A new house & we turned one!

We had a great 1st Birthday!  Tripp had a lot of family & friends with him to celebrate.  He was such a sweet boy & shared his birthday cake with everyone, especially his mommy :)  I was eventually covered with icing, loved it!  Tripp got lots of fun toys & books, which we are loving right now because of how stinking hot it is in Dallas!

 Yes sir, I am one today!

 Mom, we all know I look better in your shades!

 This is Tripp hanging with bear, one of our new favorite stuffed animals.  We like to watch a little Curious George with Bear in our big fluffy chair!  Tripp is just starting to have an affinity to stuffed animals.  He is very sweet and gives his stuffed playmates snuggles & kisses.

 This was Tripp's first time to ride on the carousal.  He did really well & seemed to enjoy it :)

 Just look at those cute little feet & toes!  I love how he sits like this.  I know before too long those sweet feet will turn into big boy feet!

 The Collins family moved June 15th into our new home.  We were so excited to get into something bigger & have more space for ourselves & young Tripp.  Here we are playing in our big backyard.  We had a great breeze come through & cool everything down by about 10 degrees.  Perfect weather for playing in the buff!

 This is our new water table that Granddaddy & Gramma got Tripp!  He loves splashing, climbing, & drinking in it!

As 1 approaches...

Tripp is just a delight!  He is cruising & standing for brief periods on his own, I think we are probably pretty close to walking, yikes!  He can say a couple of words: Da-Da, La-La, & Na-Na.  I think that Na-Na is me, or at least that is what I am telling myself!  He says Da-Da non-stop, we talk about Da-Da in the car, in the bath, while playing, & even when we are trying to soothe ourselves to sleep!  It is very precious.  Tripp loves to play peek-a-boo with his blankies & towels!  He has a great appetite & still loves all foods, I just hope we can keep that up!  We have 6 teeth right now & are working on some more.  You can tell that the teething can be quite uncomfortable for him in the evenings :(  But like all things, this too shall pass.  Tripp loves to point at objects he recognizes.  We ask him to point at mommy, daddy, the dogs, bubbles, etc...  It is pretty cute!  He loves to share as well.  Tripp loves to crawl over anything, including us!  He has also started getting into a downward dog position & then looking between his legs at you upside down, very funny!  I keep meaning to get a snap shot of him doing that!

We are preparing for his 1st birthday in a couple of weeks.  It is bittersweet for me because I know that my baby is no longer a baby.  But I am so proud of how much is growing, learning, & developing his own personality :)

Here are some pics of us over the past month & a half or so. 

We had a fun family picnic playdate with my Mom's group.  It was really nice to see & meet the daddy's!

We had a great playdate, Pajamas & Pancakes!  Basically, it was an early morning playdate and the moms & babies all meet at a Mom's house for breakfast.  We loved it & try to go to every one!

Craig & I took Tripp to the Dallas Zoo over Easter Weekend.   I think he really enjoyed seeing all the different animals!

What we have been up to...

We have been very active & busy over the past couple of months.  Tripp is doing fantastic with his swim lessons, he can hold his breath for 10 seconds!  I must admit, it takes everything for me not to jump into the pool & pull him out after 5!  The good news is that they don't increase their breath beyond 10 seconds.  Tripp is also enjoying his gymboree class.  We got moved up a month early to the 10 month class!  Craig & I, like most parents, always knew that Tripp was advanced ;-)

Tripp has also discovered the world of solid foods & oh boy does he love to eat!  I have yet to find anything that he won't gobble up!  So far his favorites are avocado, spinach, sweet potato, rice, beans, & turkey, chicken, & pork!  I must admit, it has made our excursions a little bit easier because now we can stop anywhere to eat when we are out & about, rather than me having to pack up the pantry in my diaper bag!

Eating at Veracruz Cafe in the Bishop Art District, yummy!

Tripp is getting more playful, mobile, & curious everyday.  Tripp loves rolling & throwing balls down the stairs, especially when my ancient geriatric chihuahua, Belle (yes, she is still alive, turned 14 this month!), is attempting to descend the stairs.  He is also rolling & throwing the ball back & forth with us!  He has started to place his toys into our laundry baskets, his laundry basket, & trash can.  Which makes for fun little discoveries as we clean house!  Tripp loves it when we set all his little toys up on the window sill for him to knock down, too!  He is also learning the word, No!, which has been funny!  I caught him pulling a wet wipe out of his trash can the other day and told him, No!, & he quick dropped the wipe and crawled away as fast as he could!  I have also learned that my son is going to be a climber (thank you gymboree)!  I have been watching him take the first steps to scaling his bookcase (anchored of course), climbing our staircase effortlessly (with me behind him), & just recently he has climbed out of the empty bathtub (scary, as I had popped into my bedroom to grab something)!  He also loves climbing all over us while we lay on the floor. Tripp also has 5 teeth now!  What is super cute is that he has a space between his two front teeth, just like his daddy did!  Tripp has also mastered pulling up & cruising, so I am sure we are just a few short weeks away from him walking as well.

Yay! We found the toilet paper roll!

For any of you who have this particular walker, "I am riding with my friendly dinosaur, oh my listen to him roar!"

Climbing the wall at Gymboree

Just a little toothy!

This weekend, my brother came to visit us for his birthday!  It was so great to see him & Tripp get to know each other!  This was Lucas' second time to hang with Tripp & he took to Uncle Lucas immediately :-)  It was nice for my brother to spend a day in our world & I was thankful for the extra hands for meals, grocery shopping, & bathing! On Saturday my Dad & Pat came up to Dallas as well.  Granddaddy & Uncle Lucas got to see Tripp at his swim lessons for the first time!  Tripp decided to really show off how he could hold his breath for his uncle Luke & Granddaddy and went under water lots of times for them! 

Granddaddy, Tripp, & Uncle Lucas

Tripp holding his breath & kicking!

Gramma Pat & Tripp

In two weeks my sister and her husband will be here to visit us for a few days from France.  We are really looking forward to seeing them soon!  I do wish I could have my brother and sister here at the same time to see Tripp but I know there is plenty of time for that later!  Then, I suppose I better get to planning little Tripp's 1st birthday party :-)

Also, Happy Easter!  I didn't take Tripp to see Santa Clause last year & figured I would make up for it by taking him to see the Easter Bunny!

Oh how we are playing & growing!

We have been having so much this year!  We are loving our swim lessons, going to lots of playdates, & we have joined Gymboree.  We love watching Tripp grow.  He is a healthy, independent, curious, happy and secure little baby boy.  We feel so blessed that he has yet to get sick, not even a cold!  Tripp has mastered crawling, pulling up, & has started cruising!  He is into everything, which is super fun for Mom & Dad to see what else we have to baby proff!  I have found the hallway upstairs is the safest place for him to play, it is nothing but closed doors, walls, & a gate. 

I had no idea how much Tripp would love Gymboree!  He loved all the different stations, activities, & songs.  Tripp especially loved rocking on all the toys.  The above picture is him rocking in the barrel.

This a picture from one of our playdates.  I joined a first time mom's group for moms of babies born in 2010 late last year.  It is a great group of women and sweet babies. 

Look at all those babies and toys!  Tripp & I love these dates. :-)

It has been so sweet for me to watch my son interact with other babies his age.  One of things Tripp has started do at home and at playdates, is share.  He will be playing with a toy and then hand it to me or put it in my mouth. You can see he is trying to hand the egg to his little friend.  So precious.

Swim Lessons

We started our swim lessons a couple of weeks ago at Emler's Swim School! Craig is loving his Saturday morning date with young Tripp. We've had 2 lessons and so far Tripp is totally digging it!

Right now Tripp is a waterbaby at Emlers (6mos-3 yrs). We go on Saturdays for 30 minutes. I like that the classes are small, there are only 2 other babies in our class. The beginner's class is focused on getting the babies comfortable in the water. They teach the kids to hang onto the edge of the pool, so if they were to fall in, they would know to hang on to the edge (too scary to even think about). They also teach them to hold their breathe, float, and kick their little legs. At his second lesson, Tripp went under the water 3 times. I would say more like he got dunked 3 times! He didn't mind one bit and just coughed a little.

One perk to swim lessons is that the little angel is pooped afterwards and takes a nice morning nap, yay for Mom & Dad!

We are super excited to see how he advances over the next few months & I am looking forward to having some fun pool time with Tripp over the summer :-)


His teacher tried (keyword) to put these little red flippers on him!
Motorboat, motorboat go so fast, motorboat, motorboat, step on the gas!

We love swimming for our duckies! We also do this at home in the bath with Daddy!

Tripp's First Snow & Christmas

We got our first snow of the year today with great big huge fluffy snowflakes! And like any good Texan, we immediately bundled up and went out to eat Mexican Food! The snow was also a perfect time for Tripp to wear his ADORABLE hand crocheted owl hat that his Aunt Barie made him for Christmas!

My sweet little boy's first time to be in the snow! Daddy and his happy little owl!
A fun treat for Tripp on Christmas morning was getting to try lemon pie for the first time. This of course was his Lovey's idea. She always manages to sneak him something right in front of me! I remember I had him home from the hospital all of but 3 days and she gave him a taste of Dr. Pepper! I imagine that was the moment he realized they would get along just fine!
It was quite tart as you can see but he wanted to go for another bite & had it not been for his Mommy saying no more, I imagine they would have shared the entire slice of pie!
Our first Christmas together! Merry merry my handsome son!
Here are a few of the fun goodies Tripp got for Christmas. The owl hat, bib, & little orange squirrel (a.k.a. Squeaky the Squirrel) on the ground are from his Aunt Barie & Uncle Stan. The ball is one of his present from us.

Of course Tripp didn't understand that it was Christmas but he sure did have fun with all the boxes and bows from the presents.
This year was a wonderful Christmas with many blessing, family, and dear friends.