St. Louis Trip

Harris and I arrived in St. Louis on Monday evening about 6pm. We had a great trip out here with help from a DVD player during the last leg. We are staying with our friends John & Kim who have 3 kids Trevor, Connor, & Logan.

Trevor was kind enough to let us sleep in his room. I enjoy looking at all the reptiles and dinosaurs staring at me when I wake up. My favorite one is shown below. I think his name is Tiny. Love the sweater.

Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was the hottest muggiest weather I have ever experienced in my life. We stayed as long as we could handle it and probably only got through 25% of the zoo. It is quite large.

Here are the boys ready to go in the parking lot. From left to right is Connor, Logan, Trevor, and Harris.

We finally went to the reptile room to try to cool off. We let the boys out of the strollers to stretch their legs.

We are coming home on Friday. Harris misses his Daddy very much, so we look forward to seeing him soon.

Father's Day

Father's Day was very nice for Brian. Harris said the word "Dadda" plain as day to him while Brian was opening his card. It was very special.

We were thinking back on the last Father's Day when Harris was only 4 days old. Last year I had purchased matching NY Giant's jerseys for both Harris and Brian. The one for Harris was huge on him because it was a 2T size. Anyways, we decided to bring out the jersey again and put it on Harris to see how much he's grown this year. The pictures are below:

Harris only 4 days old:

Harris now 1 year old taking big boy step:

We also played in the sprinkler in the evening. For a birthday present, Harris received this giant beach ball sprinkler from my cousin Tonya. It was a great hit. He was fascinated by the fine streams of water that squirted out. It doesn't seem to use that much water either which makes us feel less wasteful.

The 1st Birthday Party

Harris had a wonderful 1st birthday party on Saturday. The turn-out was great and even though it was hot, there was no rain which we were glad.

Lots of pictures to show. The theme of the party was Baby Einstein since he loves the videos. The videos also helped Mom & Dad enjoy a quiet dinner several times during this first year so we love them too :)

The cakes turned out great. I came up with the idea for this cake from two different websites (Cake Central and The Coolest Birthday Cakes). It was kind of a collection of different things I liked from others and just put it all together. It was lots of work but I was very pleased and happy with the results.


The cupcakes have music note picks which I found at Country Kitchen.


The birthday cake has Tootsie Pop suckers for antennae and fondant eyes, cheeks, and smile. The tail is a frosted sugar cone. The cakes were made with a circular cake pan that comes in two pieces. The yellow and blue segments are white cake and the purple, red, and teal segments are chocolate cake. The grass is made from coconut that is dyed green.



The smash cake for Harris is identical to the party cake. It was made using a mini round cake pan mold. The antennae are Dum Dum suckers and have fondant eyes, cheeks, and smile.



Next came present opening. Harris didn't really seem to get into unwrapping the presents much. Brian ended up opening the majority of them. Harris received so many great presents. He's definitely a very luck boy.




Harris received this great birthday card from aunt laura and uncle eric which goes perfectly with the theme. Awesome!


The lawn mower was the big hit with all the kids and especially Harris.

Next came the birthday cake. We all sang Happy Birthday and I had to blow out the candle. I then took all the facial features off of the cake so that he won't choke and then Harris went at it.

"Is all of this for me?!"


Taste pretty good!

The final product.

Straight to the bathtub we went :)

1 Year Checkup

Harris had his 1 year checkup this morning. He is developing normally and growing well. We can now start him on whole milk instead of formula. We're happy about that because it will save lots of $ :)

Below are the stats from his checkup:
Weight: 21lb 9.5oz (28 percentile)
- previously @ 9 month: 19lb 5oz (24 percentile)
Height: 30.5in (67 percentile)
- previously @ 9 month: 28.25in (41 percentile)
Head: 18.875in (84 percentile)
- previously @ 9 month: 18.3in (78 percentile)

Summary: Tall & Skinny w/ Big Head

Jack Climbs Ladder

We've been doing a lot of painting the last couple of days. Of course with painting comes ladder work. Our one cat Jack loves the ladder. When he was a kitten, he would follow us up the ladder into the attic at our other house. So when he saw the ladder out yesterday, he couldn't resist. He's a short video of him climbing it.

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u109/hellokittyjodi/?action=view&current=M2U00126.flv

Final Cake for Fondant/Gumpaste Class

I went to my final fondant & gumpaste wilton cake class on Monday. When I left the classroom at Hobby Lobby, I went over to the scrapbooking section to browse. I slipped on a clear piece of vellum paper and fell with my cake. I never even saw the vellum on the floor and still had trouble finding it after I was on the ground. The cake got messed up and I was ticked. Luckily I took a picture of the cake before I left the house. I was very proud of this cake. It's sad to see six hours worth of work ruined in about two seconds.

Pool Warning

I had to laugh the other day. After having a kid and seeing all the warning labels on everything, I definitely expected to see one on his kiddy pool. However, after taking a closer look at the warning, I realized we were in trouble. It requires more than just adult supervision nowadays. It now must be "competent" supervision. Yeap, we're definitely in trouble.

Harris loves this pool so much. He even loves to just play with it inside the house. Here's a link to a video with him playing.

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u109/hellokittyjodi/?action=view&current=M2U00120.flv