Baby's 1st Fourth of July!

What an awesome week we've had! First of all, Tyler took his first steps on the 3rd! So proud of my little one. He still needs some practice, but he's going to be running around in no time. He's been busy eating like a big boy too, including whole milk! The pediatrician said we could cheat a bit and start it midway through the 11th month, so we decided to give it a go and he loved it.

Little boy is now also officially weaned. It is definitely bittersweet. I had planned to keep at least one feeding in the schedule until his first birthday, but a couple of weeks ago he came down with hand foot mouth disease (sounds a lot worse than it is, I promise). He got little blisters in his mouth (and a couple on his feet and hands, hence the name) and didn't want to nurse AT ALL. They healed after 4 days or so, but when I tried to nurse him after than, he still didn't want to nurse. Although I REALLY wanted to keep breastfeeding him, I knew it probably wasn't the best idea to try and try to get him to nurse, especially when I was planning on weaning him in less than a month anyway. So my once exclusively breastfed, bottle and paci-refusing baby, weaned with NO problems at all.

It is nice not having to worry about nursing/pumping at all now though. Especially because we've been so busy traveling and doing fun stuff for summer! On the fourth of July, we went to Smith Mountain Lake because Jordon's aunt, uncle, and cousins were vacationing there and graciously opened up their house, food, boat, and two jetskis to us :-) Thanks Kosers! Anyway, it was a BLAST. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun. We took Ty man on the boat and he loved it! Even though we put him in a life jacket, he didn't complain once. Jordon and I got to tube behind the boat, which was awesome and hilarious at the same time, and Jordon got to wakeboard (I was a wimp and didn't try haha). Then later, Jordon's aunt watched baby so we could go out and ride the jetski. Awesome. The lake was beautiful and we just had a blast. Tyler loved meeting all his family and they loved having him. I definitely heard the phrase "cutest baby ever" at least 10 times that day. He is pretty cute, huh? We even came back the next afternoon to hang out some more (we only live about 40 minutes from the lake) and to see Jord's Pap and Grandma who came to visit the Kosers too. It is awesome to see family!

We're visiting with Jordon's parents, Luke and the kids this weekend, and are off to Wintergreen tomorrow for Jordon to work and for me and baby to play. And then it's off to Columbia to visit my side of the family. Phew... busy month! Next thing I know, it's going to be Tyler's FIRST birthday. My oh my, where does the time go?!