A Year of Change

Well, in just under 12 hours, Maverick will be 1 year old! It is so hard for Jesse and I to believe that. Since our families are so far away, and my mom will be having hip-replacement surgery soon, we decided to opt-out of a party. I know, we're terrible parents. Surely next year, we'll celebrate! Maverick's most exciting news is his transition to a big-boy car seat! He giggled the whole way to Walmart. He loved seeing what was going on.
Today at church he made his first appearance at children's time. When we got to church, we took him up to the nursery as usual. As soon as children's time started, Maverick appeared with an older kid from the church. He sat really well! Then, the church sang Happy Birthday! It was pretty cool. Maverick will soon be the "church toddler" instead of the church baby =( We have been so blessed by the members of our church! He's in the process of tearing apart a poppy seed muffin!

Maverick enjoys shaking his crib when he wakes up from his nap. Lately, his naps have been kinda short. He takes a short morning and afternoon nap-we may need to combine the two so he sleeps longer.

In the hood.

Maverick is riding his pony he got from Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jeff. He can't quite make it go yet.

When Mom's Away, the Boys Are at Play

My New Year's resolution is going to be to try and blog more. Here it goes! On Saturday I headed to Omaha to help my sister move into her new house which is beautiful by the way! When I got there, all the heavy hard work was done, so I lucked out. I did get the fun job of washing all of the dishes that went into the China cabinet! So, Maverick and Jesse spent the whole day at home by themselves. They ran a few errands and played a lot. And, as you will see... So, this picture sums it all up. Maverick is sitting on the door to the dishwasher. Hopefully, our landlords don't see this one ; ) Jesse was unloading the dishwasher, he turned around, and Maverick found his way up! He is becoming quite the climber. I can only imagine what's going to happen in the next few months.
He has found all these new ways to utilize his height chair, especially since he doesn't care to eat much! He is starting to eat solids better. He LOVES yogurt. Climbing again.

He loves getting into his cupboard with the tupperware. I don't think he can climb much higher in there. Today he also started opening all of our drawers in the kitchen. Something totally new for him. We had dish towels and chip clips everywhere. It looked like a hurricane hit.

Checking out the underneath of the table. I know one of these days he's going to whack his head and not be very happy. People said we're going to get it naming him something like Maverick!

This picture cracks me up because it totally doesn't look like Maverick. His smile is so goofy. I think his lips look a clown!

Maverick's New toy

This is a video of Maverick walking, finally, without holding on to one of us. Walking by himself will soon be right around the corner, or at least that is the next 'step' in his development.

Christmas

Well, our first Christmas as a family has come and gone. It is hard to believe it went so fast. More than that, it is hard to believe that Maverick will be celebrating his 1st birthday in 2 weeks! Over the holidays, we had a chance to see a lot of family! We were at my sister Jennifer's in Omaha for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We had to come home on Friday for Jesse to go to work. We then headed to Michigan for about 5 days to see all of Jesse's family! We had a wonderful time at both places! The only bummer is that Maverick had the flu...and managed to pass it on to at least 10 people.

Maverick was not really into opening presents. He would rip a little piece of paper off, then get distracted and move on to other things.

Maverick was the first and probably only person to ride on Grandpa Brower's new deer decoy!

Wow-he's actually looking in the box. Maverick had a great Christmas and received lots of new toys to play with!

Of course, Maverick absolutely LOVED the cat toy at Oma Carola's. He looked like a cat that just caught a bird!

This was the first day that Maverick climbed into the cupboard.
So, this is probably the picture of the trip-not for those with a weak stomach! We were all playing Catch Phrase and Maverick climbed over to Seth. Seth picked Maverick up, put him above his head, and Maverick proceeded to puke right on Seth and in Seth's mouth! It was absolutely hilarious. Needless to say, Seth had the flu within a matter of days. If only we would have had a camcorder; we could be winning the next $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos! Thanks for being such a good sport Seth-sorry we didn't have any plastic gloves.