Joshua's First Birthday Party

Joshua's first birthday arrived. What an amazing year it has been. We had a little birthday party for him the Saturday before his actual birthday. At one, how can you really know what "theme" to do. We chose Elmo because that's the character he has been exposed to the most and he does seem to like him.

Between all the cameras in attendance, there are a bazillion pictures and it's hard to narrow them down when there is such a story in them. But how are there ever too many baby pictures anyway, right?? Am I right? Can I get an AMEN?

Here is Josh with his "twin," Josie. They are three days apart.

I had some cupcakes for the kiddos to decorate.

My sister, Susan, flew down. She is such a wonderful aunt!!!



I made an Elmo cupcake. This was quite a production for me and I plan to do a separate post all about it. But in the end I was very pleased with the results.


Josh has had almost no sugar prior to his party, so he of course wouldn't really know the joy that awaits in a cake. We were a little worried that he wouldn't want to "hurt" Elmo.

But why not poke his eyes out first?

Josh is in no way a messy eater. I think in part due to his personality, but also because we have not allowed him to be messy with his food. Recently he has started to place rejected portions of his food in the cup holder of the tray in his high chair. The high chair he was using at the party did not have a cup holder. So instead...

...he used Grandma C's hand.
He was taking pieces of the coconut and handing it to her.

Dad tried to encourage by setting the example

Ah, a taste, finally.

SUGAR!!!!!!! YES!!!!!

"Take this mess with you!"

It's way more fun to feed it to dad anyway!

My boys.

The mess.
(even though most of it was made by Jim)

HALLELUJAH!!

And of course opening presents is always a hoot with the kids.

Everybody's gotta get in the action.

It was a great day and Josh handled it perfectly. No meltdowns and he was as social as can be. Such a good kid. Happy Birthday Buddy!

One Year Check Up Stats

Josh had his one year doctor appointment and here are the main points:

Weight: 22 pounds, 14 ounces
Length: 29 inches

Bottom molars appear to be coming in as there is some swelling.

I was enlightened about something that seems so obvious now. At Josh's last appointment, 3 months ago, his measured length was 28 inches. For Josh's birthday we bought a measuring stick to hang on our wall and wanted to christen it on Josh's actual birthday. So we measured him at 28 and 1/8 inches. Seemed really strange that he would only grow 1/8 inch in three months. We even measured twice to be sure.

So when the doctor measured him at 29 inches, I learned the difference in concept of "length" versus "height". Duh.

The First Birthday

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!

Can't Stop Laughing

There is a commercial that came out several months ago for Old Spice. I have absolutely loved and enjoyed that commercial over and over.

There have since been so many references to it and parodies of it. Every one continues to make me laugh. This commercial has become the gift that keeps on giving.

To my joy I have found a YouTube (my hero) post that shows the original commercial followed by the Grover parody.

(if the screen is cut off, click on it again and it will take you directly to YouTube to watch it)




Then, a site I love to look at, Cake Wrecks, has done their version.

Please enjoy.

Kids Love Music

MAJOR CUTENESS ALERT!!!

I am so excited to finally be enrolling Joshua in some social activities. My mom found a five-week music class for kids 4-14 months at the local community center. The time of it is just perfect for me to take him on a day at home.

I really hope that Joshua will be musical. I am trying to expose him as much as possible.

This little class was so stinkin' cute! We sang songs, shook maracas, danced, tickled and bounced. We also played some drums. At the end there was one big drum for all the kids to gather around. There were little holes in the bottom for the kids' legs to poke through so they could get close.




I just love watching Josh in this video. He is taking it all in! He's watching the other kids and testing out the instruments. He just loves being around other kids. There were four kids in the class today: 3 boys and one girl. I think the youngest was 8 months and I think Josh was the oldest at almost a year.

I can't wait till next week!

Joshua's Wish List

With Joshua's birthday coming up quickly and Christmas not too far behind that, I have been getting a few questions of things to get him. So I thought I would just list some ideas here, especially since my mind tends to go blank when I hear the question.

Wagon

Wooden Toys - I am a big fan of any toys that are simple and seem "old school". Little Alouette is one example of some cute wooden toys. They have a lot of teethers which maybe Josh is getting too old for, but there are some really cute things there. Also, a couple from my small group make some really cool stuff at French Family Connections.

Activity Table - He loves standing and playing at our coffee table. On a play date Josh got to play at an activity table and seemed to really love it!

Hooded bath towels - big. He long ago outgrew the two little ones he has.

Walking toys

CDs - just some cute kids music kind of stuff.

Clothes - He doesn't have a huge need for clothes right now (we have been incredibly blessed with hand-me-downs), but if you ever wonder about sizes... His shirt size is pretty on track with his age. Pants need to be bigger to accommodate his cloth diapers. So while he is 12 months now, good size pants are 18M - 24M (or 2T).

Books - bedtime, learning, touching...they're all good at this point.

I'm going to keep a link to this post on the right for easy reference. And I may change the list as I think of anything else.

Word on the Street

We have received a lot of comments on our house. A lot! In fact, Jim and I are starting to wonder if we should be embarrassed? Offended? We know our house was bad. We figured the neighbors would appreciate the change. But it's starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Were we that much of a pariah? The neighbors are coming out of the woodwork.

A little eight or nine year old was riding her bike and rode up to me and said "I really like the color of your house."

Who are you little girl? Why are you talking to strangers? Thank you for the compliment nonetheless.

Things are so close to the end that there is not much visible change. So I'll wait to post any additional pictures until we are all done.

Color!!!! - The End is Near

We are so close to the end! I believe all the color painting is done. What a transformation on Thursday when all the color got put on the house and garage. No more red!!

Look at our beautiful, serene house. Doesn't it just put you at peace?

A couple friends already commented from the pictures that they were suddenly aware of the brick work. The red house was such a distraction from any other details of the house. It's no longer an assault to the eyes.

We even got our fall decorations put up in the house which means our wreath is on the front door.

Welcome!

Can't wait till they are completely done and we can put our outside decorations up.

And the debris pile is gone.

Now just the detailed trim work needs to be done.


I'm so happy with our color choice.


He also painted our water heater storage thingy. When Armando asked if I wanted it painted, I was stumped. I asked "Do people do that?" I had never noticed if others had their's painted or not. He said some do and some don't. So we decided we "do".


And no more blinding white wall with the crooked white splotchy paint bleeding over into our neighbor's yard. Our color goes well enough next to their natural wall.

I'm so excited to get some plants in there. But we'll have to wait for it to rain money before we can really do that. We may relocate our trees from next to the garage to go along the back wall and get some lower bushes to put along the garage. We'll see.

Rained Out - Day Six (and Seven) of Painting

Look at our porch!!!


Doesn't that look nice?

It will be great when our swing is hanging again. I want to find ways to make the porch more homey in the future and not so stark. Maybe some plants and a table and a chair. We'll see what I can find and when we can afford it.

Jim said the porch turned out just the way he envisioned it. I'm so glad.

Monday was a pretty dreary and drizzly day so I don't think the crew was able to work on quite as much as they had hoped to.

When I spoke with Armando this morning, he gave me his list of goals to accomplish today, one of which included getting the stucco work done on the house. Unfortunately today turned out to be pretty rainy. It started coming down around noon and within an hour was raining too much for Armando to do any more work. So no stucco work today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better weather. To think that just a week ago we had the hottest day on record.

On a side note, our new roof appears to have performed just beautifully in the rain.

I think Jim and I are both starting to get a little anxious for the project completion. Since the paint is the last step, it seems to be taking forever to get to the grand finale. We've added little projects here and there, and now the rain is pushing us out further. It hasn't been a huge inconvenience to our lives, but there are definitely daily adjustments we have to make. We are ready to settle back into normalcy.

Ruby's on the Pier

On Sunday, we took an impromptu trip to Seal Beach. We had just bought Josh's new car seat and decided to stay out to do something for dinner. I had just read that Ruby's was voted best restaurant in Orange County for kids so figured that would be a great place to go for some fun.

We were so unprepared for the beach. It was very windy and very cold. We had no jackets or hats. And to walk to Ruby's was to walk head-in to the wind. Poor Josh. I don't think he was all that thrilled about it. And the boardwalk on the pier made for a bumpy ride. It was pretty comical to see him bouncing along.




The really fun part was watching Josh drink his bottle. I've never seen him do this before but he was swinging it back and forth as he drank. I became aware of the trumpet music playing and thought it looked like Josh was playing the trumpet. Luckily he did it long enough that Jim was able to catch it on video.

He was having a grand time boppin' along to the music. And he of course charmed everyone around him.

A (Mostly) Finished Wall - Painting Day Five

Paint! Paint! We have PAINT!

Seriously. Not just primer.

Josh's new wall is done for the most part. The stucco below still needs to be painted - but the new siding and the trim are all done. It's so exciting!!!



This is the Wooden Peg color which is darker than the rest of the house will be.

All the windows that were sanded yesterday have now been primed.


More progress was made on the porch railing. I was surprised and a little disappointed that this wasn't further along, but I will try to be patient. I shall try...



They did, however, get all the ribs cut. So they are ready to go and I bet once the final piece of the frame is up, the rest will just fly into place.


The garage got some primer today too.



More garage. And the bushes Jim cut way back to make room for the painters.



This is behind the garage and the wall that backs up to the apartment complex behind us.

This has been our pit ever since we moved in. We've essentially neglected it and grown increasingly afraid of what we might find. In the foreground was a grapefruit tree which we decimated. All the way in the back is an orange tree that Jim cut back but decided to give the fruit a little taste to see if it was worth keeping. To our surprise and delight, the oranges were super-duper tasty! We told the painters they could help themselves to the tree and that they did. There's not a ripe one left. But we're happy to know that we'll have good fruit on that tree - despite our neglect.

It's the weekend and the painters will be back on Monday. They did a nice job of really cleaning up after themselves for the weekend. Armando suspects they will be done on Thursday.