The First Birthday Party

The day before Dylan’s birthday we had a party to celebrate his first year. Since it was the weekend after Cinco de Mayo, we kept the celebration going into the weekend with a Cinco de Mayo theme.

Dylan had friends of all ages come to celebrate with us.

We just celebrated this little cutie’s 1st birthday a month earlier.

After everyone ate and the kids got some good playtime in, it was time for cake!

Dylan didn’t quite know what to do with the cake, so big brother got him started by showing him how to properly eat the frosting with your fingers.

Once he got the hang of it, he decided he liked it.

Then he figured out how to pick it up, and shove it directly into his face.

Some of the kids made it in the group photo

And it wouldn’t be a kids Cinco de Mayo party without a Pinata! Thanks to one of my girlfriends we had the ultimate giant Pinata, it was almost adult sized!

The birthday boy got the first swing

Then all the kids had a few rounds starting with the little ones

And big brother got his turn

I love the kids cheering in the background!

And you can tell this girl knows her way around a Pinata by the looks of determination on her face!

And the kid who plays T-Ball is the one who finally got the job done!

A happy Birthday Boy!

All the kids (and adults) had a great time. We are so thankful to those who came to celebrate with us. When the party was over Dylan couldn’t go to bed without opening his presents, with lots of help from his brother of course!

I’d say it was a successful first birthday and looking forward to all the birthday parties to come!

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Papa’s pool

The last weekend in April we went to Papa J and Nonnie’s house to celebrate Papa’s birthday. And Justin made the mistake of telling Jacob we were going about 2 weeks before. So…every single day, all.day.long he kept talking about going to Papa’s to swim in the pool. Every time we were getting ready to go somewhere, he would ask, “are we going to Papa’s?” When we put him to bed at night, we tell him it’s time to get some sleep so he is ready for the next day’s adventures, and he always asked “Tomorrow are we going to Papa’s pool?” Finally, the week before, I started laying out the days and telling him what we had to do each day before we could go to Papa and Nonnie’s house. It went something like this…“Today we have to do laundry and run errands, tomorrow you have school, the next day is a playdate and swimming lessons, then you go to school again and when we pick you up from school, THEN we will go to Papa’s house!”

After counting down the days, the day finally came for us to go, and we had a great time! The things I didn’t get pictures of was golf cart rides, trip to the park, yummy meals and lots of family time playing together. And of course what Jacob had been waiting for…we spent lots of time in the pool.

Jacob is not the only one who loves to swim, Dylan was having a great time too!

They love being with their daddy and Papa in the water.

And Jacob loved being launched into the air by Papa.

And Dylan was cheering him on.

It is fun to sit back and watch them playing around, being silly and simply just being kids (both the big boys and the littles!)

And Dylan has become quite the dog lover. The neighbors dog spent the day with us and it was a love affair between the two. The dog followed Dylan everywhere, and Dylan loved every minute of it and was signing doggie all day long. I’ve gained supporter in my quest for a dog!

And while the guys were golfing one day, the boys and I were able to get a quick lunch with one of my best friends who I had not seen in a long time.

It was a fun weekend celebrating Papa and spending time with family!

Month 12

And just like that…Dylan turned one! The month of May has been a crazy, fun filled month and I have LOTS to share. But first, lets finish up the weekly photos.

This little guy is a true snuggler (is that a word?) He loves to give hugs, and I mean full on arms wrapped around your neck, his cheek squished up against yours and squeezing as hard as he can. When Justin gets home from work, Dylan is not happy until Justin picks him up so Dylan can give him a proper hug!

His independence is in full force. If I prepare food for him (cut it up or try to feed him myself), he refuses to eat it. But if I simply just put it down in front of him he will chow down. And it is forbidden to try to feed him anything other than what his brother is eating, I’m sure if he was close enough to Jacob while eating he would just grab his plate out from underneath him. He also prefers to brush his own hair, wash his own face and uses his body to lean, nudge and point to where he wants you to go when holding him.

Along with his independence, his determination and stubbornness have arrived too. He is ALOT noisier than his brother was. It was very easy (and sometimes still is) to distract Jacob from something, and he would just go with the flow. Dylan on the other hand is more stubborn, if you try to distract him from something his determination and noise level get stronger and louder and he puts up more of a fight. I guess he has two extremes, a loving snuggler to a determined go getter!

When he has a cup in his hand and sees someone else drinking something he repeatedly needs to toast them and “do Cheers!” He loves to play with a toy (or real) phone and pretend he’s talking to someone. His favorite place to be is outside and is always pointing out the window or banging on the door to tell us he wants to go out to play. His walking skills are improving every day. And because of that, he has now figured out how to open and close the doors, which is his favorite thing to do while playing in the bedrooms, open the door, close the door, open the door, close the door, over and over and over again. It makes me cringe every time because I keep imaging those little fingers getting smashed.

Here are the last of the weekly photos

Week 49 – We had a pretty nasty virus come through our house and affected all of us (except daddy) for a couple of weeks. Poor guy was not feeling well this week.

Week 50 – back to his smiley self!

Week 51

Week 52

And that is it for the weekly photos! Now it’s time for me to get a new couch!

The Dishwasher v.2

Dylan’s favorite thing to help me with these days is unloading the dishwasher. I remember doing a post about Jacob helping me unload the dishes and when I went back to look for it, I realized it was exactly 2 years ago! And looking at those pictures of Jacob when he was so little was a fun trip down memory lane. Now, 2 years later, I have a new little helper.

No matter where he is in the house, when I open the dishwasher, he hears the click and immediately makes his way into the kitchen.

And starts unloading things,

and working on trying to get the bigger objects through the small spaces in the rack.

And he does it all with a smile!

Sometimes he finds some unique, interesting objects

‘So mom, what do you call this thing?’

Ahhhh, this whisk will keep me entertained for a while!

The top rack is always a bit challenging, since it is not easy for him to reach from the ground.

His solution….just climb on up!

Pretty sure appliance companies could use this picture as an example of what NOT to do to your dishwasher.

Soon I need to start teaching him where everything goes so he can actually put stuff away for me!

First Haircut

There is something about giving a baby a haircut that suddenly makes them look older. With both boys I dreaded cutting their hair in an attempt to keep the baby look for as long as I could. Jacob was 15 months old when he got his first real haircut, I finally gave in after people started mistaking him for a girl! Since he was born, Dylan has had little trims around the front and his ears to keep it out of his face, but not a real haircut. He has more hair than Jacob did at this age and it is darker. It was getting long in the back and it was starting to do the side flip thing. So I gave in and decided it was time to cut his hair. A few days later my mom came to visit, after breakfast one morning we took Dylan’s highchair outside and armed with a spray bottle, comb, scissors, things to keep Dylan distracted and of course me with the camera. Dylan got his first haircut.