What happened to January?

Wow, the month of January just flew by. You’d think with all the snow and crappy weather it would seem to drag on but not the case in the Uitermarkt household. Decker has had some more big milestones in Jan. On the 5th he began saying dada in addition to mama. And the biggest change this month is our baby is mobile! We started really working with him the weekend of the 23rd and he started crawling. The incentives – mommy, daddy, granny and pampa’s cell phones. Oh and the remote. All the things he knows he shouldn’t be playing with : ) Here he is being bribed to crawl.
And the reward!
He is just army crawling for now and occasionally gets on his knees. But can’t believe how fast he has improved! He’s going across our living room now and is crawling for fun instead of being bribed! Although it’s different having a mobile baby, it’s so fun to watch! He was getting pretty frustrated not moving and was getting to the point where he didn’t even want to sit. Would just make his body stiff as a board when we tried to put him down, it was pretty comical. Decker is also standing along all kinds of toys and furniture and has pulled himself up a few times. Just can’t believe what a difference a few weeks make. It’s also fun to watch him read books now. Instead of just sticking them in his mouth or opening and closing them he’s finding all the different textures and is studying the pages. We’re just having a great time watching him learn and grow and explore!

We really haven’t been up to much. We celebrated New Years with our neighbors and a few other friends. Decker had a slumber party with the little neighbor girls and us adults got to ring in the new year playing cards and wii. It was a fun night. Although I didn’t get my camera out til the kids were asleep : (



I started my new job on the 11th so was busily working up til the last minute trying to wrap things up at Meredith. My new job is going great. Still trying to learn everything there is to know about windows and doors! But I think I’ll really like it and the group of people I’m working with are really great. A couple of my friends here in town work at Pella Corp too so it’s been nice to have some friendly faces. We also were without electricity for a few days with the ice storm. Luckily Jeff’s parents are in town so packed up and stayed at grandma and grandpa’s house. The same week I started my job, my sister came to visit for a couple days and so my parents and brother and sister-in-law came too. Pampa and Aunt Katie helped Decker build his first snowman and granny took pictures while they threw snowballs at her! Here are some pictures



Jeff and a friend decided to participate in an ice fishing tournament on our lake the middle of Jan. It was sponsored by Bass Pro Shops and there were lots of prizes. My dad and uncle Brad decided to come up and enter. So everyone left our house on their 4-wheelers at 6:30 in the morning in hopes of a big prize. Unfortunately b/t the four of them, only one fish was caught! And then to top it off the last hour of the tournament was pouring down rain. Although they had their ice tents so weren’t too miserable compared to some of the contestants sitting on buckets. Here’s some pics of them after the tournament. Notice Decker has on his ice fishing outfit too : )




Decker has also started to not like some of his veggies that he used to love. He is definitely a fruit and meat guy! So now the attitude is showing up when we feed him veggies and is now shaking his head “no” at us.



Here are some more random pictures of Decker taken the last month.

Big smiles!


I love bath time!!


Please don't put me in my car seat :(

Big boy riding my rocket

Such a happy little guy