15 months

He hasn't been up to much

just feeding himself (what a stinker - he didn't use the spoon when I wanted to take a picture)

cleaning (he's obsessed with the vacuum)

playing

eating some more (some days he is a bottomless pit)

and loving on his dog

He is getting too big, too fast. But we are loving every second of it. Now that we have a camera I will be able to cherish these moments. (more on that later!)

the "face"

He puts this "face" on for several occasions. Whether it's hiding under the desk

or for a close up pictures

for petting the dog

or pushing buttons
he just can't help himself.

the color of love

I found this color fitting since it was going to be in our bedroom. Ahhh love.

gray hairs

I'm too young to get gray hairs!

So I actually haven't found one,yet...but after this past week I'm sure I'll find some soon. There's nothing worse than your child getting hurt and seeing him cry out in pain...with blood. Yesterday he was pulling himself up next to a chair and slipped and fell. In the process he hit his budding teeth and took a chunk out of the wooden chair. I thought for sure he would have teeth now, after that little mishap. But somehow his gums have already healed and he doesn't notice the pain anymore. But goodness, the kid sure knows how to scare the livin' daylights out of someone.

And as if what happened last Thursday wasn't enough excitement for a whole week. I was dropping off something at a friends house on my way to work, and my dog,  yes my dog, managed to step on the lock button and lock me out. With the car running. And Ari in his car seat. I am so thankful that Debbie was home and not still sleeping. With several phone calls and about a 30 minute wait, the cop finally showed and got me in. Poor Ari cries every time I get out of the car now, terrified that I might leave him stranded inside the car while I stand outside and just smile and wave while he cries his eyes out.

The sad thing is I know this is only the beginning of mishaps to cause gray hairs. Years from now I probably won't remember these little things because he will have other stories by then to scare me with. And of course, more gray hairs.

update

AJ and I are on a desperate hunt to find a camera. One that isn't big and chunky, doesn't randomly turn off because the battery doesn't hold charge, and one that doesn't change colors and make your pictures look bad. It has been a good camera to us because we were able to get by with it while I desperately searched for our lost camera around Ari's birthday. The camera came in to our possession from AJ's parents. They passed it down to us when they got a new and improved camera. They originally got the camera from AJ's sister, when she worked at Enterprise. It was left in a rental car and no one came to claim it. So, it has been a resident of the Hillebrand household for some years now. Despite the 3.2 megapixels and it's memory card that only holds 128 mb and is as large as a floppy, it actually had a video feature which came in handy several times. Needless to say we are happy to be venturing in to the world of technology and seeing what it has to offer us now. Hopefully I will post more when I have a camera worth using.

On another note, we are planning to do some painting this weekend since AJ has Monday off of work. Well, we aren't just randomly painting because he has off of work, we are painting because I am unsatisfied with the lack of color and he just happens to be off work just in time for the project. :) He is so kind to put up with me and my brain. When I get on a kick about changing how things look, I change my mind several times before settling. We are going to repaint our bedroom and also repaint a room that Ari will eventually be moved to. I have changed the color on him about three times for each room. (If you ask him it was probably more than that, but who's counting, right?) Finally, he just smiled at me and said "whatever you want, honey." We plan to paint our room this weekend, so you will have to wait and see what I end up deciding.

We have started making plans for vacation this year. Yay! It has already changed several times as well. I am so ready for hot weather and the beach, I can't even explain it! Last year was so much fun taking Ari, I can imagine it will be even more fun now that he is old enough to enjoy it.

Well hopefully we will find a camera this week so I can start taking pictures of him once again. I am enjoying his new skill of walking and hoping I don't miss anything while we are on the hunt for a camera.

and....he's off!

Ari is officially up and running now. Ok, not running yet but walking. I have a feeling the running will be shortly following though. He is actually really good at it. He hardly 'toddles', just walks very cautiously and makes it really far. This is just a minor clip of what he is doing, but who really cares. Right? I'm just proud that he finally made some progress in some department (still waiting on those teeth!)

trash bags

I am not sure what this would be considered, but I feel like I got scammed. Yes, it is just trash bags. But it's a mangled mess of them! The box on the right is what they used to come in. A nice, compact box that didn't take up a whole lot of room. Now they sell the one on the left. More than twice its size.

On top of that, it is a complete wreck on the inside of the box! The one on the right was in a neat roll, so when you pulled one out, you would only get one out - not twenty. As you can see (sort of - we are working on getting a functionable camera), the one on the left is not in any kind of order, causing you to pull out multiple bags. It doesn't even have the nice opening like the other one! So every time I have to get a bag out, I have to get down this large box, open up the top, attempt to pull out one bag and shove the rest back in leaving more of a disaster than it was in before.

This is not my idea of "great value". Thanks Wal-mart. I guess it is true sometimes, that you get what you pay for. To be completely honest though, this was the first "great value" item that I was completely unhappy with. Makes me very skeptical of the rest though!

dance moves you wish you had

This would have been the greatest if he was wearing a white button up shirt with his socks and diaper. Hm...I will have to work on that for next time.