Warning...not for the weak ones!

Doug is finishing up a good part of his nursing degree this April. So this now means that all the little things he was taught in school he will have to actually do... on real people... not on dummies. This can be a little frightening because real people are scary to practice your newly found skills on. To help Doug and some of his fellow classmates we had an IV party at our house last week. 

 Doug has slowly been collecting IV's from work that are expired(who cares about expiration dates anyway, I mean it's only going inside your vein) and also collecting other supplies that the hospital couldn't use, but we sure could. 

 We gathered in our kitchen and started wrapping tourniquets and poking around. And I mean POKING around. It pained me to see how long some of the people would keep searching for a vein on their very patient fellow nursing student. I even let Doug try a poke on me and he got it perfectly. 

 Everyone had a good time and I am proud to say that everyone left our house with at least 1 successful IV start. There are some good nurses headed out into the medical world come April, lets just hope if you need an IV started you get one of Doug's friends that is a little more skilled after our get together. :)

Happy Birthday to You!

Well Doug and I did it! We have kept this little sweetheart alive and well for an entire year! We love Beckham and can't believe how lucky we are to be his parents. He turned one on Thursday so we had a little party for him. 

 I saw this cute idea on pinterest and thought it was a must. I love all of Beckham's little faces and I am so glad that I did it. It is now hanging in his room for me to enjoy daily!

 I made a little soccer smash-cake because I found some cute soccer cupcake cups for sale, so soccer it was. Also everyone always asks us if we named Beckham after the soccer player. The answer is always no, and I am especially happy that we didn't name him after David Beckham after seeing his super-bowl commercial. I don't want a man covered in tatoos and modeling underwear being the guy who we named our child after. 

 He loved eating his cake and didn't even get sick from all the cake and icing he consumed. That is most likely due to the fact that he gets a lot of sweets around our house and the grandparents house.

Happy Birthday Beckham! We love you!

I keep hearing that the weather around here is one month behind...so I am going to pretend that it is the middle of December and post all about Christmas! I must admit that I am not complaining about the weather...I have really enjoyed going on walks and being outside in January. 

 We went to the live nativity for our first time and had a great time. Beckham wasn't too thrilled to be placed in a corner hay bin for a picture...he really will appreciate all the great pictures we got of him when he is older. 

 We had a fun play date with some of Beckham's friends: Maggie and Zoe. It is so fun to see all the babies growing up and learning new things. 

 He HATED santa. I kept trying to get a good picture, but there was just something about that red suit or beard that he was terrified of.

 This is Beckham's little cousin Brian and he looked adorable Christmas morning with his little santa suit on. 

  On the other side of the family Beckham has two boy cousins pretty close in age. Isaac, Camden, and Beckham are going to be the best of friends... I hope! 

 It took a lot of effort to get all the boys to look at the camera. 

We had a really wonderful Christmas season this year. We loved spending time with our family and friends that were in town. Doug started school last week and is really excited for all his classes this semester. My sister Aly is having a baby any day now and Doug's sister Amanda is due next month so we are really excited to welcome two new girls into our family! Beckham is now taking a few steps and already has some bruises on his face to prove he is a walker!

While I get ready for the day I let Beckham rummage through the bathroom cupboards to keep busy. He really enjoys cotton balls apparently...

Here are some pictures of Beckham's last personal photo shoot. He just loves picking up the camera and taking pictures of himself.

I Pitty the fool!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween, we sure did! My sister Shannon gave me the idea for Beckham to be Mr. T and we had a great time dressing up.

Bow wasn't thrilled being experimented on... we tried a few different things for our masks and pantyhose didn't work. But they did make for a few good laughs.

We finally got Beckham to sleep through the night, all he needed was a little company in his crib. We started having Bow sleep with him and he does so well now. OK, just kidding...we just thought this was a good photo opportunity.

On a VERY cold day last week I went to Cornbelly's with some girls from work. It was fun, but probably better with a little older kids. Beckham and I still had a good time though.

He really does like slides, so he slid down this one about 100+ times. (I counted that as my workout for the day)

Doug and I are just loving this little boy so much. He is getting quite the personality and becoming a lot more interactive. He crawls around like it's going out of style and loves pulling himself up onto things. He recently developed the love of biting his mother on the shoulder/arm...but never bites anybody else. I must admit I flicked him really good yesterday and he cried and cried, but I have not been bitten since. He is now 9 months old and we just can't get enough of him!

Abuse? I think not!

We got some large pumpkins this year, so naturally I wanted to stick Beckham in it for some pictures. He started out being really helpful and taking the seeds out with me. 

 He decided to try them and found the insides of a pumpkin to be quite delicious. So he continued to munch on it for a while. 

 He wasn't the biggest fan of being placed in slimy pumpkin. Doug kept telling me I was an abusive mother and we should just take him out. I think that Beckham will one day thank me for the awesome first Halloween pictures he has...

 He finally escaped!

 But only to be placed right back in once the pumpkin was carved. I did have some compassion this time and only snapped a couple pictures. 

Does this look like the face of a child that is abused? I don't think so! He loved it! Or maybe it's the bath that he loves? Either way, he is happy now. 

 This last week I went to the zoo with my cousins Julie and Sara and my neighbor Kristin. It was a great break from the normal day and a fun time with the girls. Beckham wasn't sure what to think of the  carousel. 

 He was happy the entire time just munching on cheerios.