Christian's First Birthday!

So, my baby boy is ONE! I can hardly believe it's been a year since he came into the world. Christian has been such a joy and a blessing in our home. What an amazing little guy.

The day started off with the new adventure of facing forward in his carseat! He giggled the whole time we drove around. During naptime, I had decorated and blown up a bunch of balloons. When he got up from his nap, he "discovered" the new decor and the balloons giggled and played with the them for a 1/2 hour!

This evening, we had a little family party for him and he couldn't have been more tickled about all of the attention (and the new big-boy toys)! He loved playing on his new teeter totter with his big sister and his favorite gift of the night was a new basketball hoop that was "just his size"! He picked right up on what to do and just kept dunking them in! We tried to help him "get messy" with his cake, but he, like his sister before him, did not want to get messy. I was so sad. Oh well, the cake was delicious and he DID eat some in the the end :-).

All-in-all, it was a fantastic day and both kids had tons of fun and were extremely happy, despite being very tired! I'm just so grateful that our little family was fortunate enough to have Christian become a part of it.

Peanut...then and now!

Peanut recently celebrated his 2nd birthday on May 17th. For those who don't already know, Peanut has a heart condition called valvular dysplasia. Basically, his heart valves pump liquid into his heart instead of out. It's inoperable and the doctors up in Ames (a great veterinary clinic) didn't think he'd live even one year. However, for those of you who have been around him, you'd never know that anything was wrong! I just wanted to post a few of his pictures--I can't believe how much he's grown....just like one of the kids, eh?

Security DOES have a sense of humor

This shot was taken by the Super Targer security team today. They found Cubby and Emily in the toy section and asked, "Do you have a baby here today?" Cubby said, "yes" (thinking that Christian, who was with me shopping, had had a messy diaper or something). They then gave him this photo and said that it had given them a pretty good laugh :-). We were sure to wave good-bye to them on our way out!

Two Loves With Their Lovies

I had to post these pictures from today. Emily wanted to take pictures of she and Christian with their Lovies, Dolly and Blue Bear. They were so sweet to each other today...even when wrestling! Good for the baby books!

Our Next Olympic Champion!

Emily had her gymnastic's open house this past Saturday. She had been practicing a little dance routine (featuring various gymnastics skills she'd been working on) and we all went to watch. It was so darn cute! She excelled at many things, especially waving to us in the crowd! It was a lot of fun to watch her and see everything she'd learned this last year.

Back In Business!

Cards

I love to give (and receive) cards. Trouble is, I'm not sure what to do with all of the ones I've collected throughout the years. Right now, I've (roughly) organized them by "event" and put them in a shoe box of sorts. Does anyone else keep cards? Does anyone have a better idea for organizing them or making them into keepsakes? I'd love the input as now I'm starting to accumulate them for the kiddos too.