Parker's First Birthday

I think I have said this almost every month of Parker's first year....How is it that our baby is already 1!! A few weeks ago we celebrated his first birthday! The weather was just perfect that day, sunny and in the 70s so we were able to enjoy great weather and great company and food! Here are some pictures that captured that day (in random order)...

foyer decorations showing the monthly Pooh pictures

Party favors for the kids

 a partial picture of the "new to us" swing set mike built recently (fireman pole, ladder, swings, climbing rope, etc..)

 Payton with some friends playing in a tent outside

 the other half of the swing set mike built

 enjoying weather outside

 elmo and cookie monster cupcakes (elmo is one of parker's favorite characters..)

 smash cake

 he is very interested....

 until it actually gets on his hand.....

 not to sure about this....

 the icing on his face, I confess is from me...trying to get him to go for it...notice the smash cake in corner of picture is not at all smashed... :)

 family photo

 I made way to much food as usual, and forgot to take a picture of everything!

 big brother eating his lunch... with all the excitement mom and dad did not remember to make him eat real food....

 parker surveying what all the kids did to our house... :) he loves it!

 some food tags...

thanks to everyone for coming! it was such a special time for us to celebrate with everyone our baby turning one!

11 months old!

Guess who is 11 months!! this month, it has started to become difficult to get photos of parker looking at the camera AND smiling at the same time....

11 month photo with pooh!

monster sized carrot from our garden

Payton in his favorite spot. He Still Loves chess!

Garden Update

Even though we've been having some crazy weather here, we've still enjoyed gardening! most of these pictures were taken a few weeks ago, so now, things are probably bigger or possibly dead (like our snow peas which do not like hot weather...)

carrots, parsley, and pepper plants in square foot gardening box.

beets! (my first attempt this year, and surprisingly, they ARE very easy to grow and delicious when roasted!)

tomatoes

zucchini

raspberries

kohlrabi (sp? this grows very easily, and tasted like broccoli stems basically)

snow peas

parker is getting into all sorts of things these days. Here he is at one of his favorite spots, our indoor recycling bin...

One of Payton's daily activities this summer, his kindergarten/first grade book. I meant to buy the "preparing for Kindergarten" book, since he still has another year before kindergarten. However, I apparently bought the bridge to first grade by accident. Too bad I didn't notice until he had done about 20 pages and I was thinking that they sure do expect alot of kindergarteners (i.e. subtraction, reading stories and answering questions, calculating money from coins, etc)! oops!

green onions (sorry photos out of order)

payton posing with his bunny sign. I would like to note, that since the sign has gone up, we have not seen any bunnies...

payton's favorite part, picking harvest from the garden!

the bunny in the garden

Recently, I saw a baby bunny (wild) hopping around in our garden. I thought it was so cute, so I told Payton to hurry over to come see it. He came over and we watched it hop around our garden for awhile and finally it ran into our neighbor's yard. After he saw the bunny, Payton asked for some paper, a marker, a popsicle stick, and some tape...At the time, I wasn't sure why he needed all these things. After a few minutes, this is what he made:

In case you cannot tell, it is a "no bunny" sign for our garden.

Payton was not really that impressed with how cute the tiny bunny was. He was more concerned that the bunny would eat all of our vegetables in the garden...so he made the sign...and stuck it in the garden...:)

p and p enjoying swinging almost every day this summer. Payton can now swing by himself! (in other words, no need for mommy or daddy to push him anymore... :)  )

New milestone

Parker has finally learned how to crawl.



Enjoying his new pool/ball bit:

10 months and Portland

Over the 4th of July we visited Harriet and Chuck in Portland. My parents also flew out there too, so we had a mini family reunion for about a week in beautiful Oregon.

While we were there, Payton went fishing for rainbow trout with Uncle Chuck and Daddy and caught some big ones!

We went on some hikes and enjoyed the beautiful scenery...I won't say we all enjoyed hiking (maybe because we are city people at heart), but thanks Harriet for finding "family friendly" hiking trails!

Payton learned how to play chess from Uncle Chuck. He had asked us to teach him before, but we thought he was too young.... Apparently, we were wrong. He took a major interest in this game and even started playing the computer and on his DS, when Uncle Chuck was unavailable to play him! (thanks for teaching him how to play Uncle Chuck!)

Visiting the local book store..Payton smooching off Harriet's mango drink.

The bookstore was not that exciting for Parker, so he fell asleep on the walk home.

Since Harriet and Chuck live downtown, we did alot of walking (to the grocery store, to the park, etc) and even rode the train. This was Payton's first time on a real train (i.e. not the little ones at the mall or zoo). He was pretty excited...

Getting ready to go swimming at the pool.

visiting multnomah falls. It was truly spectacular, pictures do not do it justice. If you ever visit Portland, it is a must-see!

Parker gained a lot of confidence on this trip as far as pulling up on things and even....crawling!(video coming soon)



On the plane ride home. Who knew the safety insert was soo interesting? They spent a good amount of time reviewing it...

And finally.....look who is 10 months old!! Parker is now a crawler! He has 5 teeth and 2 more coming soon. He loves to eat anything that is on someone else's plate. He still loves the water (bathtub and pool). He loves being on the swing (in our backyard and at the park). And he always wants to play with or touch whatever Payton is doing....And...His hair sticking up is still all natural...  :)