Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day weekend! We are so excited that we have this long weekend together as a family. It's not often that we have a long weekend that Clark has the whole weekend off!

Of course this weekend is extra exciting because it's the start of college football! We LOVE college football at our house and we're excited to share it with Hayden. Of course Hayden is still calling football "bayball" but we're working on it.

We started the long weekend off with a trip to the doctor. Hayden weighs 25.4lbs (25%) and is 33 1/2" tall (75%). As I said, he's tall and skinny. I'm sure all of you were waiting with bated breath for those stats. Hayden is growing perfectly and she seemed impressed with his speech "especially for a boy." I don't know if that's insulting or not. He got one shot so we're all up to date until he's 4! Yay -- well not counting flu shots and finger pricks. Oh well.

On Saturday, Hayden stayed with his favorite babysitter, Jenny while Mom and Dad went to the Baylor game! We had so much fun.

Ken Starr (yes, that one) is Baylor's new president. I wasn't entirely sure what I thought about the choice, but I sure like how involved he is in Baylor Athletics. Here he is running out onto the field with the Baylor Line:

Clark was excited because our seats were so close to his 2 favorite people:

and

Baylor was victorious, RGIII didn't get hurt and we had a great time. All is right in Meador house.

Today we slept in (8:15, oh yeah!) and went to ride the mini train. The mini train is a 40 minute ride, and Hayden loved every second of it.

Don't mind Mom's double chin:

"Dog! Dog! Dog" as well as furiously signing "dog"

Wow!

Tomorrow we're hoping to have another adventure at the zoo. We haven't been in a while and the weather is tolerable -- so we'll see!

My Boy is 18 Months Old!

I know I say this at least once every blog post, but seriously...where did my baby go?!? I don't have any official stats on height and weight yet (H goes to the doc on Friday). I can tell you that he's tall and skinny. His hair is getting more and more blonde every day. Apparently, Clark's hair did the same thing when he was little.

Here's Hayden a year ago:

Time flies, huh?

Hayden is saying SO much now. Clark and I counted and we think he's around 20+ words. He doesn't say every word consistently. New to list: "night night" "Dora" (insert eye roll here) and "Elmo" ("melmo"). He also loves to make animal noises. He says, "ah ah ah" for a monkey sounds and roars when he sees a lion, tiger or a bear. He's successfully eating with a spoon or fork even though at restaurants we're eating with our hands still. Hayden loves to color and loves Mama to read Pajama Time, Snuggle Puppy and Barnyard Dance. Hayden also looooooves to watch "bayball" with Daddy.

Of course this age has a lot of challenges. Hayden loves to test his limits and thinks "no" is funny. He's prone to tantrums at the grocery store. We've tried time out a couple of times, but you can tell he just isn't sure what we're talking about. Truth be told, I see a lot of time outs in Hayden's future. :)

It finally cooled off enough for Hayden to play outside in the evening...

How can you not love this face?

One of the sweetest things Hayden does is pucker up for a kiss and says, "mwuah!" Of course one of Hayden's favorite things in this world are his dogs. Here , Hayden is combining these two things to receive puppy kisses:

I think Hayden's face says it all.

We Did It! We Did It! We Did It, Yeah!

Yeah we did it! I apologize for the Dora quote...but we've done it -- without the assistance of a talking backpack or a bossy map. We finished the entire Harry Potter series! I apologize to everyone who now has that obnoxious Dora song in their head!

I started reading Harry Potter to Hayden when he around 6 or 7 weeks old. So it took us around 17 months to accomplish this. Of course, it wasn't without tears (on my part). I love these books so much and it was such a wonderful gift to share them with Hayden. My absolute favorite time of day was snuggling with Hayden at bed time and reading a chapter (or 2).

We've started the Chronicles of Narnia which is a great series, but pales in comparison to Harry. I wanted to be hardcore and start the Lord of the Rings, but I think that's a little much...even for me! Frodo will have to wait until Hayden is a little older. My precious!

A Common Childhood Trauma

The ice cream headache. Clark and I have only recently discovered the new trend of self serve frozen yogurt stores. How we missed this, I don't know considering I think there's one of these stores on every corner in Ft. Worth. Hayden loves it because the sample cups are just his size. In this picture he's experiencing a banana yogurt induced ice cream headache. You could tell he was suffering but he just couldn't part with the yogurt! Love it.

Hayden has also gotten in a fight at school. Over a book. I'm half proud, half embarrassed. I can say he was the victim not the defendant.

You can see the scratch he received in the fight in this picture. Kind of. This picture is more significant because it immortalizes a very important day in every boy's life: his first trip to George's. I was in Waco for a seminar for work last week and Clark and Hayden visited me on Thursday. I think Clark only came because he was hoping to catch a glimpse of RGIII at practice. No such luck. They also visited the Mayborn Museum. The Mayborn has one of the best children's museums...

Hayden had to show his Baylor spirit while in Waco of course.

When I got home on Friday, I discovered Hayden doing this:

Not sure if you can tell, but the bear (Sic Em) is wearing a Baylor t-shirt. Obviously. He pushed his bear around for a good 15 minutes. It was so cute. You may also notice the blue bunny that he's storing underneath the push toy. Why? Because you never know when he'll need to stop and do this:

My child does not suck his thumb or use a pacifier (not through any amazing parenting on my part, he just doesn't). What he does do is chew on his "lovies." Or anything that feels like his lovie.

Hayden has 7 of these (an elephant, a monkey, an owl, a dinosaur, a bunny, a lion and a tiger). We have to keep them in a heavy rotation because, as you can imagine, after a night of chewing on them...well, they stink. It's the grossest thing, but I don't know how to stop it. Hopefully by Kindergarten, Hayden will realize people will talk about him if he's still chewing on a lovie during the night! In one week Hayden will be 18 months old. I can't believe my little baby is so big now!

17 months

I always thought the adage about discovering the world through a child's eyes was kind of cheesy -- until recently. Hayden is learning so much, each day brings something different. It so fun to watch him discover new things.

He loves to build block towers.

That's about as high as Hayden can build without getting extremely frustrated. Sam looks away with disdain.

Hayden's vocabulary is growing every day too. He says "no no" (and he means no no) and "uh oh" with the correct meaning (even though I've tried to explain if he purposely throws his sippy cup on the ground that is not an "uh oh"). He says "nanas" for bananas and says "nooos" for nose and "mooo" for more (while furiously making the sign). Hayden is developing a bit of the terrible twos "attitude." He will let you know (quite loudly) when you're doing something he doesn't like (i.e. not allowing him to take a golf club to school). He'll make a gross face if you try to get him to eat something he doesn't want or will shake his head no. Hayden's also a little late to the separation anxiety party. He now cries when I drop him off at daycare (unless he's distracted by food) and cries if Mom or Dad leaves the house. It's really pretty sad.

I would say that Hayden is still a good eater, but he's just a little bit more opinionated when it comes to what food he wants. He prefers fruit above everything else. Bananas, grapes, watermelon, blueberries, well anything really. I'm pretty sure there was at least one dinner this week that all Hayden ate were french fries and grapes. Or this morning when he refused his pancakes but ate 2 bananas.

We had lots of adventures during the month of July, but unfortunately we forgot our camera for each one. We visited Grandpa (or Pops, Hayden hasn't decided yet) and Grammy's one weekend. The next weekend we visited Nan. We had a blast each time, but have no pics to prove it!

I know this picture doesn't exactly show it, but Hayden is muy jealous of Mom holding Anna. I was holding Anna in my lap and Hayden would try to sit right on top of her. That will be fun to work out when Mom and Dad decide to have another baby.

Hayden knows exactly what the camera is all about and loves to "eeeeeese" it up.

By the end of the night, Hayden was liking Anna much more. He shared his letter bath toys with her and gave her a kiss, complete with the "muah" sound. He even said her name a couple of times (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Anna sounds like banana). Ha!

Sigh...

We're stuck with this chipped tooth until this baby tooth falls out....when he's freaking 6 years old. Good one, Kelly. Good one.

What's up at 16 months

A lot has been going on! Clark and I took our first trip without Hayden this month -- to Jamaica! We had such a great time -- but I missed Hayden more than I could have possibly imagined. As much as I miss the laid back week I had in Jamaica, I missed my little guy more. Hayden had a great time with Grammy and Nan and was spoiled absolutely rotten during the week. I don't think he missed us all that much.

Hayden has to be the busiest kid ever! He is constantly on the go!

He likes to push around the computer chair....

Hayden also learned that Sohpie has many uses. Not only is she man's best friend, she's also an excellent chair:

We're lucky Sophie is such a tolerant pup! Sam, on the other hand will have nothing to do with those shenanigans.

Hayden also recently figured out what a telephone is for:

He's also multitasking. He's chatting on the phone while he watches his truck. Whoever is on the phone must have something funny to say!

This weekend we visited with one of our favorite girls -- Anna James! Last time we saw her she had no neck control -- so it was fun to see her sit up!

Not the best pic of Hayden -- but Anna looks so cute and big-girl like!

Anna got a little handsy, Hayden was confused....

So she gave him a little kiss on the shoulder!

I hear all the time how much Hayden looks like Clark (true) and how similar their personalities are (also true). However, Hayden inherited his love of reading from me. The kid cannot get enough books. He loves "Mommy Hugs" by Karen Katz and Baby goes to the Farm (also Karen Katz). I know because he hands these books over and over to me to read to him. Tonight I got him reading a classic all by himself:

Hayden's vocabulary is growing every day. He says, "mama" "dada" "ball" and "dog" pretty regularly. He says "book" (or a more pronounced baaaaaa) he'll repeat "uh oh" (but doesn't use it appropriately) and will also repeat "bye bye." He's also working on "no" but it just sounds like "naaaa." He will shake his head "no" and he's trying to nod his head but hasn't quite gotten it down. He's always working on his "cheese" face for pictures, as you can tell. I'll say, "say cheese" and it's usually "eeeeeese" that comes out. Not always, but when it does, it's pretty stinking cute!