Happy Birthday My Sweet Boy

Happy first birthday my little man. You are a sweet wonderful headstrong little boy. You are so so strong, unfortunately you do not realize how to control your strength yet, but you will, and I will finally enjoy gentle touches from you :). You play so well by yourself and with your brother. You play some contentedly by yourself that sometimes people don't realize you are in the room for a while. You explore everything and figure so much out on your own. God forbid I try to help you figure something out, hand over hand work often sends you into a bit of a tizzy. You definitely have strong opinions about how things should be and do not appreciate being told otherwise. You as quick to smile as you are to express displeasure in something though and as long as things are going your way, the world is perfect and you are happy and laughing. You are a fantastic sleeper, you sleep any where and have been sleeping through the night forever. For everything that I have written until this point, you really are a very easy baby, and a good baby. For as independent as you are you like to cuddle, so that makes me happy. Love your brother Quinn so much, constantly watching everything he does and wanting to be around him. Luckily, Quinn likes to have you around too, why wouldn't he you laugh at everything he does.
Developmentally you are right where you should be, you started walking about 3 weeks ago, you are babbling away and you say mama and dada. Mama also means more food. Oh yeah, did I mention how much you love food, so since mama and food are one in the same I'm guessing you love me lots :). OK, you size is still of the charts you are the size of a 2 year old. I am still completely amazed by your appearance with your blond hair and blue eyes, so amazing. I love you my little man, I'm so lad you joined our family. We are so blessed that you joined us and we will love you always.

So on to the birthday photos.

I think he just caught sight of his cake! Cute boy.

We changed his shirt just in case this got messy.

I made his cake. I wanted to make it more seasonal, but I'm not as talented as Auntie Karra. She made him an elf cake with his face on it. I'll post that later.

First bite. I put it down in front of him, but he just looked at it. Guess he wanted to be pampered a bit on his big day.

Or, maybe he just didn't want the plate.

Or just isn't a fan of cake.

Oh, that's where the plate goes.

Final results. He really didn't make a mess. Way to go Wes.

Gifts too?

Thanks Grandma.

This is great.

Birthdays are great. Thanks everyone!!!

Hanging out, 5th birthdays, Thanksgiving, and walking.

Wesley, like most children, has quite a fixation with my computer. He gets down right angry when I won't let him touch it.

Quinn making the most of our tunnel. He was actually making Wes laugh by playing peek-a-boo with him from inside the tunnel.

Quinn and daddy. I love this picture.

Quinn's school sent this rainbow dragon home with each child for the weekend. They play with it for the weekend and then write a story about what they did.

Mr. Wesley himself with that little dimple!

Quinn's birthday party was a Batman theme this year. I was a little surprised, I thought it was going to be spiderman, but he loved it so that's good.

The cake.

This is what it looked like before the party. It's amazing to me how much kids like balloons. So I blow up a ton and let the kids go crazy with them until all of the guests arrive.

We had a pin the bat symbol on batman.

The highlight of the party. I made each of them their own superhero cap, with lots of assistants from Auntie Susun and Echo.

They had to follow this yarn to where I hid the capes and pick one they liked. Total cost for 14 caps, $10.75, that is .77 cents each. Cheaper than the grab bag items I got from walmart!!! Sorry I'm very proud of myself.

Here we are eating.

They played this tower game where they pulled sticks out of a tower and if it had a dot, they got a prize. Of course I made sure there was a dot for each of them.

Here's Haley pining the symbol on batman. She did a very nice job.

The pinata.

And aftermath from it. Quinn actually got the pull string. They don't really make the pinatas you smash anymore. There's a trap door at the bottom and one string opens it!! I guess I'm going to have to start making pinatas again.

So after Quinn's birthday, we did a quick switch and get everything set up for Thanksgiving. We had about 40 people this year.

Normally I put people in the room in the top picture and food in the room in the bottom picture, but that would not have worked this year. So, people in both rooms for comforts sake.

Great time was had by all, and the superhero theme persisted into the Thanksgiving celebration.

Weeeee!

Here's Wes hanging out with his thumb, and uncle Marshall.

Look at how big he's getting.

Quinn too!

Daddy and my big boy playing candy land.

OK, lets see if this works. Wes started taking a couple steps at a time on Saturday the 3rd, but he is very particular about when he will do it, so it took a while to get it on camera. He really doesn't like walking between Dan and I. He prefers to just spontaneously walk. He can walk across a whole room, however I can never get it because I rarely have the camera in hand when he does it.