Samuel Davey - Twelve Months!!

OUR LITTLE BABY IS ONE!!! AHHHH!!!

Weight:

I'm not sure on his weight quite yet - he has his 1 year appointment on the 1st of September, so we'll know officially then! Our estimate by weighing him at home a few weeks ago was somewhere between 26 and 27 pounds
I'll update it after his appointment tomorrow!
UPDATE: He was 26 lb 8 oz at his 12 month check up

Height:

No height measurements this month either - we measured him with a tape measure a few weeks ago and estimated him to be about 31 inches, so we'll see how close we are :)

UPDATE: He was 30.5 inches at his 12 month check up.

Clothes:

We have broken into the 2T clothes! He's got a pair of 2T jeans and a few pairs of shorts... It's crazy that he owns shorts and jeans that have real zippers and buttons on them!! He's still in 18 month shirts, but we'll see how long that lasts! We've got 24 month and 2T shirts just waiting for the day those 18 month ones get to tight!!

Sleep:

Samuel had another great month of sleep. It's amazing what happens when he isn't sick for months at a time!! We really got lucky in the sleep department with Samuel.
This month he averaged 10 hours and 55 minutes of sleep each night. His longest night of sleep was 12 hours 6 minutes and his shortest was 5 hours 10 minutes at one time (I don't remember what happened that night... I think he just missed me and wanted to snuggle for a while!)
He only had three nights this month where he slept for less than 10 hours in one stretch. And one of those nights was when we went to Nana and Papa's right after work, so he took a 2 hour nap on the way there but then was up and played for a while before going to bed and then I had to wake him up in the morning so we could get to where we were going that day, so that one wasn't even his fault!!
He's still doing the one half hour nap at daycare during the week... He's getting by with that, though, so we just have to go with it!

Likes:
 Samuel loves playing! He will just play and play and play if we let him! He loves playing at daycare with his friends and all the toys they have there and then he loves playing with his toys at home, too. At night, Trent will take him to get his PJs on and then they will play in his room until it's time to go to sleep. Samuel plays with his alphabet train and his books and just crawls around until we make him stop. And he's not always happy that we make him stop!

One of Samuel's newest favorites is his Cozy Coupe Car that he got from Nana and Papa for his birthday. He is pretty much addicted to that thing!! As soon as he sees it, he has to play with it!! He will open the door and crawl in and then crawl back out and then do that over and over. We've even locked the door to the car to try to keep him from playing in it because it was time to eat or something like that and he will just crawl through the window to get into it. It's moments like that, where he doesn't listen, that I really fail as a parent because it's just so cute and so I just laugh instead of being stern with him! :) He loves to be pushed in his car and he loves it when whoever is pushing him chases Millie or some other person! It's pretty much the cutest!
Samuel trying out his car at his birthday party.

 

Samuel continues to be a pretty happy little guy who's full of smiles and laughter (until he's not, that is!). Samuel continues to like food, playing in Millie's kennel, waving, playing with the baby gate that separates the family room and dining room, laughing, standing, clapping, putting his hand in the dogs' water bowl, his daycare friends and teachers, crawling as fast as he can towards the stairs (either the top or the bottom, doesn't matter!) and many other things!!

Dislikes:
Samuel doesn't like when he doesn't get his way! :) Meaning he doesn't like to be left alone or walked away from when he isn't in the mood, doesn't like to not be able to play with what he wants when he wants, and doesn't like to be held when he wants to crawl or walk somewhere on his own! (Mostly when you're trying to make him go somewhere he shouldn't be!)
He still doesn't like grass very much and is scared when balloons come at him.
Pretty typical "baby" things for the most part!

Firsts/Milestones/Development:

Samuel got his first haircut the day after his 11 month birthday. We went to Pigtails and Crewcuts and he sat in a little police car while she cut his hair. He did pretty good. He smiled at first when we put him in there and then just kind of stared blankly for a while before kind of getting fussy and acting like he wanted out. She gave him an animal cracker to gnaw on then, and everything as better and he sat very nicely while she finished his hair cut. I did love his long hair that he had going on cuz I thought he looked super cute, but it was getting into his eyes and over his ears and he had a bit of a mullet and long comb over thing going on so it was needed! I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I absolutely loved his haircut when he got done, though. He looks sooo grown up *tear* and handsome!! I was shocked at how much I loved it! He's all ready to be a 1 year old now with his new haircut! :)

Before and after!

Jocelyn started off Samuel's birthday month by giving him his first birthday gift early. This way he was able to focus on just the one present and wasn't too overwhelmed with a bunch of other presents to open at the same time. She gave him this great name puzzle. I had one (and I think Trent had something similar) when I was little, so it is pretty fun that Samuel has one too! 

We celebrated Samuel's birthday on the 14th of August! I'll write a whole post about it, but we had a lot of fun celebrating! We had about 35 people here for his party. Samuel got tons of attention and was spoiled with wonderful gifts. It was such a special day!

  At the beginning of Samuel's 12th month he started being able to stand on his own for a few seconds without hanging onto anything and then, by the end of the month, he has started walking!! He took his first official steps at his birthday party for everyone!! It was pretty special!! By the end of the month, he has taken 7-10 steps in a row before losing his balance and falling down. It's so fun to see him get better with walking every day now!
His first steps:

At the beginning of this month, Grandpa Jons passed away. I'm so happy that Grandpa got to meet Samuel and see him grow up during his first year of his life. I love that I have the memories of Samuel making Grandpa smile and having Grandpa "ohh" and "ahh" at him! I know Grandpa loved Samuel!

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See how much Samuel has grown:

One Month
Two Months
Three Months
Four Months
Five Months
Six Months
Seven Months
Eight Months
Nine Months

Ten Months
Eleven Months

The best I could get with him laying next to the bear this month!! :) 

Samuel Davey - Eleven Months

Weight:

We didn't get any official weight measurements this month because WE WENT A WHOLE MONTH WITHOUT GOING TO THE DOCTOR!!! Woohoo!!!

Height:

No height measurements this month either - he's growing, though!!!

Clothes:

Samuel is in 18 month tops and shorts now. I JUST said that he was all set for a while on clothes, but some of the 18 month stuff is already getting to small, especially the shirts and his non-mesh shorts!!

Sleep:

This was a great sleep month!! He slept an average of 10 hours and 50 minutes each night. His longest sleep was 12 hours and 15 minutes and his shortest was 6 hours and 20 minutes. That 6 hour night was by far the shortest! That was the only night where he slept less than 9 hours and 45 minutes straight! (We should be super rested, don't you think!?!)
He still hasn't taken a nap at daycare that's over an hour long in many many months, but I guess that's the way it's going to be!

Likes:
Samuel really likes that he's able to crawl around so well and pull himself up on whatever he wants. He loves to be standing, so he'll crawl from one thing to the next, pulling himself up to see what he can get his hands on!

He also loves his walker, so he's able to walk around with it and get where he wants that way as well! He started really using it earlier this month and has gotten pretty steady as he's been using it more and more each day.

He likes baths still! When he's crawling around in the mornings as I'm getting ready, he likes to crawl over to the bath and pull himself up there to look in. It's pretty cute! (And I much prefer that he pull himself up on the bathtub rather than the toilet! Eww!)

Samuel still loves his daycare friends and teachers and loves food! He also likes to wave and shake toys and yell in high pitched voices!

Dislikes:
Samuel does not like grass or balloons! He cries and acts like he's being tortured if he is on the grass and was super scared of balloons blowing in the wind when I was trying to get pictures of him for his birthday party invitations this month. I'm sure he'll grow out of those eventually :)
The scary grass and balloons:

Poor guy :(

Firsts/Milestones/Development:

As I mentioned above, Samuel has been spending a lot of time standing lately. He can pull himself up on almost anything now, which makes it so he's able to get at more stuff! He started walking with his walking toy and has gotten better and better at it with each day! I love seeing him walk around with it - especially because I know he loves being able to get around that way! It won't be long before he's walking all on his own, I'm sure!

Samuel has learned to crawl really fast and he loves to crawl after all of the dog toys and their water and food bowls. We've had to start putting the water bowl up when Samuel is in the kitchen/living room because it's like a magnet and he's always crawling towards it to put his hand in it! And he knows he's not supposed to do it because he will crawl towards the bowl and then look at you and as soon as you walk towards him to pick him up or keep him from putting his hand in the bowl, he'll laugh and put his hand in there... Such a stinker! One day it will no longer be as cute when he doesn't listen! :) Luckily the dogs are pretty good with him. They love checking him out and especially loves hanging around him at meal time!!

Right at the beginning of the month, we went to Des Moines to visit Grandma Kock who was in the hospital after have surgery to give one of her kidney's to Uncle Dan. We saw her in the hospital and then went to "take care of her" a few days later after she got home. Samuel showed her how to take a good nap while we were there :)


We celebrated the June/July birthdays in the Fredericksen family this month at our house. Aunt Melodie and Uncle Russ brought along a little swing set that Taylor and Jenna used to use when they were younger, so Samuel got his first experience in a swing! I'm not quite sure he knew what to think at first, as he just kind of stared, but he was very content to just let Taylor or Jenna push him, and he eventually gave out a few smiles and waved at us!

Our family!

Samuel spent his first nights away from both of his parents this month and stayed at Nana and Papa's for four nights all by himself while we were in Seattle! He had a great time and got to do some really fun stuff! He got to eat a lot of good food, go to Target and get a toy, play in the cupboards, and get all of Nana and Papa's attention!! I was nervous about how it would go (more for me than for him) since I hadn't ever been away from him at night, but he did so great! He slept well and was just his good ol' self! I know he loved it and will be something he wants to do a lot as he grows up!

On a water taxi in Elliott Bay with the Seattle skyline and the
Space Needle behind us

Samuel started using sign language this month! I don't know officially when he started doing it because I think I may have just been missing what he was telling me, but this is the day I knew for sure he was doing it. His "more" looks just like clapping because he's not quite coordinated enough to get his fingers together, but he's got it!! Sometimes I think he knows how to do "all done" and "eat" as well, but I'm not quite sure on that one yet. They work on the sign language at daycare too, so I know that helps a ton! I'm so proud of him and I hope we keep doing even more!

Samuel has learned to give kisses. He will sometimes even give me a kiss when I ask/tell him to - as long as he's not too interested and distracted in something else that's going on around him! They're nice and slobbery, but I love it! I love that little guy so much!!


Samuel is just continuing to grow and grow and learn new things every day! It's so fun to watch him explore and figure things out! He's just the best! We're busy planning his 1st birthday party and I can't believe it!! This year went so incredibly fast!!

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See how much Samuel has grown:

One Month
Two Months
Three Months
Four Months
Five Months
Six Months
Seven Months
Eight Months
Nine Months

Ten Months

He loves to look out the window in his room!

Playing peek-a-boo behind the curtain with his dad!

Samuel Davey - Ten Months

I didn't do any better with getting this posted this month... Hopefully I'll do better next time (errr in one week!)

Weight:

On June 15 he weighed 23lb 3oz. He's just creeping right along with his weight!

Height:

No height measurements this month.

Clothes:

I put away all his 9 month onesies this month, so he's in all 12 or 18 month onesies and pants now. The 18 month onesies are still a little big most of the time, but he still goes back and forth between the two without any issues. We finally got him some shorts this month, so he can properly ventilate those chunky legs! He should be all set in the clothes department for a while - so now I can just buy him cute things when I see them since there isn't anything he NEEDS.

Sleep:

This month was another typical sleep month - mostly good with a few bad nights stuck in there.
He slept an average of 9 hours and 50 minutes. The average was very much brought down by his worst night of the month, which was a mere 3 hours and 45 minutes of solid sleep. He decided to be up and hang out with us for a few hours in the middle of that night!
His longest sleep was 12 hours and 5 minutes, but most of the nights hovered right around 10 hours of solid sleep. 
Samuel had a bout of a serious runny nose and a sinus infection this month, which always messes with his sleep for a while. I hate it when he's sick - especially when he has trouble sleeping because of it!
Samuel is still having a little trouble falling asleep without either Trent or I being in his room rubbing his back or just being there until he falls asleep. It's at its worst when he's REALLY not tired and I don't blame him. I don't like to lay down and try to fall asleep when I don't feel tired... It is so hard to not just pick him up and hug him and play with him when he is in his crib just smiling up at me - laughing and trying to play with me. It's the absolute cutest. I know I have to stand my ground and let me know that I'm serious about bedtime, though!

Likes:

 Samuel's personality is really starting to show as the months go on. I absolutely love that he shows more and more preference for certain things and knows that he has the ability to move to get to what he wants. (Even though that makes it harder to watch him or keep him out of things that he shouldn't get into!)

Samuel likes musical instruments. He is always playing with the tambourines or pianos or other instruments at daycare. He also uses the bowls and other non-instrument things as make-shift instruments when he gets ahold of those!

 Samuel also loves his daycare friends. There are 4 little babies, including him, in his room at daycare that were all born within about 2 weeks of each other, so they are pretty much on the same schedule development wise. Within about 2 weeks time, their daycare room went from no mobile babies to having 4 babies scooting or crawling around. They are all now standing and moving all over the place! To see their faces light up when I walk in the room in the morning with Samuel is so fun. They will also wave bye at me when Samuel is too busy to wave at me! :)

Samuel with his friend Cora on the left and Sloan on the right.

Samuel still loves food and does pretty good with eating!! He loves his meat and we also discovered he really really likes Nana's chicken and noodles. He loves smoked turkey and chicken and loves his deli turkey. Once you put him in his high chair,  you really have to keep it coming until you're ready to take him out or he will just keep yelling at you until you give him more or get him out! He also had chicken and noodles at Nana's the other day and just gobbled it up!! I don't think it will be long before he realized that Nana's = good food!

Chicken and Noodles at Nana's!

Samuel likes to spend more time vertical now than he does laying down. He's becoming so much more coordinated and is able to crawl to where he wants and then pull himself up to get to more and more things.

Dislikes:
 Samuel's major dislike for this month is AUGMENTEN! He had to be on antibiotics for a sinus infection this month and twice a day - all 14 days that he was on the medicine, were the worst times I've had as a mother! He HATED it and would fight us, so we'd have to hold him down and force him to take the medicine. Seeing how unhappy he was brought tears to my eyes! We tried just giving it to him in the syringe, tried hiding it in yogurt or applesauce or chocolate syrup or his bottles and after the first time or even the first bite, he wouldn't take any more of it! In the end, we got our technique down to something tolerable, but we'll just cross our fingers that he doesn't need it again in a loooong time!
Other than that, it's the same ol' dislikes for Samuel He doesn't like to be left alone or to be put down when he really doesn't want to be! And that's just magnified when he's tired!

Firsts/Milestones/Development:
Samuel started crawling for real this month. He left the army crawl behind and started sticking to the hands and knees, legit crawl to get around! He has also learned to click his tongue, blow bubbles with his lips/tongue and smack his lips and will copy someone if they do it first!

He's also really good at pulling himself up on whatever he wants. He has started crawling up to my legs and is able to pull himself up to standing and then look up at me there, too. He has gotten much braver while he's standing - he will now move from one object to another. So if he's standing at the couch and wants to stand at the coffee table, he will reach out and switch where he's standing, even letting go of both for a moment!

This month, we crossed the threshold of Samuel being 40 weeks old. He has now officially been out of my belly longer than he was in!

Samuel went swimming for the first time in an outside pool this month at Jocelyn's new apartment. We didn't stay for long because the sun was hot, but he seemed to like it pretty well!

We got Samuel his own pool for the backyard this month. He only got to use it once so far, but he loved splashing around in it! I know he'll have a lot of fun days in there yet this summer!


Samuel started eating three meals a day in addition to all of his bottles and nursing. He now eats breakfast and lunch at daycare and then eats supper at home with us. Eating at daycare has been great because they eat more adventurous things than we do at home a lot of the time, so he's getting some exposure to things that he wouldn't normally. They use placemats and utensils and really get him good practice at eating.

Standing at one of his favorite places at daycare - the table where they eat!

Samuel has started doing a little monkey crawl thing on any surface that he doesn't want to crawl on with his knees on the ground - like the tile in the kitchen or cement sidewalks. It's pretty cute to watch him!

Samuel had his first babysitters that weren't his grandparents this month. Trent and I took a class at church and so we needed some people to watch over Samuel for a few hours while we were away. The first week we went, Jocelyn and Garrett came and spent some time with him. They played with his toys and sat outside and had a snack while we were gone. The next week, Great Aunt Doreen and Great Uncle Nick had fun with Samuel while we were away. Samuel showed them all his toys and had a lot of fun eating Goldfish with them :)

He's really got a nice comb over look going here :) 

Samuel loved Great Aunt Doreen and Great Uncle Nick babysitting as well. As evidenced by this video:

Samuel had his first experience eating at the Hy-Vee Deli. It may have even been his first time actually eating food at a "restaurant" and he sure did make a mess. He likes to put food in his mouth, chew it up and then spit it back out (I call it his diet plan) so I'm sure the staff at Hy Vee loved the mess he left there! It makes me sad that his Grandpa Davey isn't here to take him to the Hy Vee deli all the time!

We also celebrated Trent's first official Father's Day this month. The first of many and I know they are only going to get better when Samuel can help me make it a special day for Trent!

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See how much Samuel has grown:

One Month
Two Months
Three Months
Four Months
Five Months
Six Months
Seven Months
Eight Months
Nine Months

HEre's some other pictures from our 10 month photo shoot!

The picture of him laying next to the bear may not happen again...
This is as good as I could get this month :)

Trying to get that "wind blown" look!