Birthday Boy

I can't believe my baby boy turned 1 years old! I really took some time on his birthday and thought about a year ago in the hospital when I first met him. He is the joy of my life (and I think the joy of the life of anyone he meets). It's amazing how fast that year went. I was in school when he was born and I opted to take a semester off so I could spend some quality time with him and not miss those precious moments. Now that I'm back in school and I'm a semester behind, I can honestly say it was worth it! I wouldn't have traded anything in the world to share those moments growing with him!

Here's the snap shot of my VERY non-messy cake eater as far as infants go. We video taped him eating it to and may I just say it was ANTIclimatic as he just picked apart the cake piece and ate it piece by piece... and then sucked the frosting off his hands. Monica scolded me for not giving him a chocolate cake as the mess would be more revealing... See video on bottom.

Here was the cake we made. It was a simple white cake that we added shredded coconut and a little coconut extract, and then topped with toasted coconut on whipped frosting. It was the chocolate cake that one year birthdays demand, but it sure was yummy. We got a new bunt cake pan and I wanted to try it out as I have never made a bunt cake. The whole time I thought it looked like a giant donut from a Homer daydream in the Simpsons!

The morning of Rhett's birthday, I got him up, made him breakfast (more than the usual baby cereal-- he got scrambled eggs and pieces of potatoes and toast), and then got him dressed so he could pose for his birthday picture! This is an outfit grandma Lori got him for Christmas/birthday. I thought this picture really made him look more like the toddler he's becoming and less like the baby I brought home from the hospital.

Whenever I have the camera in my hand, Rhett is curious at what I am doing. This was also a good comparison picture to his birthday picture at the hospital. See below. It's amazing the changes! You can't see it really in the picture above, but Rhett happened to scratch his nose pretty good with his figure nails. Maybe he was trying to recreate the moments from the hospital when he scratched his face up (see picture below)!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RHETT

A Night at the Museum

First Mondays of the month are free at the University of Utah's natural history museum. So family home evening it was!

The best part of the entire museum was the dinosaurs, but it was toward the end of the night and Rhett just wasn't that interested in them.

He's excited to be on my shoulder though! He also liked pulling my hair -- he didn't last on my shoulders very long!

There was this great puppet show area that had hand puppets of different "creatures." Rhett enjoyed the bat tickling him as well as the fuzzy legs of the tarachula! (see below)

I believe we are looking at beetles in this picture. He seemed intrigued by them. I think it was the simple fact that they moved. At any rate, he seemed to be interested in the buggy life of the museum.

Rhett putting to test his archeological skills and "carefully" brushing off the bones.

Sitting in a dinosaur footprint. They sure have big shoes to fill!

Sledding

We went out sledding on a sunny Saturday. We bundled Rhett all up to stay nice and warm and realized that it wasn't all that cold out! It had to be in the higher 30s. All we had were a couple of roll up sleds and since the hill was basically snowy ice (not too slippery you couldn't walk up it though), they worked out great!

It took Rhett a couple of runs to decide if sledding was even worth acknowledging or just letting mom and dad have fun with him in their arms!

In the end, even Ginger had fun! We didn't get any pictures of it, but a few times, I went down without Rhett and tried to get Ginger to sit in my laugh. Well, she hopped, skipped and jumped over my sled "playing" the whole way down! It's hard to explain, but everyone at the hill got a kick out of the dog that "sled" down the hill. If anything, we tired her out!

Happy New Years!

So I'm a little late at posting this, but here are some cute pictures.

I couldn't believe Rhett made it all the way until midnight and wasn't even crabby! I think he's a little unsure of the confetti that daddy threw on him...

He wasn't crabby, but he sure seemed hungry. He went through two full bottles that night and snacked on baby food as well as other goodies around the house. Seriously, where doesn't this UNDERWEIGHT baby put it?! IN HIS DIAPER!

Happy NEW YEAR!