One Year Old!!!

Kyler is one year old today!!! One year ago today, I had been having contractions since about 6 am the previous morning. I had hardly slept at all the night before because of the contractions and we finally decided to head to the hospital about 3:00 in the afternoon. We got there and found out that I was 4-5 cm dilated, were admitted to the hospital, and about 5 1/2 hours later this little guy entered the world!

Kyler Erik Blanchard, about 1-2 hours old

3 months old

6 months old

9 months old

One year old!

Hi Mom!

Soooo big!

Happy boy

Give me the camera!

Hard to believe our little man is one year old today! There were times during this past year that I thought would never end; however, looking back on them they are done and gone! Other times seem to have gone so fast as we are already at 12 months and the days of Kyler sitting in one spot in one room are long gone! Our little boy continues to be such a blessing in our lives. He is on the go all the time! He is not walking yet, but he crawls everywhere, including up the stairs multiple times a day. He pulls himself up on everything (including the toilet) :) and will walk from one thing to another. He loves to walk with you, but has to be holding on to you with both hands, he doesn't like to go one-handed and gets mad if you make him do it, even though he will stand next to something and hold on with one hand or he will lean against it with no hands and play with something else... :)

We have been working on doing more and more finger food with Kyler. We have been giving him some things for a while now, but are working on making his whole meal finger foods. He's not quite sure about this as he loves to be able to just "suck down" his food and not do any work to get it to his tummy. :) Another thing with eating is that we have sucessfully made it one year with breastfeeding!! I feel like this is something to be proud of, I know it doesn't work for everyone, but we made it the full year! Kyler is down to just a couple feedings during the day that we will be slowly eliminating over the next couple of weeks. I am kind of ready to be done, but again hard to believe that this "stage" is over. :)

Kyler has been doing a lot more talking this month he has been pretty vocal for a while now, but I think it has definitely increased this past month. He has discovered his "n" and "d" sounds and almost has the "g". His favorite words are "ba ba ba" or "bop bop/bob bob". We joke about "who is bob?" "what bob are you talking to Kyler?" around here. :)

We love you so much Kyler! You are such a blessing to us! Happy 1st Birthday!!!!

Love,

Daddy and Mommy

Easter Sunday 2010

We had a great time celebrating Easter this past weekend! Friday night we went to the Good Friday service at Naz that the students put on every year. I always like hearing about the students' lives and their different growth stories. Saturday we didn't do much, Erik had to be at the church for a while to get ready for Sunday, but we did get our refrigerator moved back!! (I'll post more on that later). Then on Sunday we went to church at 9:00 with my (Ashley's) family and then after church, we headed up to Denver (Iowa that is, not Colorado) :) to my aunt's house to have dinner with my mom's side of the family. It was such a nice day, the kids got to be outside and play. This was our 2nd Easter as a family of 3! Kyler was born on Easter Sunday last year, so we spent the day in the hospital, it was nice to be with family this year!

We are so thankful that we have a God that sent his Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins. And, we are also thankful that He rose from the dead and is alive!! We hope you also had a great day celebrating Jesus' resurrection!

Our family!

Happy Easter!!

Hmmm, Mom, enough pictures....

These eggs taste pretty good!

Hanging out with grandpa

Ashley's cousin, uncle and brother.

Ava and Ryan playing with bubbles.

5 Years Ago Today...

I had spent the past week on a mission trip in New York doing these things...

Seeing the Statue of Liberty

Riding the Subway

Hanging out with friends

Doing prayer stations in the subway

Seeing Times Square

And ended up here on Thursday night (the final and "free" night in the city)...

Empire State Building!!

I walked around, took this picture...

Turned around, and this person (my boyfriend at the time) was standing there!!! (He wasn't on the trip...)

I gave him a hug and this is what he did...

Got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him!!! (I obviously said yes!!) :)

Engaged!! :)

Erik-Thanks for making this one of the most memorable days of my life!! I can't believe it's been five years since this happened, can't wait to see where the next five years takes us in life! Love you!!!

11 Months and Moving Up!!

Kyler turned 11 months old yesterday! Our little boy is growing up so fast! He has had some big "firsts" this past month. He finally got his arms and legs coordinated so that he is crawling on his hands and knees. He was definitely on the move last month and could get where he wanted, but it was with more of an "inch worm" style. Well, the inch worm is no more! He has figured out how to crawl on all fours and is getting quite speedy with it. Another thing Kyler has figured out this past month is how to pull himself up on things. He easily pulls himself up on his musical table, the footstool, a laundry basket, a plastic container, a box, or whatever else he thinks looks interesting! It is providing new challenges for Erik and I as we have to keep a better eye on him now. He hasn't quite perfected how to get down from standing yet...he does okay sometimes and other times he cries because he wants help. Kyler has also figured out how to go up the stairs. We have two stairs and then a landing and then the rest of the staircase to go upstairs. He has recently figured out he can get up the two stairs and then look out the window that is by the landing.

Kyler now has 4 teeth!! He got his first top one around Valentines day and the 2nd one came in just this past week. Kyler also still loves to eat, I think he eats just about everything that we stick in his mouth. :) (Which is great, I would rather have it that way for sure!) We are working on him feeding himself, which he can do pretty well if he decides that the food needs to go in his mouth instead of being played with. I often watch him put a puff in his mouth and then hit the other one until it lands on the floor.... :) Another thing with eating...Erik and I joke about how Kyler is the human vacuum; he picks up little pieces of fuzz, lint, and threads off of the floor and puts them into his mouth so fast! He puts fuzz into his mouth faster than he puts food! We hope this phase passes soon...

Well those are some highlights from this past month...we have been enjoying the warmer weather and being able to go out on some afternoon walks! Below are some photos from the past month, have a good weekend!

Standing at the footstool :)

Hi!!

Heading up the stairs...

All ready to go for the first walk of the year!

Crawling to the camera

On his knees...

...to standing!!

"Ooooooooo" is one of his new favorite phrases!

Looking out the landing window!

Kitchen Update!

It has been a while since I have done a blog post about our kitchen. Well we are still working on it, and lately we have been making some steady progress!! I realize we did have a small "distraction" (a little guy named Kyler) :) in the midst of this project, but hopefully we will be finished soon! What we really have left to do is to finish stripping, sanding, staining, and finishing all of the woodwork. And the thing about it is, it just takes a lot of time, so we continue to plug away! Here are some pictures of the progress over the last couple weeks!

Erik staining the window!

All done!

The doorway and window stained!

10 Months Old and Moving Forward!

Kyler is 10 months old today!! It's hard to believe that in just two quick months he will be one year old! We have had a pretty good month here at the Blanchard's. One of Kyler's firsts for the month was his first night away from mom and dad. Erik and I went to Minneapolis at the end of January to a Song of Solomon conference that Mark Driscoll put on. It was a great weekend and if you are ever looking for someone to listen to I highly recommend Mark Driscoll, he is the lead pastor of Mars Hill Church out in Seattle, WA. Kyler spent the night at my (Ashley's) parents house. I think it went pretty well (from what they said) but I'm not sure how much sleep he got...he was a pretty tired little boy on Sunday. :) Since we had to be gone, Kyler had to learn how to take a bottle. I was a little nervous about this because he had NEVER had one, and I had heard that some babies refuse to take one, but Kyler did great! Erik gave him one on Thursday night and he took it like a champ. It had breast milk of course, but I was very glad it went so well.

I wouldn't say that Kyler is exactly crawling yet, but he is definitely moving forward and can get where he wants to go. He does this by getting up on all fours and then sort of diving forward and then repeating this process-which he has gotten quite good at. He is SO CLOSE to crawling, he will get up on all fours and rock back and fourth like he's ready to take off, but then just lays back down on his belly. Kyler has also figured out how to go from sitting on the floor to down on his belly so he can get where he wants to.

He continues to do very well eating. He definitely has his favorite foods (yogurt and pears) but we are going to work on expanding his horizons. :) He has started to take less of an interest in nursing after he eats "real" food, so I'm hoping that this is an indication that weaning will go pretty well.

I think that's all for now...enjoy the pictures of our little guy, I think he's starting to look more and more like a little boy and not so much a baby any more!!

I'm 10 months old today!!

I LOVE yogurt!

Celebrating Mommy's birthday!

Heading to the bath tub!

Big boy!

Working on crawling... his own style :)

This is a little better... :)

If you look close you can see his two pearly whites!

I'm going to get you! (Doesn't everyone take a bat with them to dinner?)

Ahhhhhhhh!

Christmas #2 and #3/Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we celebrated Christmas two times. In the morning we got up and headed over to Ashley's parents house to have Christmas with Ashley's parents and brother. We had a great time with many laughs and again were very blessed with the presents that we all received. Some of Kyler's favorites were his mirror, basketball hoop, and camouflage fleece jacket. After presents, Ashley's mom made brunch for all of us, Kyler took a nap and then we just hung out for a while. Around 3:00, we then headed up to Waverly to Ashley's cousin's house to have Christmas #3 with Ashley's Mom's side of the family. This celebration was a little more crazy as there were five kids under the age of 8 there! Next year Kyler will be in on the craziness as well! All together there were 22 of us there to celebrate-from Ashley's grandma who just turned 94 down to Kyler, 8 months-and four generations of the Arthur family. Overall, we had a busy but great Christmas Day and returned home around 8:30 pm. Can't wait for next year when Kyler is a little bigger and will be able to understand Christmas even more! :)

Hmmm....I wonder how I can get that open...

Waiting patiently :)

Looking in his stocking

Kyler's new camo fleece!

Opening the basketball hoop

My new Mad Bomber hat!! :)

Uncle Ben and I match!!!

Playing with Kyler's new basketball hoop

Playing with tissue paper at Christmas #3

Oooooh, it's a car and a walker from Great Aunt Mimi!