Party Pictures

These were taken by our talented friend who shall remain anonymous. Clearly she's awesome and captured our little man and the party details perfectly. Check back later for more pictures as well as a link to all the ones I won't have room to post.


Ready for cake.


Reading with Grandma.


Sneeking a snack before the party.


The Goldfish Cracker sippy cup buffet.

Party favors waiting to be filled.

Balloons!

Cupcake beach inspired by Bakerella. These were made by another talented friend who also would like to remain anonymous. We're all hoping she makes baking her full time business 'cause she's great at it.

Amery and Mama. That's his newborn picture around my neck.

Not exactly party-related, but still birthday-related. Here are a couple of pictures of the amazing painting given to Amery by Aunt Jennifer's Mom and Dad, Gail and Dayle. Gail painted it just for him and we treasure it!

One Year Old!!

Our baby boy is one year old today. It literally seems like yesterday we showed up to the hospital thinking they would send us home. Nope. Instead they sent Jon home to get our bags cause we were havin' a baby! I had good intentions of a long post all about the fun we had today, but we're still having fun even though he's been crashed out for two hours now. He's such a lightweight. ;) Awesome party. Awesome friends. Awesome food. Everything was perfect and crazy and chaotic and wonderful. Every single person in attendance played a role in us making it through the past year. What a fabulous, crooked, winding road it's been. Lots and lots of pictures to come. For now, I'm heading back out to the patio.

Rocky Mountain High

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Breckenridge, Colorado to celebrate the engagement of our dear friends Mac and Louriann. It was really tough to choose just a few pics to share, but if I posted them all it would take forever!


Family photo outside the party venue (French Creek Clubhouse). Right after this was taken it started raining/snowing.


Amery with Mac and Louriann. We can't wait to celebrate with them at their wedding in Charlston, SC next year.


Amery and his future girlfriend, Avah. He's actually really stoked about the idea. He was just getting impatient waiting for his birthday pancakes.


Amery with his godparents Carrie and Drew.

The Valdoro crew: Godfather Drew, Carrie, me, Amery, Jon, Nate, Ann, Avah, and Chris.

Amery shredding it up in downtown Breckenridge. On Sunday we strolled around downtown with Nate and his dog, Shay.

We went out to dinner on Sunday night at the Blue River Bistro. Awesome food and awesome company. Amery took a liking to this wine cork and would not let it go until he finally went to bed.

He didn't want to leave Colorado on Monday morning.

On our way down the mountain we stopped to catch up with Cristy. I hadn't seen her in a couple of years(!) which is just wrong. We only had a few minutes, but it was great to see her.

If you want to see the rest of the pictures from the trip, you can check them out here.

Do you think we're related?

Me in 1977 and Amery in 2009.

Did I mention the walking?

Labor Day Weekend

We've had a sick baby on our hands since last Tuesday, so we've been laying low. We did manage to get out of the house for breakfast at Jim's and a quick shopping trip to the outlet mall on Saturday.


Amery and Papa waiting for some pancakes at Jim's.



He ran into someone he knows at the outlet mall.

Blasts from the Past

I've been searching the internet trying to find a certain discontinued push toy that Amery is obsessed with. It's a yellow and white truck with a red handle that you stand behind and push around the room. There is one in his daycare room and another in the church nursery. Both of them are ooooold and most certainly are no longer made by Fisher Price. I thought maybe I could find one on Craigslist or Ebay. In the midst of my searching I came across several toys I had as a child that are now considered vintage. My parents probably paid $20 for some of these items that are selling for upwards of $100 on some websites.


School Days Desk. Remember how the chalk would never actually write on the chalkboard part? And then you used a wet paper towel to clean it off and it made it even dirtier? Maybe that was just me.


See the blue thing on the right? That's Grover. Really.


Every time you opened the barn doors...MOOOOOOOO!


My mom must have found this one at a garage sale because I never had the little carriage thing. The best part about this castle was the secret room behind the staircase.


The picture on the box lies. This thing floated for about 2 minutes before it got swamped. They may as well have called it The Minnow. I'm also not sure why it was necessary to include the dog figurine with this set. What did they do, stick him in the dingy and send him to shore every time he had to poop?


I still have this at our house and my neice and nephew play with it every time they come over. The website I stole this picture from is selling it for $125. Please, don't come and rob my house for the Woodsey set. If you are that desperate I will just give you the money.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. If you want to go buy your own Woodsey Log House, you can find it here. I don't think I will ever be able to find the push toy Amery likes. If I get a chance, I'll snap a picture and post it here later. I think the more likely scenario is we go out and spend $40 on a new one this weekend. Then, 32 years later, Amery will be surfing the internet (or whatever virtual portal exists by then) and he will find a picture of his old push toy from 2009. He will realize with a mixture joy and sadness that he is, at 32, vintage.

Busy Saturday

Amery and I had a busy Saturday this past weekend. We started off with a playdate at Julie's house where there were four other babies to play with. These first two pictures should give you an idea of the (happy) chaos:





Then we headed over to Ryan and Kelly's house for their housewarming party. They just bought a house in our neighborhood. The little guy in green was Amery's buddy at the party. His name was Phoenix and for some reason Amery kept trying to chew on his toes.





We finished off the day with some play time with Aunt Jen and Uncle Derek at our house:

11 Months

I know, it's blurry. But what can I do? The kid moves fast in all directions all the time. This is the closest thing I had to a genuine smiley 11-month-old photo.

We usually get a bunch of pictures like this before we get a good one:

We recently introduced Cheerios and they're a big hit. He's careful to get every last one:

Unless there are too many to eat, then he shares with others:

He also learned the proper resonse to "How big is Amery?"... sooooo big. (Where did this little game even come from? It seems that almost every parent and grandparent I know plays it).

Spending time outside after papa gets home:

And his favorite time of the day - naked play time after bath:

The End.

He's been clapping for a while now, but I finally got it recorded. The scoop he's playing with is his favorite "toy" of the moment. It's this weird melon-baller/ice cream scoop combo that I've had since college.

Found it! Playing catch-up.

We found the camera battery charger! I don't have a lot of time this morning, but I wanted to post a few quick shots of what we've been up to the past couple of weeks:

We met Grammy's new kittens.

Loved on Kona.

What happens to your shirt when you love on Kona.

Found the stairs (new gate arriving via UPS today).

Got contained so mama can start dinner once in a blue moon.

Tried spaghetti for the first time. He liked the first couple of bites and spit out the rest, so I guess the jury is still out.