A year ago today I (along with Ilija and Merrie) was working very hard to bring this sweet boy into the world. It is amazing how the time has flown. Happy birthday Peja! We are SOOOOO happy to have you in our life.



I did so much pacing - that tiny hospital room - back and forth, back and forth.

I remember those quiet days of recovery so clearly.

Peja has gotten so big and so fun! It is amazing what a year can do. Fastest year of my life for sure.

At long last my son is walking. He is so heavy that I have been anxiously awaiting this day. I guess my cheapness is going to have to get over itself and buy some shoes for the poor barefoot kid. It is winter after all!



Last week he took a couple of steps here and there and he loved walking this thing back and forth, back and forth.

This week he is walking all over the place! And trying to carry heavy things - crazy child...

Ilija had to work on Saturday so I went on a little galivant to see the grandparents. We met for fish and chips and a short walk on the beach. My parents met us there too. It was such a gorgeous day, who would have known it was the middle of November! Peja's favorite thing about the beach is still eating sand. It was pretty gross, but he wouldn't stop!

These are a couple of months old, I'll take some new ones soon.

I have been a seriously slacker with pictures - sorry again GG. Ever since I moved to this apartment the blog is WAAAAY far down my to-do list. I haven't even been taking pictures and there are so many cute things to take pictures of. I will try this week to be better. Peja took a couple of steps on his own this week. He is very close to walking...

Story time: Last week Peja woke up in the middle of the night screaming and he cried for a long time. I couldn't put him back to sleep in the normal ways so I put him in the backpack and started pacing the house. Sometime between 1 and 2 AM as I was pacing back and forth in the living room I came up with this. (It took a whole hour of this to get him back to sleep so I had plenty of time to think.) Motherhood is not for the weak at heart. The pacing reminded me a lot of when I was in labor, because if I remember correctly I spent much of it pacing the hospital room. I sometimes wonder why God had to make delivering a baby such hard work. What I came up with in the middle of the night is that He had to make it hard, because Motherhood is hard! The pregnancy, labor and delivery is just the beginning of this joyous, arduous, blissful and overwhelming process called parenthood. These things help prepare you and help you to know that you can do anything. Also, hopefully it will scare off people who aren't ready for such hard work. Anyway, the main point is that every day I realize a little more about the joy of parenthood. Where much is given, much is required.

For Halloween Peja was my date. He had the cutest little tux costume with coat tales and everything. I had this weird dress on that was my grandma's. People said it could be Elvira, Princess Lea (sp) or the Adam's Family mom. Anyway, here you go. Peja is almost 11 months!

We love the beach and for being only 15 minutes away we definitely don't go enough.

I love to eat sand, and it sticks to my boogers.

I hang out with the big boys at church.

I have a sweet highchair that grandma found on the side of the road for FREE!

I love to climb up, stand on my tip-toes and play the piano.
I move up and down so I can hear the different keys.

Some of our bestest friends came into town for a little bit. It was so much fun to see them!
We even got a night out on the town with no babies! Their son Taevin had a lot of fun with Peja, or maybe the other way around. Regardless, it was a great time!

There has been a drought of picture posting - sorry GG. Here are a couple of posts to delight...

Peja likes to show Nia how to crawl. "Come on Nia"

He is learning how to smile for the camera and it is the cutest thing in the world!

This is the life...

Peja has learned how to copy hand gestures...especially wave

Peja is nine months old and just keeps getting cuter. I remember crying when he was about a month old because I was so sad that he would grow up and not be as precious as he was just that second. The interesting thing is that it just keeps getting better! I wonder when the cuteness curve finally peaks and starts descending. Maybe it just makes a drastic fall off when they hit teenagerhood. Anyway, he has learned how to give big open mouthed kisses. They are so funny. He will only do it like 10% of the time though. The rest of the time he just stiff-arms us. Here is a post-bath one that I caught on camera.

This picture is from the day that Peja CRAWLED OFF THE BED! He was taking a nap and he woke up and crawled off of our very high bed onto a basket. I came home from running a quick errand and my mom said "no more having him sleep on the bed." She had found him sitting on the floor screaming. So I was traumatized, but he seemed to be fine. There were some red marks on his face and shoulder and a little cut on his nose. I don't know if you can see any of those things - mainly his cute smile and big forehead take over the picture. In general I am pretty relaxed about most things like little bumps on the head and germs and stuff, but this was scary.