently in between furniture, but is still too nervous to do it on his own. We've almost tricked him into taking steps a few times, but he catches on quick and will sit down in defiance ha ha


Walking Like Daddy






Xander had his 1 year well-baby check-up last week, 5 shots in total! It was torture! He is now 29inches long and weighs 18lbs. 10oz. He is still on the smaller side as far as weight goes due to his constant activity, the doctor said that was perfectly normal for a baby as crazy active as Xander. He is no longer anemic, but far from it actually! I stopped giving him supplements about a month ago when we beefed up on the grown up food. Looks like all those extra vitamins and minerals helped! The doctor also had me fill out a 6 page sheet on different development steps, Xander has completed every single one except walking on his own. The doctor was very impressed and even more impressed by the long list of words he could already say. She said that he was perfect in every way! (I already knew that though!)



Xander has learned alot of more advanced skills lately, like pushing the small button on this light up toy to make it turn on and flash! He likes to push buttons, stack cups, put animals and toys in his big wagon and cart them around, he now can throw a ball like a base ball (pretty impressive I think), he enjoys dumping out a box of raisins and pick them all up and putting them away,
and he is now learning to recoginize the words for several of his toys and foods, for example bird, whale, peach, plum, banana, he can bring each one to me when I ask for it and he can even give them all hugs when I ask too! It's super cute! The amazing things he can do!


But in the end he's still my sweet baby boy!