Some Party Pictures

Here are some more pictures of the decorations. Aaron's Smash Cake was a miniature version of the Big Cake and it was SO cute!

Aaron wore a Mod Monkey T-Shirt from Grandma Beth that matched the decorations. I am not sure I got any good pictures of it in this batch, though.

Do you love this 'Fun to be 1' hat? This was a present to Aaron from Grandma Beth. He really liked it and I have a lot of pictures of him in it. He has been wearing it for a couple of days, but I wanted to wait until the party to put pictures of it on here.

Aaron got this Sock Monkey bib for Christmas, I thought it would be perfect for his Monkey Party!

This cake just stole my heart! Didn't Kimmie do a great job with the cake?

We had such a good time today. Jory and I really enjoyed the party. Aaron was a little confused, but he held up well. He sure was tired tonight, though!

He did a great job of tearing into his presents! I'll post more pictures tomorrow!

Party Decorations

We are all ready for Aaron's Party. Here is the entrance to our house when you walk up the stairs. The Monkey Balloon on the left is on Aaron's high chair. Jory picked out the invitations for Aaron's Party and they had monkeys on them, so we went with a Monkey Theme.

When you walk in, the kitchen is on your left and we decorated the bar with all of the Birthday Cards that Aaron has received.

Here is the living room on your right. On the coffee table are the two photo albums that have Aaron's pictures from his first year and one of his scrapbooks. The streamers hanging up have '1st' on them.

The treat table. The cake will actually go in the center (Kimmie is bringing it). What is there right now is a picture matte for guests to sign.

The snacks are banana runts, banana jelly beans and banana chips. They are in the cutest bowls that I found at the dollar store: a star, a heart and a circle. The pitcher will have punch in it and the boxes behind the pitcher are the goody bags.

Here is a close up of the picture on the table. It is each of Aaron's monthly birthday shots. The big picture space will be filled with a shot from today.

This is a 'Pin the Candle on the Cupcake' game. Aaron loves it! There is a big number one that we now have velcroed to the top of the cupcake. It's super cute.

If you like the decorations, you can thank my mom. My last decision regarding the party was 'Let's do a monkey theme'. As a birthday present to Aaron (and a big favor to me), she found all of the decorations online and had them shipped to me. It was a little overwhelming to plan the party during the move, so she handled it and that was so nice!

Below are some more 'First' streamers going back to the hallway. Jory hung all of the streamers and balloons. He's hung a few more balloons since I took these pictures, too.

Just WAIT until you see what the Birthday Boy is wearing today! It is just too cute for words! More to come.

Aaron's Birthday

Aaron had such a fun day yesterday! Grandma Beth called at 7am to be the first to wish him Happy Birthday! Then Papa John came by and brought him these really cool golf clubs (we had to pry them out of his hands to put him to bed last night) and played with him until Papa had to go get on an airplane. Kimmie came by in the afternoon for a little bit to love on the Munchkin and Grandpa Tom called to tell him Happy Birthday. When he got the mail, Aaron had Three Packages, Two Cards and a Magazine (he got a very neat Baby Magazine Subscription from Grandma Beth for his birthday)! WOW. He also got SO many online well wishes. This is one loved kid!

Last night, Daddy and I took Aaron to dinner. He got his own meal and his own cup of milk. He learned to drink out of a straw a few weeks ago and he just loves them. He was very pleased with this one and we were very pleased with how much milk he drank!

We transitioned very easily to milk a week ago. Aaron likes it and we had no problems with the switch. We also weaned from bottles last week. That went very well and we were pleased because we didn't think he would give up his bottles. No problems, though! He mostly drinks from regular cups - he doesn't like Sippy Cups much. So I help him quite a bit, but he does very well with it.

We have a few errands to run for tomorrow's party, but we'll mostly just be here playing with all of our new toys and reading our new books. We LOVE books. We read them by ourselves, though. Please don't put Aaron in your lap and try to read to him. I mean, you can, it's fun to watch...hopefully we are not too far away from nightly Story Time, but we aren't there yet.

Have a fabulous weekend! We plan to!

Can you believe it?

Gig Em and More Door Pictures

We are gearing up for Aaron's Big Day tomorrow! I am super excited about Little Man turning one! I told Jory about an hour ago that this time last year we were eating Sonoma Grill in the hospital! I am filled with anticipation tonight just like I was then.

Papa John has a flight out of Love Field in the morning, so he is going to swing by here and love on the Birthday Boy. I think that's so exciting.

Aaron is getting lots of cards and presents already. And I just keep holding him and loving on him and wanting to remember every moment. I can not believe my baby is about to be a toddler. It did go by so quickly and I want to savor everything so I don't miss the next year.

We are having his party on Saturday. It is just a small affair here, but we are excited about it. I can't wait to get the house all decorated and take pictures. I am just having a wonderful week enjoying my Sweet Boy and I hope your week is sweet, too!

Communication

Aaron doesn't speak. Well, he says "Bye bye" when he shuts a door on you or when someone's leaving and he does that Baby Babble he's done most of his life, but he's not one of those Verbal Prodigies with an arsenal of words on his tongue by the time he turns one.

He knows a couple of signs and he points to things he wants and he pushes away things he does not want. If you ask him a question "Whoooo" is yes and "Uh uh uh uh" is no. That's what we've got to work with here.

BUT, Aaron's ability to comprehend is amazing, at least to me. Say "It's time for dinner" and he goes to his high chair. "Do you want a snack?" and he goes to the kitchen. "It's bottle time" and he goes to the rocking chair. "Daddy's home" and he RUNS to the top of the stairs and holds on to the baby gate while bouncing. When Daddy walks through that door at the bottom of those stairs he goes crazy. He squeals and claps and jumps up and down.

Tell Aaron it's Night Night time and he takes off to his bedroom. Ask him to bring you a specific toy and he will. Tell him to go to a specific room in the house and off he goes.

He is still such a happy, fun kid! We can't believe he'll be one tomorrow, but we are loving every minute.

We do this a lot

We take people down a hallway and find any open door. Then we go in the room and slowly close the door and say "Bye, bye. Bye, bye. Bye, bye." Then when it's ALMOST shut, we... Open it and laugh really hard!

Then we close it and say "Bye, bye."

Then we open it.

Then we...

We can do this for incredibly long periods of time. You would be amazed. And we do it throughout the day. It has yet to get boring. I love to see how tickled Aaron gets with this game!

More Pictures of Fun Stuff

When we first moved into the apartment, I put all of Aaron's stuff in this cabinet. He found it quickly and crawled in it! He would take the stuff out and put it on the kitchen floor and play with it while he was still sitting in the cabinet. I let him because it allowed me to unpack the rest of the kitchen and it seemed fairly harmless. Once the rest of the house was unpacked, though, I moved all of his stuff and he doesn't have a kitchen cabinet now. It actually only took him one trip around the kitchen to figure that out and then he moved on. I was impressed.

Look, Mom! I have a spoon!

No, really! LOOK! It's a spoon!

Aaron is doing great. It took him a few days to get used to the idea that we had moved, but he is back on his game and loving life!

Yes, he is actually in the kitchen cabinet

At Long Last

We are up and running! Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. This was taken at lunch the day before we moved. Kate and Aaron were very busy with Aaron's corn. Allison asked me if it was 'Special Corn' because Kate always refuses corn but she and Aaron sure were eating it that day!

Our first day in the apartment. We were waiting for the movers and Aaron was on the kitchen floor with a baggie of peas.

Our first weekend here we went to lunch at Blue Goose for Mexican.

We are getting settled in here and I will update more this coming week! Have a wonderful, blessed weekend!