Ryan is One Year Old!

I can hardly believe that it is already Ryan's 1st birthday! Where did the time go? His first year has been wonderful, and it has flown by. He is such a sweet, adorable little guy and we love him to pieces. His personality has really begun to show, and he is a boy of extremes. Extremely happy and laid back (most of the time), but if he gets upset, boy is he angry. He is incredibly curious and loves being able to crawl around and explore everything in the house. He has a particular propensity toward anything electronic that is not a toy, including remote controls, cell phones, and cameras. He knows the difference between toy ones and the real ones, and he has his mind set on grabbing the real ones.
We had fun celebrating Ryan's birthday with family and a few close friends. Ryan experienced his first taste of frosting and cake, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are a few photos of our celebration:

Ryan's cake was chocolate with whipped icing

Our cutie had really rosy (chapped) cheeks and nose on the day of his party.
Happy First Birthday Ryan!
Ethan really dug in at his first birthday party, but Ryan was more laid back and calmly munched on his cake and frosting.
He devoured a decent-sized chunk of his cake.

Ethan is excitedly awaiting his slice of cake

Lauren holding squirmy Ryan on her lap

Playing around with his new toys

Celebrating completely wore Ryan out

This was maybe the second time ever that he fell asleep in his high chair

Shortly after Ryan tuckered out, Ethan did too

What a wonderful (and apparently tiring ;) day!

Wow! I'm SO far behind...

Each time I get way behind on blogging I tell myself, I'm not going to let this happen again. This has turned into a pattern though, as I repeatedly find that I'm several months behind on posting and need to spend hours getting caught up! I'm sure that I'll miss documenting some of the boys' milestones since I've been such a slacker, but I'm going to attempt to get as caught up as possible over the next few days! (I'm back-dating this post, by the way, from April 15th).

Ethan's Valentines

I was trying to think of a creative valentine that I could make for Ethan's preschool class and his other friends this year. At first I thought I'd make a photo card of him holding a heart...
but then I stumbled upon a really cute kid's craft blog that had a neat idea I decided to use instead...

It started with this photo

And ended up looking like this
I think that they turned out pretty well!

In between his Valentines photo shoots, Ethan decided to try to squeeze into his toy storage ottoman. Silly boy!

Vivian's Thoughtful Birthday Treat

My dear friend, Vivian, is a very talented baker and can make desserts and pastries that are truly dazzling. She surprised me with a very thoughtful (and delicious) gift for my birthday this year, this beautiful miniature cake! I hesitated to cut into it (for many days) because I didn't want to damage her creation. When I finally did dig in, it was absolutely delicious. Thank you so much for the fantastic birthday surprise Vivian!

United States Puzzle "Ethanism"

Ethan likes to put together a very old United States puzzle at my parent's house that Mike and I played with when we were little. Mom found a really neat U.S. puzzle to give Ethan for Christmas this year so that he had one to work on at home too. He has put it together over and over again and is really interested in learning the names of the states. He has some of them down, but others need more practice. He excitedly showed me a state today and said, "Mommy, this is New Hamster!" After recovering from trying to stifle my laughter, I let him know the correct pronunciation. He was on the right track though, he did have New Hampshire in his hand! :)

Family Christmas

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with my dad's side of the family. The day was filled with lots of chatting, food, presents, and fun! I wish that we all (there were 22 of us this year!) could get together more often. We always have a blast.

My cousins: Barbi, Beth, and Becky

Beth and Alex
We are so excited that Barbi was able to join us this year. She was unable to come the last several years. We loved getting to introduce her to Ethan and Ryan.

Uncle Jim, Uncle Leonard, and Alex chattingThe kids had a lot of fun opening their gifts
Ryan was hilarious. He absolutely loved the Dora the Explorer doll that we gave Katelyn. He was fascinated with her hair and large eyes and crawled over to the doll repeatedly.

Here he is lunging for the doll once again. Katelyn was so gracious to share Dora with him all day!

The kids were anxious to play with their new toys.

Cindy had a great idea to play Bingo with white elephant gifts this year. Each time someone got a Bingo, they could either select a wrapped white elephant gift or "steal" someone else's gift that had already been opened.
Cameron did a great job calling out the letter/number combos
Barbi opened a Chia Pet Christmas tree...which Dan later stole.

Dad opened a kitchen towel. Mom was thrilled (she loves kitchen towels)!Uncle Leonard opened the funniest gift of the evening...

a talking Barack Obama Christmas ornament. (Uncle Leonard is very conservative)
Aunt Barb and Aunt Joanne posed with the Obama ornament
Ethan thought it was neat to get to play Bingo too (the kids played for gifts but did not take part in the "stealing")

It was a wonderful day of family-filled fun! Thanks so much for hosting everyone and for such a great time John and Cindy!