A Baseball Birthday

On the 4th of May we celebrated our little man's 1st birthday! Hard to believe a year has already gone by. He has changed so much in this last year from looks to personality. He is such a sweet funny little boy and we truly enjoy every moment with him. He purposely does things to make you laugh and his smile is contagious. He is starting to talk a little more and he is still trying to master walking. He is a boy through and through who likes to wrestle with Daddy (and even Mommy during the day) a daredevil and not afraid of anything! You MUST have your eye on him at all times because if you can't see him, he is surely about to get into something or destroy something. All of which he can accomplish in the blink of an eye! 

We celebrated his 1st birthday with the whole family! We had peanuts and cracker jacks for snacks and an infamous Grandma Downing birthday cake. I did make Aiden's cake to look like a baseball and he definitely enjoyed eating it : ) He got a lot of big boy toys like dump trucks and tractors....and even a mini 4 wheeler! Isla even got a few gifts too....these grandparents enjoy spoiling these kids rotten. But we do love them for it : ) 

Here are a few pictures of the day~

Aiden's First Hair Cut

I know this is a couple weeks late but it's been a busy couple weeks! The last weekend we were in Grant City we took Aiden to get his first hair cut by the barber that cut Josh's hair when he was younger. Josh refers to him as "Ol Shaky" and after witnessing him cut Aiden's hair I understand why! Aiden did really well for the most part and his hair looks much better. It was so long it was hanging over his ears and I always said I would never let my son's hair get too long. I like a nice short little boy haircut. Now, it's not as short as I was hoping for but it's as short as I was comfortable with Ol Shaky getting! 

 

Before.....

After! Such a handsome boy :)

Another Fun Weekend

We spent another weekend in Grant City to finish up Turkey hunting for Josh. We also had the chance to hang out with some of our friends and kids and the kids had a lot of fun! The weather was nice and we spent a lot of time outside. Aiden and Isla LOVE to be outside. "Outside" is actually one of Aiden's first recognizable words that he says! He is starting to walk more on his own and getting more brave every day....not such a good thing. He will try anything! Yesterday he was climbing up on the pillows on my bed and holding on to the headboard to pull himself up. Then he would let go and fall down backwards and just laugh and laugh at himself. He is such a funny, silly little boy! Nana came over yesterday so I could run out and get my hair trimmed and grocery shop in silence and as nice as it was to just quickly move through my errands.... I missed those little faces and smiles : ) They are especially funny when we are out and about and they make me laugh every day.

This week I will be working on finishing up Aiden's birthday celebration items and praying for a call for someone to look at our house. Our friends Bobby and Dana sold their house over the weekend and it just makes us that much more anxious to sell ours! No we don't have to move but once you have decided to make the move, you just want to do it!

 This gave me an anxiety attack! Aiden loved riding on the four wheeler : /

 A nice family photo..... one of my favorites!

 Helping Papa fix the mower

I'm making a strong effort to get pictures with grandparents and finally Grandma Downing doesn't tell me she will break the camera :)

Turkey Time

We spent last weekend in Grant City so Josh could attempt his luck at Turkey hunting. He has done it in the past but lets just say he wasn't very successful :) We were able to leave a little early on Friday and we spend all day Saturday and most of Sunday there. Harper was also up with Vanessa and her and Isla always have fun! So much fun that when it was bed time and we laid Harper in the crib and Isla in the bed, Harper dove out of the crib and we found her with wild hair sitting on the bed with Isla! She was fine so we had a good laugh and tried out letting them sleep together. They giggled and rolled around for a while but eventually they fell asleep and it worked just fine. It was a little chilly on Saturday but the girls too many golf cart rides with Papa and we roasted hot dogs over the fire. We were really really hoping we would have some showings on the house this past weekend but we didn't. Every week I'm hopeful but nothing yet so I guess we will just keep hoping! 

We have a lot of exciting events coming up over the next couple weeks so I will do my best at keeping everyone updated! Aiden will turn 1 next week, my sister Amanda will graduate from college and Josh's sister Vanessa will also graduate from college! Then Josh goes out of town for work, my Nana will move into her new house, my Dad is quickly recovering from his hip surgery and I think Josh and I have an anniversary in there somewhere! 

Here are some pictures from our weekend------

Trying to wrangle them down for nap time!

               

And this is the end result of a fun weekend at Papa's

And he got his Turkey!!!!

Sibling Love

Isla is such a sweet, loving, kind hearted, beautiful girl and she loves Aiden with all of her heart. It is precious to watch. Although she does get frustrated with the occasional hair pull or hit, her patience with him is amazing. I want to bottle up these sweet moments before the are ended by fighting over toys etc! I hope that once they grow out of that, that they will come back to these sweet loving moments between them. She is so concerned about his well being and she is right there with us to congratulate him when he accomplishes something new. This morning Aiden clapped on his own for the first time and she overpowered our excitement with her own shouting, "Good job! I'm so proud of you buddy!" As any new parent of two, I was so nervous that she would be jealous but we are very lucky. I truly feel like our kids know how much they are loved individually and I'm happy Isla hasn't felt like she isn't important! 

This is a picture from Easter of her kissing his head as she drove him around in her barbie car. It melted my heart :)

And here she has her arm around him...so sweet!

I love these kids!!!

A wonderful day

Life has been pretty hectic lately with Josh in school so we were very thankful to have a day like Sunday. We woke up, Josh and Aiden went to the store to grab some things for breakfast. I actually slept past 6am and enjoyed a little snuggle time with Isla. Josh has been wanting to make these cinnamon roll pancakes for a while so that's what he did! We should have cut the recipe in half...it made enough to feed an army! In fact, the kids and I have eaten those pancakes for 3 days now but they are good : )

Then we just hung out and played, ate lunch and had ice cream at Dairy Queen, played some more and ate dinner. It was a nice relaxing day that we desperately needed!

 Isla took a spill off the slide into the wood chips at school!

 Aiden was mesmerized by the movie

Photo Book Posts

The photo book posts are our family album from 2011...... I know, I know I'm a little behind but finishing that album was a big accomplishment and I got to cross it off the list of unfinished projects! I didn't realize the posts actually came through but I wanted to share it with everyone. Enjoy!