Almost 15 months

Mitchell will be 15 months next week. Here are a few pictures that I took the other day.

He is walking but doing it on his tippy toes a lot.

His friend Missy. The other day he said, "dog." But I have not been able to get him to do it again. I promise he really did say it. Chad is my witness.

He loves to look out our front window by our door.

Climbing on the couch

A no-no!

Walking....Climbing

I don't have any pictures for this post, but I am sure I will have some soon. Mitchell is now walking. I know it has taken him awhile. He started taking steps about a month ago, but now he is really walking. He still crawls some because he is so fast at it. He also has learned to get up on his feet without pulling up on anything. This is just one of his new accomplishments. He has also learned how to climb up our couches. This is fine if he would just sit on the couch, but oh no he has to climb to the top of the couch. We have a pass through window from our kitchen to our living room. Our love seat is on the wall with this in the living room. Mitchell climbs up on the love seat till he can reach the ledge that leads into the kitchen. He then leans over the ledge and reaches the faucet and turns on the water. If you are thinking that this sounds a little dangerous, you are right. We got so tired of getting him down and turning off the water that we moved the pillows down so they stack up high enough that he can't climb up it anymore. I am thinking we might have to rearrange our furniture. Anyways he keeps me on my toes, but I love seeing him walk. He is so proud of himself. He just smiles and giggles.

Fourth of July Fun

We have had a lot going on in the last few weeks. I am behind as always in posting. I will first start out with the 4th of July. We went to Chad's parents' house for a cook out. This is the best family picture that we got. Mitchell is the only one looking at the camera, for once.
I wanted to get a picture of him waving the flag, but this is what I got.

Mitchell had a fun time on his horse. Mamaw and Papa have all kinds of toys for him.

We celebrated my birthday on the 4th. My birthday is really on the 5th but since we were having a family get together we just celebrated it early. Also we were going to Texas on my birthday. My mom made me a chocolate sheet cake. It was so yummy!

We all went and sat on the porch because the temperature had gone down so much. It was really nice outside, but then it started raining. Papa was letting Mitchell feel the rain. We were not planning on going to see fireworks, but some of them had to cancel because of the rain. Instead we came home, and Mitchell was so tired that he went to bed. Then we heard people around us doing their own fireworks. Chad and I went on our patio for a little while and saw a few.

Mitchell also got to "ride" on the tractor with Uncle Todd.

First Family Vacation

We finally took our first family vacation. I have taken Mitchell to see family in St. Louis twice but Chad has not been with us. We did not really do anything major exciting, but it was a chance for us to get away. You can see that Mitchell was ready to go and wanted to help pack.
Mitchell is ready for a road trip to Texas in his big boy car seat. We left on Sunday, July 5th and came back on Tuesday. We went to Allen, TX. It was about a three hour drive. Mitchell did really well in the car. He slept most of the time. I think that if the trip would have been any longer, he probably would not have been able to handle it.

Since it was my birthday we ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We have one in OKC, but I have only been to it a few times. And I thought that cheesecake sounded good for my birthday. This is what Mitchell did during my birthday dinner. We got to Allen around 2:30 pm. We unpacked a little in the hotel and let Mitchell play, and then we did a little shopping at the Allen Outlet Mall. Chad took Mitchell back to the hotel after a while so that he could take a nap. I guess because it was a new environment he did not want to take a nap. So, by the time we went out to dinner, he was out. We just put him on the bench next to us and he just slept. He missed out on some good food.

They did not give me a free cheesecake, but they did decorate the plate and give me a candle. I also got out of them singing to me because I had a sleeping baby. :) I got the lemon raspberry cheesecake. Usually I am a chocolate person, but this just sounded good to me.

It was very good!

We learned how to make do in a hotel with a baby. We asked for a high chair, and I put it up to the desk in the room so that Mitchell could eat some of his meals. Mitchell loved crawling around and getting into things in the hotel. I know it was probably not as sanitary as I would have liked, but you just have to let go sometimes.

The hotel had a pool and we went swimming both nights that we were there.

We mainly did a lot of shopping, but we did go into Dallas on Tuesday. We went to the Dallas World Aquarium. It was really a neat place. They have all kinds of animals. I was excited about this place because it was in doors. The zoo was not appealing to me in the 100 degree weather. I was not sure how much Mitchell would react, but he seemed to enjoy the animals.

If you look closely to the right of Mitchell there is a bird. They just had birds flying all around the place. I did not get a picture of it, but Mitchell was watching a sea lion swimming, and it came right up to the glass next to him. Mitchell jumped he was so frightened by it. He did not cry. I think he was in shock.

It was pretty inside with all of the plants and the waterfall. I am glad that we got to do this. It gives me hope that we can do more family vacations.