And the "Seconds" begin...

We can hardly believe that most of the "firsts" are over and the "seconds" are beginning. As you can tell from my previous post Denver enjoyed his SECOND Thanksgiving. He continues to be a busy, busy boy which in my opinion is a big reason of why he's so little. The boy never stops! Denver gets faster at walking every day and it won't be long and he'll be running. I was in his bedroom yesterday calling for him to come back so I could get him dressed and all of a sudden I heard fast pitter-patters of little feet running across the floor and before I knew it he was right in front of me. Tooth #6 is on it's way in and he's really been tolerating it well! It has been working on coming in since before his little cousin was born and even with being out of his environment he was very happy and has continued to be at home too. I never posted about the "arrival" of tooth #5 because I didn't realize it was there until last week and I think it's been there for at least a week before I found it. The reason we didn't notice it right away was because it is turned 90 degrees from how its supposed to be. I called the dentist and he wasn't concerned about it, but wanted to take a peek at it so Denver will have his first dentist appointment at the end of the week. I'm wondering how he will be for the dentist! Denver found a love for lemons this past week. We were out to eat one night and I had an iced tea with a lemon. Evan wanted to see Denver's reaction to one so we let him taste it and his first face was pretty funny, but then he wanted it and pretty much ate the whole thing. Here are some pictures of him enjoying his lemon!

Last week we had a "nicer" day...it was about 42 degrees or so I think and I decided it was warm enough to venture out in some extra clothing so that Denver could go for a ride in his new wagon that he got for his birthday. He has had several rides in it before with Grandma Verni, but Mommy and Daddy haven't wanted to go out in the cold. Denver can talk his Grandma Verni into doing whatever he wants (or so I think).

(Time is ticking to vote for Denver's baby sister or baby brother)

A Thankful Thanksgiving

What a wonderful Thanksgiving our family had, although it was not a normal Thanksgiving by any means (no traditional meal and not the typical family gathering). The day before Thanksgiving we got the phone call we've been waiting for....our titles are finally here...Aunt Mindy, Uncle Evan, and Cousin Denver! Jacob Alexander was welcomed into this world by his wonderful parents Kimberly (my sister) and Jeffrey (and of course all the rest of Jacob's family!) on November 26, 2008 at 11:35a.m. Labor went well and baby is beautiful with a full head of dark hair. For those of you who know, this day has been long awaited for and I'm guessing my sister had the best birthday of her life and the best Thanksgiving of her life too. Our family has been praying for this day for quite some time and we could not have asked for a better miracle than little Jacob. A family friend of ours who also blogs has within her "title" the verse "For this child I prayed" 1 Samuel 1:27. I don't think this verse could be anymore true for our family. We have prayed and prayed for little Jacob to bless Kim and Jeff and the rest of our family and God is good! Welcome to the world baby Jacob Alexander!

Jacob Alexander 6lbs. 13oz 19 inches

Grandma and her boys! (Grandma never got her 2 sons...but now she has 2 grandsons!) COUSINS!

The Proud Grandparents! The Kliewer Family

SISTERS AND COUSINS

When we first walked into the room to meet Baby Jacob we immediately saw his Daddy in him. Why is it that the Mommy's do all the work and the Daddy's get all the credit? :) The funny thing about this though is...on the way home I was looking through the pictures we captured during our time with the Kliewer's and when I was scanning through them I came to 1 and said to myself "oh, and there's Denver", but then I quickly realized it couldn't be because my memory card was empty when we arrived to meet this little man and this was a picture of a baby. It was Baby Jacob! Even though these baby's look like their Daddy's, they still must have some of their Mommy's shining through because if you look at the following pictures they look very similar.

Baby Denver

Baby Jacob

Denver had a good 2nd Thanksgiving. Which brings me to another thing we are thankful for...which is our baby boy Denver. We have been blessed with such a wonderful year with Denver and have loved almost every minute of it! :) God has filled our lives with so much love and has given us a wonderful, healthy, happy son whom we love so very much. Denver loved on his new baby cousin Jacob. He was sooo good with Jacob. He would kiss him and snuggle his head into him, and pet him. It was so cute and made me so very happy (and makes me feel a little better about him welcoming a sibling into the world in 6 months). Denver's vocabulary continues to grow. He continues with his animal sounds and you can now ask him "What does a cow, pig, or kitty say?" and get an answer after each question and the lamb/sheep is coming, he just needs a little reminder of what it says and some coaxing into saying it. He has also added "that" (as he points to what he wants and says "that") and "no". I also think I got "hi" out of him once or twice today, but we're still working on that. Here are some fun pictures of Denver and playing with his Daddy today. He's getting to be quite the imitator and he was imitating Dad before he picked him up; it was very cute.

We are so thankful for Denver's Grandma's for stepping up to the plate and helping us take care of Denver when both of us have to be at work. I couldn't imagine having to leave my baby with a stranger. If only all parents could experience the ease of leaving their child to go to work everyday that we experience! Thank you Grandma's for taking such good care of Denver. We are also very thankful for the new little blessing that God will be adding to our family in May. This past month I have been overfilled with joy about this unexpected blessing and couldn't be more excited. I never thought I wanted my kids too close in age, but I'm so excited that they will be close in age and what good friends they will be some day. Also, knowing how much purpose Denver has given us makes us so excited about how much more purpose will be given to our lives with this new baby. Even though I haven't felt well during this pregnancy God has still shined through it and made it possible to see our baby moving around during 2 ultrasounds and a couple weeks ago I started feeling him or her move around inside me which makes it all so much more real. There are countless things that we are thankful for, but these are at the top of our list this year. We have such an amazing God and can't wait for the next holiday to celebrate the birth of His own Son! We hope each and everyone of you had a great, thankful, and, happy Thanksgiving. (You have 3 days left to vote for Denver's baby sister or baby brother! Please help make this fun for us and vote for which you think it will be...thanks!)

Little, little little...

Every where we go, we hear, "Oh he is so cute and little". We've always known our little boy is little. Every time we go to the doctor we always talk about how Denver is on the small end of the growth chart and our pediatrician always reassures us that we're little so we can't expect to have a big boy. Well, today he even was concerned on his weight. Denver has dropped to right below the 3% in weight and his height has dropped to the 10%. He weighed in at 18lbs 9oz and I believe they said he was 28 inches long. We will be heading back to the office to get reweighed in about 3 months and from there we will make a plan. If his weight isn't at least trending back up to follow the growth curve he was on before it sounds like we will be doing some testing that will include testing for celiac disease. Denver's always been on the small side and my gut says that he is fine, he's just little, but I have to admit those words coming out of our pediatrician's mouth did scare me some. During the next 3 months we are going to be feeding Denver lots of high fat foods. Today I went and bought him pudding as our pediatrician suggested we give him lots of it. I had always stayed away from this because I figured all that sugar wasn't good for him, but if that's what he needs, that's what he will get! Denver loves to eat which makes me surprised he's on the little side, but he also loves to play and run around so he's constantly burning his calories. Plus, we have a boy who likes healthy food! Who would've guessed....especially since his Mommy is not a good vegetable eater. I'm hoping we can find a good balance so we can still get our healthy foods in that Denver loves, but also fill him with some extra calories! We'd appreciate some extra prayers for Denver to gain some extra weight and that mommy's gut feeling can be correct that he's a normal, happy, healthy 1 year old! Other than the weight department Denver passed with flying colors. I had another questionnaire to fill out and was able to circle yes for all of the questions and they were astounded. They said there are very few that have a "perfect score". I was surprised by that as he's been doing most of those things for quite some time now.

I don't really have any new pictures to share so I went through the birthday videos and found one that I didn't have to take the time to edit so it wouldn't be so long. If I have the energy and time some day I'll post a video of Denver digging into his birthday cakes, but for the time being here's a video from Denver's birthday night at Chuck-E-Cheese. We went to "cash out" all of the tickets everyone won and had a couple left after finding a small toy for Denver so Daddy picked some Pop Rocks and had Denver try them. He thought it was great....here you can see him enjoying them.

Not much else to update on. Baby #2 continues to grow and Mommy's tummy can't hide the fact that he or she is on the way any more. My clothes are starting to get a little snug. We don't have another appointment until the beginning of December and then the end of December we hope to know if we'll have a baby boy or a baby girl.

Daddy is going hunting on Sunday with Grandpa Rodney in hopes that they can each get a deer. This is there last chance. Evan is excited to go, but I'm not sure if he'll enjoy it as much this time as I have a feeling it's going to be pretty cold!

We are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baby Kliewer. Everyone there is doing well, but please keep them in your prayers as they await the arrival of their long awaited baby and that delivery goes well and that Mommy and Baby are healthy! Also, prayers for all of us traveling to go see this new little man.

Birthday Boy

Here are pictures from all of our parties for our Birthday Boy.

Friday night was spent celebrating cousin Rachel's birthday and Denver's

Daddy and Denver opening up gifts

Mommy and Denver

Denver didn't know what to think about his cake Friday night.

Sunday afternoon was with Denver's greatgrandparents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Denver with his birthday hat. We did a cow (and animal theme).

Denver wanted to get the candle!

Denver enjoyed his cake a lot more on Sunday. He started off with little dips of his finger into the frosting.And then he got messy! He doesn't like dirty hands though so when the frosting got on his hands too much he shake his hand to try and get it off and he'd make frosting fly all over including the wall! What a messy boy! In the tub he went with a change of clothes before opening presents.

By the time we opened gifts Denver was ready for another nap, but once he found TOYS he wanted to play and got his 2nd wind.

Monday was time for the 3 of us (Denver and Mommy took Daddy and his co-workers cookies to celebrate and then we had some time together when Daddy got home from work) and then we went to Chuck-E-Cheese with cousin Paula and Tom and Evan's friend Jordan.

In the morning Denver and Mommy just hung out at home and played with all his new toys. He spent lots of time playing in his new wagon and with his farm set. He just didn't know what to play with...he'd go from one to the next to the next. It was super cute.

We got Denver a little 4 wheeler for his birthday. He thought it was great! Denver even figured out how to get on and off it all by himself.

Fun at Chuck-E-Cheese

Fun in the tub with his new basketball hoop and balls. He loves throwing the balls in the hoop.

Happy 1st Birthday Denver!

It's hard to believe that our baby is 1 today. A year ago our lives changed in ways we could have never imagined. We are so grateful to God for blessing us with such a wonderful, handsome "baby" boy! Denver has brought so much joy and purpose to our lives.

Here are Denver's 1 year pictures.

Denver continues to work on his walking skills and increasing his vocabulary. I'm trying to remember all of his words...this is what I can think of now that he says..."dada", "mama", "daddy", "hot", "nana" (banana), "uh-oh", "moo", he's said "meow" a couple times. He found a banana in one of his books and quickly pointed out "nana". You can't go anywhere close to where the bananas are without him asking for one...or ask him to say banana without the willingness to sit down and feed one to him. Also, after my last post I realized I never explained the banana...we give him a banana with the peeling on it, but cut of part of the peeling on the top so he can hold it and feed himself, but not make a complete mess either.

Denver has never been very shy, just doesn't like to leave Mom and Dad's arms very often when there are other people around. This past week he's started to get shy. He will dig his head into our shoulder when people start talking to him. He will then peek back and bat his long eyelashes and then put his head back into our shoulder.

He still just has his 3 1/2 teeth! I say half because that top right tooth just doesn't want to come all the way down. His poor gums get so swollen at times which has made me think the one next to it is trying to come down too, but I haven't seen the one yet.

Denver loves to eat. He's not a very picky eater (unlike his Mommy...thank goodness!), but there are some things you have to encourage him to eat or disguise a little with some cheese or something. Denver loves bananas, yogurt, meat of any kind, tomatoes, and I'm sure there are some other favorites that I'm forgetting at the time. Today we cut out 1 of the 2 bottles that he was getting a day. He now only gets a bottle before he goes to bed. Denver never complained this morning that it wasn't a bottle and still drank the whole thing! Let's just hope the last one can be removed from his routine as easily. I think we will give him about a week of just the 1 and then try to get that night time one out as well.

Play, play, play! Denver loves to play and read books. He will spend hours playing with his toys and looking through his books or bringing them to us to read to him. Denver loves his tractors, trucks, and cars and loves anything that has to do with the farm...especially cows! He also loves his Baby Einstein movies which have been great for long trips and when Mommy needs to take a shower and there's no one there to entertain him.

I think that's about it. If there's something you want to know about Denver that I didn't think to include leave me a comment and I'll answer you! :) There will be a post with all of Denver's birthday endeavors lately. I didn't want to make this post forever long, so I figured I'd do that one later tonight or another day depending on the amount of time I have to get it done. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers you have sent us in the past year. We greatly appreciate every one of them and will need them in the months to come as we prepare for baby number 2 and getting Denver ready to be a big brother. God has truly blessed us with a wonderful little family....extended family and friends!