Dallin's First Birthday

It's hard to believe this guy is one year old. Some days, it seems like he is growing up fast, but mostly it feels to me like he's been around a LOT longer than one year! It seems like his newborn pics were taken soo long ago!! 

I call Dallin our "Little Love Bug" and "Love" because he is just that! Even while I was pregnant with him, I could feel the love that he has brought us. He is a sensitive little guy and seeks love from us constantly, hates being alone. He cuddles us and kisses us and nuzzles and hugs. He is also a determined little guy. When he sets his mind to doing something, he does it, from climbing a box to getting a toy to finding someone in the house. He loves reading and being read to, bringing books to us dozens of times a day, and fusses until we stop what we're doing to read to him. Dallin is a quick learner, seems to learn by experiment really well. He will quietly try new things at his high chair or in the corner of the kitchen or playroom. Then one day, I catch him doing something new and I'm like "Hey! When did you learn to do that?!" He can sign "more," "thank you," and "all done." Dallin is silly, happy, musical, athletic, tender, loud, curious and friendly. We love him dearly and are so grateful that he is our son!

Dallin's hair grows so fast, I lost track of how many times we've cut it. His birthday cut was something like the 8th or 9th time. 

Before

After

With spike.

On a walk/bike ride in this cool car we are borrowing.

Tanner loves his tricycle!

Walking pretty well by his first birthday, preferring it over crawling. 

He figured out how to stick legos together.

Also, this one year old has the coolest dance moves. He does a little twist and sways his arms side to side. I've tried posting videos but can't seem to get them working.

Family birthday dinner at Perkins Restaurant 
We like to go out to eat as a family instead of having a party/presents. Our kids are generally pretty good at restaurants since we go about once a week. My favorite part is walking away from the mess!

Tanner was really excited all week for the birthday. He insisted that it was HIS birthday. 

The restaurant gave Dallin a free piece of pie. When it came out, he looked for a second then started touching it and trying to get a good piece to grab. Dallin held a big strawberry in his hand and just stared for a second. Then, he leaned over the side of his high chair and spit out a chunk of bacon! That thing must have been in his mouth for a good 20 minutes!! Once the bacon was out of the way, he devoured the strawberry.

  Dallin was really excited about the balloon and fascinated how it was tied to his arm.

All tuckered out.

Dallin's birthday fell on a Sunday. So the Perkins dinner was on the Friday before. Here are some poses of him on his actual birthday in his Sunday clothes, along with cake and service project that we also did on his actual birthday: 

Dallin's birthday present from us: CAKE!! I think he was pretty happy about it once he figured out how yummy it was! 

Don't be deceived. Tanner, me and Jeremy ate most of the cake. 

What a happy baby!

Birthday Service Project

This is a birthday tradition that I started because I want my children to be reminded on their birthdays of all that God has given them, that being alive on this earth and having a birthday is such a great blessing. With each year that we get to enjoy life, I feel we can celebrate by giving back in some meaningful way to our friends, family and/or community. The birthday person gets to choose the service. For example, for Tanner's 2nd birthday he made muffins for the neighbors because it was his favorite thing to eat at the time. 

Dallin and I "talked" about what we could do for his birthday. We decided that since his birthday is really close to our one year anniversary of moving to Minnesota, we should thank all the people that we possibly can who have had anything to do with us coming here and having such a great first year. Dallin "said" he can't write yet. So I "told" him we could use his hand print on every card. This is what we came up with:

We lined up all these blank-inside cards on our dining room table. Jeremy held Dallin, I held the ink pad. We stamped as many cards as Dallin would let us. After about 35 cards, he got tired, so Tanner volunteered his hand for the remaining 15. Funny fact, you can't tell the difference between their hands because Dallin's is really big for his age and Tanner's is pretty small for his age. Can you tell the difference? 

(Dallin's hand is the one on the left).

We decided to let Dallin try some writing. He likes making marks with pens and crayons, but since we used marker, all he wanted to do was eat them.

Oh well! The cards still turned out really cute.

Happy Birthday, my Little Love!!

Clothesline Baby Shower

I hosted a Clothesline Baby Shower for my friend Bailey on May 17. She is having baby # 2, her first girl!! She said she didn't need any presents, but when I asked if she had any baby girl clothes yet, she said no. So I knew exactly what the theme of the shower would be: CLOTHES!!

Game #1: Make a Headband

I got all kinds of bows and flowers and buttons and elastic things for everyone to make a headband for the baby. The person who made Bailey's favorite headband got a prize: hair stuff from the dollar store! 

Game # 2: Sorting Socks

I collected a bunch of pairs of socks from around the house (don't worry, they were all clean). Then I filled four different bags with socks so that every bag had some bulky ones, small ones, fuzzy ones, and thin ones. I also used about 10 pairs of baby girl socks from the dollar store (for Bailey to keep after the game). And just to make it extra authentic, I included socks without matches, mostly because I couldn't find enough matches in my house! At the party, we split into four groups. 

Round 1: Be the fastest to sort your bag of socks. After all the socks are sorted, we had the players undo them and rotate bags for round two. Round 2: Sort your socks blindfolded, trying to get the most correct matches! We just did eyes closed because I didn't have enough blindfolds. It was SO funny watching everyone do them without looking, and I was really impressed with the team work! (The socks without matches added an extra degree of difficulty). Winners of each round got a prize: summer socks from the dollar store! If you do this game, make sure to get enough sock prizes for all your winners. I had to improvise a little with that because I forgot about multiple people on one team. 

Game # 3: Clothing Alphabet

For this game, Bailey held a bag filled with alphabet pieces. You can also use a deck of alphabet cards. As she pulls out a letter, everyone tries to call out an article of clothing or accessory that starts with that letter. First person to call an item keeps the letter. After all the letters are called, the person with the most letters got a prize: cute accessory from the dollar store! 

Game # 4: Which Item Stains the Worst?

The night before the party, I got four rags and "stained" them. One had tomato sauce, another had raspberry jam, another mustard and the fourth one had ink. The players had to list in correct order how well the stains would come out from least visible to most visible. Then, half way through the party, I soaked the rags in oxyclean stain remover and at the end of the party we washed them to give the big reveal. It should come as no surprise that it was the great-grandma in the group that won the game since she is the most experienced! 

I'm sure you're dying to know the order. It went tomato sauce as least visible, then raspberry jam, mustard and finally ink as most visible. Sarah gave me an idea that next time we can try using ink on every rag and see what stain remover works the best!

For party food, we stayed gluten, dairy and sugar free so that the guest of honor could eat everything. I really liked this challenge because it helped me think of some fun, healthy snacks for Tanner:

Rainbow Fruit Kabobs (thanks, Brytnie!)

Olive & Pepperoni Kabobs

Mini Apple PB sandwiches

Fruit and Veggie Platters (thanks, Sarah!)

And my personal favorite, Cucumber "Cookies" with hummus and raisins.
We also had watermelon slushies!

Bailey ended up getting a lot of adorable clothes for her baby. She is such a wonderful person, she totally deserves it! I hope she had as much fun as I did!! 

Thank you to everyone that helped me host and to all that came to the shower. And a special thank you to Jeremy for taking care of our little friends in the basement. He managed to play with Dallin and Tanner while rocking one of our little friends to sleep on his chest. What an all-star Daddy!