Happy Forever Day!

It's been a year since Briar was forever in our family, yay! It seems like it was just yesterday that we were going over to the foster Mom's to bring him home. What an amazing year it has been! Oh the things this little boy has taught us and has brought into our lives. I guess it is true "good things come to those who wait". What a little blessing Briar has been to us and we hope we are to him. Thank you God!

We are going out to dinner to celebrate and I also made a cake. Hopefully Briar will like this cake a little better then his birthday cake, we shall see. We can't forget to take a family picture, like we did when we got home with him a year ago :)

Things have been super busy so I haven't had alot of energy around posting on here. We have been concentrating on getting the basement finished, then we had our trip to Canada and then my Grandma was here for a visit and then back to the basement. YIKES! Good news is is that we are about 80% done with the basement. All that's left is grouting the tile, staining the doors and trim, installing them, laying the carpet, buying the toilet & vanity and then finding furniture. Phew! Can't wait until it is done so that Briar can have "his" own play space.

1st Father's Day

You'd have to ask Dan but from what I can tell he totally enjoyed his 1st Father's day weekend.

It started with Friday night, Briar and I took him out to eat at his all time favorite restaurant Famous Dave's. Briar loved it too. Then we headed over to Lowe's to pick up Primary paint for the basement. The drywall was completed this past week so he was ready to paint, and as I have mentioned before Dan L-O-V-E-S to paint. So what a great way to start the weekend.

Saturday he mowed the grass, unlike some people, again Dan loves to mow. Yes, he is a bit odd but that's what I love about him ;) We took a family walk around the local reserve park/paths. Then he started painting the walls and ceiling in the basement. We ended Saturday evening watching an Action movie.

Sunday morning Briar decided to start the day off with a great gift, he slept in until 7am! Usually we are up right at 6am or a little before, so that was a nice surprise. I made Dan a twist on Eggs Benedict, another favorite of his. He then got to paint some more while I prepared food for a picnic. We went on an afternoon picnic to a near by park. Our first picnic as a family, here's a link to pictures. Of course the meal consisted of all of Dan's favorite picnic foods (fried chicken, homemade potato salad, chips & dip, pie). Briar had alot of fun checking out the surroundings, all the trees, grass, river, other people.....it was alot of fun!

We ended the day going to dinner over at my mom and dad's so that I could celebrate Father's day with my dad :)

Before I forget, Briar has decided to finally crawl! Of course it is his own version of it, more of a crawl walk. One foot is walking the other one is crawling. It is so darn cute! And we taught him how to do High Five, he can't get enough of it and tries hard to say it too but it's more like "dae dhat". Alot of things currently are "dhat".....aaahhhh....baby talk :)

Becoming a 1 year old

So many things to do to turn 1 years old.

First you have to have a big party with lots of decorations, lots of presents that you don't really know how to open, a bunch of people googling over you and your first taste of cake. What an exhausting day!

Then there's the 1 year old professional pictures that need to be taken, it's so hard to smile that much when you are 1.

Of course you can't forget the 1 year old check up at the doctor with those stupid shots! OUCHIE!

Briar has now been initiated into a 1 year old! It was fun, exciting, exhausting and scary too.

The weekend was very busy for all of us. We took Briar to get his picture taken on Saturday, we tried the smash cake pictures but he really didn't want to have anything to do with the cake. When he touched the frosting it kind of freaked him out. Those were the last pictures they took so the pictures before turned out great! I don't have a scanner but below is a picture of Briar in his cute little suit outfit. He was just so adorable in it!

Sunday was the big day! Of course I got wrapped up in making sure everything was set for the party, taking care of the guests and Briar that I forgot to take pictures of the decorations :( We did get a few pictures during the day, click here to take a look.

The day was alittle emotional for me, thinking that our son has been in this world for a year and what an amazing blessing he is. I wish we could have been there a year ago to watch him come into this world. I did give him a special present, just from Mommy, the book A Blessing From Above. I can barely get through reading the book without crying, it is such a wonderful story.

Then on Monday he had his 1 year check up. Everything looked great, even his ears were all clear. Yay! He is 31 inches in height and weighs 21 1/2 lbs. So our little guy falls into the percentiles of being tall and skinny. The shots are always a scary thing, especially the MMR with all the controversy however we talked with our doctor, weighed all the risks and felt comfortable letting him get the shot. He of course was grumpy the rest of the day, poor little thing.

So that was his events of turning 1. This year is going to be so much fun, he is already trying, doing and saying new things. How fast they grow!

Teeth, teeth & Mama!

Briar has been working on some more teeth the last week or so. His eye teeth have popped through the gums and we think a few more on the bottom may be trying to make its way. The little man has 6 (yep that's SIX) teeth before he is 1yrs old! We are taking him for 1 year pictures on Saturday and he is going to look so cute with 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom.

I'm so excited to share with you that 2 days ago he finally said Mama! And he knew exactly what he was saying and what it meant. Ahhhhh......the sweetest words ever! My smile was from here to eternity. He's been saying it a couple times a day now.

We are busily planning for his birthday party next Sunday. So much to do! We are very excited that Grandma Phoebe and Grandpa Neil will also be here for it. They haven't seen them since December and wow has he grown! We made our official first trip to Toys R Us shopping as
parents of the birthday child. Talk about overwhelming, there are so many types of toys to chose from. Luckily I did my research before hand to know the main toy we want to get him so that wasn't a problem it was when it came to the second littler toy. You'd think something that would cost around $15-20 would be easy to pick out for a 1 year old. Nope, it took us about an hour to decide. Let's hope toy shopping gets easier as time goes by cause neither Dan nor I are individuals that enjoy shopping.


If you look closely you can see one of my eye teeth.


Okay. Here, now can you see it?


Yes I know Ladies, you'd kill for eye lashes like mine! (click to enlarge picture for full effect)


Elvis who?

Bitter Sweet

I wish I could say Mother's Day was everything I'd imagined it would be however it was bitter sweet for me. It was a great day and Dan did a wonderful job of planning an event, buying flowers and cards; A+ all the way! The only thing was that Briar was not able to go with us on the event, which was a Mother's Day brunch train ride down the St Croix valley. He unfortunately was recovery from pink eye and another ear infection. Yep, he got pink eye pretty bad on Saturday afternoon and when we went in to get meds for that he was also diagnosed with his 5th ear infection in his left ear. UGH!

We waited until Sunday morning to decide if he would be able to join us on the ride but he was pretty cranky and also had a slight fever so we called my parents and they were kind enough to come watch him while we went. I of course was pretty sad during most of the ride and before we boarded I was even crying. My first Mother's Day and I wasn't able to enjoy it to its fullest with my Son :(

Dan took a few pictures of the train and he actually captured me in one, thank goodness it is the back side of me cause this was when I was crying.

As for Briar's first hair cut, he did great! No crying or fussing. However it could be that he wasn't feeling the greatest so he just went with the flow. It was actually during the hair cut that the pink eye started to become obvious. Here's a link to the pictures of the big event.

There's not much of the baby look left with his new hair cut, that's a little bitter sweet as well. He's also not looking the greatest cause his eye's are pretty puffy from the pink eye, even so he is still so adorable!

Weekend of First's

A couple of first are taking place this weekend :)

Briar is getting his first hair cut on Saturday and Sunday will be my first Mother's day!

I'm alittle nervous about Briar's first hair cut, I hope he doesn't get too scared. We are taking him to my stylist, she is awesome! Plus he might find her familiar since her sister works at Briar's daycare in the front office and sometimes "steels" Briar to cuddle him up or feed him (we did not find this out until after he starting going there, it was a nice surprise!).

Ask me what we are doing for Mother's day.....I don't know, it's a surprise. Dan has something planned and all I know is that we need to be ready to leave the house by 8:30am and will probably get back home around 1pm. Whatever it is I just hope that Briar will be able to take his morning nap otherwise we will have a cranky little boy on our hands ;-) Dan has told me that we will all have alot of fun. Stay tuned!

Update on our weekend away ~ It was okay, the weather wasn't the best and my back seized up the day before we left so I was in a bit of pain. However the place we stayed at had a pool and hot tub so we spent alot of time there and we had it to ourselves which was great. The weekend was a bit boring but I just think it seemed that way because we have so much always going on. It was nice to spend some one on one time with Dan without interruptions. We were anxious though on Sunday to get back home to see Briar and of course Roxie too!

1 month away

I can't believe that in one month we will be celebrating Briar's 1st birthday. Wow, where did the year ago???

I ordered the party supplies today on-line. We have decided on a puppy theme, it is super adorable! Can't wait to post pictures of everything decorated. Of course I'm going over board, but heck isn't that what you are suppose to do for the 1st birthday? Not to mention it is his Golden birthday as well. So I say it's totally okay to go crazy!

Well Dan and I are taking a big step this weekend, we are going away just the two of us. My mom and dad will be watching Briar. I was so excited about this a month ago but now I'm extremely nervous. Not about my parents baby sitting Briar, they will do great. It's us missing Briar so much and not enjoying ourselves that I'm worried about. Let's hope we can concentrate on us and have fun. Of course with several phone calls in between ;)