Food, Church, and more Food

We've had such a busy weekend, starting with Friday. Melanie is in town. Friday evening we went to KC, Ks for dinner. There's a really cool restaurant at the Legends called T-Rex. It's very similar to a Rainforest Cafe but a Dino theme. Vance and Lilly had a great time! Andi, Penny and Justin met us there. Andi, I'm sure, had a good time too. ;) The restaurant has a "meteor shower" every half hour. We sat through 3 of them. The light go dim and some lights flicker and there's real loud noises and booms. Lilly really enjoyed the meteor showers. Grandma Brenda took her to walk around while it was going on.


After dinner we walked around the shops outside for a while. Vance was getting tired and as usual, he didn't want to sit still. He kept trying to escape from this stroller. Chris had to continue walking around outside while we shopped in stores. Daddy is such a great help! We only shopped for about an hour. The stores were closing soon so were were trying to get to all the kids clothing stores before they closed. We managed to get to carters and found what we were looking for. Both Lilly and Andi got matching dresses and Vance got pants and a shirt to match.



On our way back to the car, we stopped at the fountain. This one shot water into the air and had different spouts on the outside ring for kids to touch and play in. Of course Lilly and Vance wanted to play. Although, Vance wasn't happy with JUST touching the water. He wanted badly to get in. I'm guessing he thought it was a pool. I let him go in as far as I could reach, keeping a hold on one of his hands. He got down in the water and laid down on his belly. The water was very cold but it didn't seem to effect him.

Saturday Chris and I went to the Northwest Missouri State Vs. Pitt State Football game at Arrowhead. We left town around noon and didn't get back till around 9:30 that night. Northwest won! We had such a great time. Chris got to see most his friends from college. Vance stayed at Grandma Teresa's house. He was very tired once we got back. He was ready for bed.



Sunday morning was an early one at our house. I had to get up for church, I teach Sunday school. Chris and Vance were meeting me at the church for the regular service. Sunday was Vance's dedication service. Before Chris could get to the church, we was suppose to bring the outfit we bought for the dedication. Traditionally the baby wears an all white gown or suit. We are doing this a little late for Vance. He's in a size 18-24 month and most suits only go up to 12mo. I spent a lot of time getting his outfit together and had it embroidered. When Sunday morning came around, Chris couldn't find the outfit anywhere. He called the church to let me know he was coming without it. That wouldn't do! ;) I left church, telling the pastor that we'd be late, and headed home to find it. Just as I got there Chris, who had apparently stayed to look, called my cell and told me he found it... BEHIND THE COUCH! I have no clue how it got there, but we found it and were on our way back to the church.


The rest of the ceremony and service went smoothly. Of course, its now a big joke about how we found the outfit. A dedication service is a service where we, as parents, and the church as extended family, dedicate Vance to God and agree to bring him up in a Christian home. It was a very sweet ceremony. We had a lot of family come to support us. The grandparents were invited to stand up front with us during the ceremony. After Pastor Jon held Vance and prayed for him, Vance looked around at the congregation and started clapping. It was so freakin cute!


After church, we had some friends and family over for a cookout. This was planned back in August and landed on the same day as the dedication. It made for a crazy day. We have a birthday party for our dogs every year. Jamie, Chris's sister, owns a sister to one of the dogs we have. They turned 6 this year. Monday was Chris's birthday, Chris turned 33. We had a cake made for the dogs and a cake for the people. I made a big announcement that the cake for dogs was not people food. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt anyone, but it probably wouldn't taste very good.

Back on track

Chris and I now have internet access at home! I hope to make blogging a regular habit again. :)

Today was Vance's first day back to Daycare. For those of you who didn't know, we enrolled Vance in Parents Day Out at Wyatt Park Christian Church. He started in the summer. He attends on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At first he hated going, he did not like being left behind. After going a few times it was easier to leave him. It was still hard to get away at first because he always cried. But the nursery helpers reassured me that he quit crying soon after I left.

The new semester started today and was a bit different. He is now is "toddler A" and is with 2 and 3 year olds. I wasn't sure what to expect when I dropped him off. It was a new classroom with new teachers. Overall it went rather well. He did fuss a bit when we first pulled up to the church. He recognized the building. When I left him in the room, he cried for a bit but he quit before I left the hallway. Lets hope things continue to go that well on Thursday.

Saturday Chris and I went to Maryville for a cookout. Nycole, a friend of mine came with. She was a big help with Vance. It gave me one extra pair of eyes and hand on him. :) We had a really good time. The people the own the house also run a business that rents inflatables. They had a jumping castle and an obstacle course. Vance had fun in both of them. He wanted to play more in the obstacle course but it was very tiring for Chris and I. Nycole, being 7 months pregnant, even took him through a few times. He enjoyed it very much.

The Parents as Teachers lady visited a couple weeks ago. She is scheduled to return in another month to do Vance's development tests. As of now, Vance doesn't talk. Well, not English. ;) He is very vocal, saying his da da da das and other little baby talks. But he doesn't communicate much else. We have noticed a difference within the last few months and are hoping he is getting caught up. We'll see where he is in another month. If he fails his speech test, we will work with a therapist to try to get him to communicate better.

We know he is doing just fine in his physical development. He climbs on anything he can. He only has one speed right now, run. If he wants to get somewhere, he runs there. We don't worry at all about that part of the test.

Still Kicking

I know it's been so long since I've blogged. Chris and made the decision to close the shop. I'm now working at home. So as you can imagine, things have been a bit crazy. We also don't have an internet connection at home. Right now I wanted to at least get on here upload a few pictures. I'll be back soon with a full update and more pictures!

Stranger Danger? Not for Vance

Vance has changed a lot lately. He's started to do new things and he's leaving old things behind. I really thought he'd be walking by now. He's so close! He can take a few steps completely on his own. But it never fails, he always sits back down and crawls. He was going through a growth spurt recently. I can tell it's passed, he slowed way down on how much he eats. I haven't been to the doctor, so I can't tell you how much he weighs or how tall he is. I'm wanting to know that too! :)
Vance is still as people friendly as ever. Today I went to Wal-Mart during my lunch and I bet we had 10 people stop and talk to us. I didn't know any of them. They all want to stop and talk to Vance. Or tell me how cute he is and how good it is to see a smiling baby. Vance has a smile glued on his face just about every time we go anywhere. He's a people watcher. Today, I had an older couple behind me in line that talked to us the whole time. They just couldn't get over Vance. He had a toy and kept dropping it (the new game). The guy thought it was hilarious and kept giving it back to Vance. Normally I would have gave up after about the 3rd time.
Another outing story, I ran to the gas station on my way to work the other morning. The cashier lady thought Vance was soo cute! She helped talking to him while checking out the people in front of us. Finally when it came our turn to pay, she reaches over and grabs a container of cookies and hands it to Vance. She told me he could just have it. Vance isn't quite old enough for Chocolate Chip cookies yet, so Mommy got to eat those.
We've been to see Santa! Vance really wasn't sure what to think of Santa. He was a bit scared at first. I didn't hesitate. I handed him to Santa and he realized it was ok. Then he thought it was fun! We got a great picture of Santa and Vance; a typical smile from the happy boy! We were the only ones there that night. It was nice, Vance got to sit there a while and talk to Santa. Santa did most of the talking. He was a very nice man. When Vance gets a little older, we're really going to have to watch him around strangers. He'll go to anyone!
After getting our pictures. Vance went to play at the kids area of the mall. The mall recently has done some remodeling. They have a nice play area for kids. Vance crawls all around in there. They have a few plastic sea animals to climb on. He mostly watched the other kids. I've taken him back since then to play. It's nice to have a big area that's baby proof.

Baby's First

There's been a few "firsts" happening in the Beaty house. The funniest one yet; last night! We had Spaghetti and Vance got to eat some too! Here are a few pictures and a video.

Doing more than just crawling!

Vance walks himself around by holding onto things. He's getting quite good at it. The other night he figured out the high chair has wheels. He pushed it around for a bit. Then we got out his push walker. Check this out!

The wonderful life of Vance

We're getting ready for the holidays at our house. It's that time of year again! We've moved the furniture around in the living room, making room for the Christmas tree. Originally we weren't going to put one up this year, but I can't go without a Christmas tree. Hopefully Vance stays out from under the tree. (yeah right)
Vance is as busy as ever. He's been going through a growth spurt, we think. He's sleeping 12-13 hours almost every night and eating all day long. I'm gonna go broke buying snacks for him, lol. He's still a really good eater. There is a very short list of foods he won't eat and an extremely long one for the foods a loves. On the top of his love/like list is mashed potatoes. Anytime we go out to eat or cook a nice meal at home, Vance has to have lots of potatoes. You'd think he has hollow legs due to how much he eats. Today we had peanut butter bread. I've read where it says not to feed peanut butter to babies, because of a coking hazard. But Vance doesn't care if he CAN have it; he just wants it, NOW! For those of you that have been around him when he eats, you understand what I mean when I say 'now'. He's not the most patient when it comes to getting food.
One of his favorite things to do is take a bath. Or anything that has to do with water. At home we can keep the toilet lid down, but there isn’t al lid on the one at the shop. I have to keep the door shut; otherwise, he’s in there sticking his hands in the toilet. Same goes for the mop bucket. He can reach it when he’s in the walker. I can always tell when he’s found water somewhere. For example, dog bowls. If there’s a giant puddle around the toilet, mop bucket, or dog bowl, Vance has been there.
Yesterday I tried getting the tub rinsed out while Vance was in my arms. Once I picked up the plug, he went crazy! He immediately tried climbing out of my arms and into the tub. I could barely get his clothes off, he was wiggling so much. He spent almost an hour in the tub. I had some dogs to finish up, so I let him play. It turned into a game of fetch. More like “Mommy, go fetch”. What a little squirt!