Winston's First Birthday!

 Our sweet boy turned one! (Um, waaaay back in June, the 19th to be exact. Please ignore the fact that this is being typed in January.) Our cute little elf baby, the smiliest, happiest, chillest, fastest, wiggliest, cutest little baby anyone ever had- turned one! I always feel like he is getting so short-changed compared to Eleanor. She was first and got the fireworks and rockets while this poor guy has had to settle for Pop-Its and paper-planes. Eh, we try. Kind of. Such is the life for all second-born, right? Right? Anyhow, I wanted him to have a proper party so we threw him a robot themed party at Tom & Jenni's house complete with a piñata!

 Little man with all of his presents!

 Playing with his girlfriend, Megan.

 With Mom and Dad! He's so happy!

 And playing with his toys! He got this cute race-way from his cousin Allie and friend Jed. He also got a red truck just like grandpa's, Noah's Ark complete with 30 extra animals, egg puzzle thing and a whole bunch of other things I forgot as it was 7 months ago!

 

 Winston waving to his adoring fans with Allie's cousin Abby, not to be confused with his cousin Abby. However, we love them both.

 

 Trying his hand at opening his rocket. I looked everywhere for a robot piñata, but apparently they don't exist. I was so happy to find this one to keep it kind of space themed.

 Eleanor giving it a go. I think our cousin Abby finally opened it, or maybe Jack or Calvin. Again, it was a long time ago! Sorry Win!

 The goods! We had Fruities, fans, Chinese Yo Yos, robot erasers and other filler stuff in there.

 Look at his little frog-stance! I love how he had no idea on what to really do here.

 Starting to get it... with Jed and Allie.

 Eleanor knew right what to do. Piñatas in Michigan were a regular occurrence.

 Here is his cake! I really liked how it turned out. Originally I wanted to cut out the cakes and make them into the robot shape but then, you know, second child. In the pan is good enough.

 

  Oh man, that little dimple kills me daily!

 The rest of the pictures are of him with his individual cake. He did a great job devouring it and making a proper mess. 

 So at the end of the night, all hopped up on candy and cake, we return home. And I suddenly have a little boy with more energy than he has ever had in his long one year before. As we are getting the kids ready for bed he starts this hilarious routine of putting his head down on the ground, sticking his arms out and his bum straight up into the air for a few seconds then crawling off as fast as he can, going about halfway across the room and then turning around to head back and start it all again. He must have done this 7 or 8 times before I even grabbed my camera. Oh, and sorry for the nudity, he thought it was extra funny to keep his diaper off. And let's be honest, we did too.

I finally got a diaper halfway on him during the performance, thinking it would slow him down but nooo. He kept at it for another 5 minutes or so. What a goose!

Allie's Special House

Tom and Jenni have a sweet timeshare in Park City that they normally trade for something even sweeter in Hawaii and stuff, but with cute Megan getting married this summer they held onto the Park City week to stay closer to home. I took the kids up to enjoy their awesome hotel and pool for two days and we had a blast. Eleanor doesn't quite understand the idea of hotels just yet and so she kept referring to it as Allie's special house. Special, indeed it was. The kids and I got our free money's worth with quite a few outings to the pool, as seen here.

Allie and Winston!

He loved it!

Megan and her then fiance, Shane (or Shagan, as we call them) with Winston by the hot tub.

 Of course, we remember how much he loves Megan.
 
 And with Eleanor.

Allie would hold Eleanor and drag her around the pool/hot tub forever. Eleanor loooooved it.

Tom helped Allie do her best high-flying stunts. Look at those splits!

And let Eleanor try as well!

 Woo hoo! Look at that air!

 

Cutie.

The girls relaxing up in the room in their "matching" outfits. E always feels so special to match Allie.

Happy girl, down by the pool.

Tom, lugging Winston down the very long hallway. Later in the summer we stayed in a hotel and Eleanor thought it was once again Allie's special house.

Winston in his little safety-suit. Mainly for insurance while he crawled at mach-speed around the pool areas over and over. Man he can crawl fast.

And for extra snuggling with mom.

Cute E, all wrapped up to return to the room, didn't realize the whole point of the towel. She's always been our little fish and hates to leave the water.

Misc Summer 2012

So- how about a few odds and ends from the summer? I'm only six months behind on my blog. Yikes. Let's start where we left off. Unpacking the moving truck. My brothers and a dear neighbor helped us move all of our crap into my parents shed. Thanks heavens for that. I would hate to be paying money to have to get a storage unit and essentially rent our stuff until we move again. Mainly because nothing we own is worth the amount it would cost. Heck, nothing we own is worth more than $20. Ha. Anyhow, here is our sweet, bald, baby Winston playing with the bleach and wiper-fluid. 

We kept a keen eye on him while we worked, obviously.

 Eleanor reacquainted herself with our immediate neighbor, Charlotte. Hooray for friends!

One of the best parts of moving back to Utah is getting to see our cousins more! Allie is such a sweet helper with Winston.

  

And it's fun to see the older cousins as well! Like Ryan and Kirsten and her sweet baby Rosaline.

Whom my children adore. Winston gets all spazzy around her and it cracks me up.

 

 See?

Rozzie Jean!

 

More Allie-time.

Poor Winston! We put him down for a nap he DID NOT want to take. After his fussing calmed down, I go in to check on him and find this. Ohhhhhhhh! My poor little man!

And here he is showing his sterner side at Target.

And then his happier side 2 seconds later. Kids are so funny.  

The kids, my mom and I went to the cemetery on Memorial Day to visit Seth's grave. It was the first time for Winston, and boy did the kids love the "park." Flowers, pinwheels and flags everywhere!

Eleanor looked so sweet looking at his headstone.

 

And Winston... oh yeah, Winston. We had to stop him from eating every one's flowers. As seen here.

 

Back at home Eleanor and Abby worked on their splits. Eleanor also likes to do somersaults and call them everything from "dimnastix" to "tartwheeeeels" (gymnastics, cartwheels) or whatever else the Olympic team is doing. Funny story, when watching the Olympics, Eleanor was fascinated by the girl's teams. One time while watching a gal do her floor routine she tells me "Oh! Mom! I tan do a flippy-roll like dat!" (I can do a flippy-roll like that!) Then the same gymnast does some insane run across the mat and Eleanor says in just as enthusiastically, "Oh! I bet I tannott do dat!" (Oh, I bet I can not do that!) Another time while watching the gymnasts she says, "Oh! She's dust lite Woner Woman!" (She's just like Wonder Woman.)

Win and Grandpa Tom.

At Tom and Jenni's house, there was a stray dog they had hanging around for a few days. The kids freaking looooooved him.  

 

More fun with Abby. Abby takes care of Grandma Marguerite during the summer so we got a lot of wonderful time with her. Here they are doing nails again. I love this picture especially as Eleanor looks so much like Allie here!

More to come! Win's first birthday! Firth Reunion! Park City and more!! Stay tuned!!! Or not, I really can't promise anything these days.