Oliver really enjoyed his first birthday party. Held Saturday, we invited close family to attend. The boy was all smiles, all day long. Here, he’s enjoying his favorite activity (banging $5.99 rings on our coffee table) as he stands in front of the massive pile of gifts:
He got a lot of really awesome gifts, including some cars, lots of summer clothes, a wading pool, an interactive refrigerator magnet set, this ball-popper-upper (can’t think of another way to describe it) toy, some LIttle People stuff and a Radio Flyer wagon.
Though we didn’t have a theme (with apologies to one of my most loyal readers, Julie S.), we has a color scheme — blue and green. Our “cake” was in line with this scheme. With thanks to our good friend Katie, we used a cake pan shaped like a giant cupcake to make the cake. Sarah did a nice job on it. Here’s a picture of Oliver as we were singing “Happy Birthday”:
In addition to the giant cupcake, we had little ones. We gave Oliver one, but he didn’t mash into it like most 1 year olds. He just sort of picked at it for a few minutes and then gave us a look like “What’s going on here?” Instead, we spoon-fed him some ice cream. Here’s a picture right before he gave up on the cupcake:
We goofed around inside and out for the next couple hours. Here, I was holding him and jumping up and down to make him smile and laugh:
Then we got the Radio Flyer wagon out and took Oliver for a walk up and down our court a few times. He really enjoyed it, as you can tell:
All in all, it was a good first birthday. Sarah and I have been truly blessed over the past year, and we are just so happy to have our little boy with us. Year number two should be another memorable one.
Category Archives: Family
Oliver celebrates the big 1 (our baby’s first birthday)
It’s really hard to believe, but our little sweet baby boy is now 1. Oliver has been around 365 days. Crazy. I can hardly get my mind around it.
To celebrate, Sarah and I both took the day off work. And what a day it was. If you think our son is beautiful, you should have seen the weather today in St. Louis. I believe it was close to 80 degrees. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go through the day picture-by-picture:
After his morning feeding, we showed Oliver his big gift from mom and dad. It’s a Fisher Price Learning Home. It’s got all kinds of fun activities on it. He has enjoyed it off and on all day (he usually darts away from everything and over to our coffee table, where he can bang rings and cups around).
We also opened some cards that came in the mail this week. He enjoyed “kissing” them (half of his kisses involve pressing his forehead against something).
Later in the morning, we celebrated the official time (9:16 a.m.) he was born. Here we are by our fancy microwave. Exciting.
After his morning nap and a lunch of turkey, cheese and yogurt, we packed up the vehicle and headed down to the St. Louis Zoo. We also busted out his St. Louis Cardinals hat for the first time. Isn’t it cute? We thought he looked sort of like Beaver Cleaver.
After checking out animals for a couple hours, we visited the ZOOmagination Station. It’s a kid-friendly area with lots of activities. You have to get a pass to get in, so there aren’t a lot of people in there. It was fun and relaxing. Oliver didn’t get too crazy. He mostly liked looking at himself in the mirror. He gave himself a lot of kisses.
A lot of kisses … and long stares.
After a while, he stepped away from the mirror. He stood by himself for almost 15 seconds. It was the longest we have seen him stand on his own. Pretty cool.
All in all, he had a good time. We got lots of smiles. Here, he’s laughing at an Okapi.
Right now, he’s crawling around the living room … waaaaay past his bedtime. We kept him up because his grandparents, my sister and her boyfriend were coming in town for the weekend. He’s cranky, so I’m going to be signing off. I’ll have more tomorrow, as it’s our official birthday party.
Our stomach knots are untied … for now
Many of you know this already, and I hinted at it on Friday: Sarah’s employment situation has been a little, well, unsure lately. On Friday, as expected, we finally found out some answers regarding her status. Her company has been sold and most of the employees were let go on Friday. Sarah, however, was one of the lucky few who was named a “temporary” employee. So we have, thank goodness, at least another four months before our stomachs will turn to knots again. For the moment, we’re feeling a little better. Thanks to everybody who’s heard me out the past several months and who’s shown us so much concern.
Our visit to Springfield, Mo. (part four)
Today’s a big day at Sarah’s office, so I wanted to post this final “Springfield trip” story before we learn more about the situation. Something fun and positive for this cold, dreary Friday morning.
At the end of our trip, I was chasing Molly up and down the stairs to my parents’ basement. Oliver stood next to me, laughing and bobbing up and down. Then, the next thing I knew, he was right next to me, three steps up. Yes, he learned to crawl up stairs. Here’s a short video of him doing it for the second time. The quality is bad b/c I had trouble transferring the file to the computer so it’s actually a video of the original video playing. Nothing but the best here, right? Anyway, enjoy:
In 2009, we need to make a better effort to visit my parents more frequently. We always have so much fun there, and Oliver is just changing to much every day. It was also awesome to see my sister and her boyfriend, who are off to Boston in a month or so.
Our visit to Springfield, Mo. (part three)
During our trip to Springfield, Oliver learned to drive. Well, sort of. My mom got this push-car thing, and Oliver enjoyed riding around the basement in style. He usually smiled really big and giggled, but here he looks very stoic and serious, doesn’t he?
And so I don’t forget, I need to mention that Molly, our crazy goldendoodle, also enjoyed our trip. My dad really enjoys spending time with his “grand-dog,” and she eats up the attention. Just look at those eyes:
Our visit to Springfield, Mo. (part two)
Another big “first” for Oliver happened during our Springfield trip as I was playing a game of ping-pong with Sarah at the apartment complex where my sister is living. Oliver was thirsty, so he did what any big boy would do: He drank from a cup. I had to pause our game, of course, and take pictures. Here they are:
Our visit to Springfield, Mo. (part one)
We visited Springfield, Mo., over the weekend, and a lot happened. It was nice to see my parents, and they really enjoyed the time with Oliver. Don’t they look happy?
We also got to see my sister, Carrie, and her boyfriend, Eli. They are currently living/working in Springfield as part of their traveling therapy gig (next stop: Boston).
It was a weekend of a lot of firsts for Oliver. I’ll try to post a few updates this week. To start off, he gave a “thumbs up” while eating a Baby Mum Mum treat:
An unusually warm February afternoon at the park
We’ve had an unusually warm weekend in the St. Louis area. Yesterday’s high got up to something like 65 degrees, so we took Oliver to a local park. There, we put him in a swing for the first time. He was really cute, laughing and looking around at all the people. We also played with some of the playground equipment, like a funny mirror and these twisty things. We then walked around the path and headed home. Below are a couple pictures and a short video from our day. Enjoy:
Bye-bye old pillow
OK, so first off here I must say that this post might gross out those of you with weaker stomachs. The subject alone is probably going to gross out my wife. I’m here to talk about my beloved pillow.
What a pillow it’s been. It’s older than many of my co-workers (yes, even you Susan). The white flower pattern can barely be seen, its strings are falling off and it’s full of more stains than I can count. But I have loved the pillow from day one.
The legend begins around 1982 or 1983, at a Wal-Mart in Carbondale, Ill.
The pillow made the move to Florissant, Mo., in 1984. And it made it to Springfield, Mo., in 1993. During that period, I had to pull the rapidly deteriorating pillow out of the trash at least two times (mom thought she could sneak it out!).
When I left for Fontbonne College in 1994, my pillow was considered an essential. It survived three dorm rooms and then, after college, saw me through three jobs, four apartments, my friend’s basement and lots of other ups and downs. It was there with me, too, when I met my future wife. Though the two didn’t see eye to eye, the pillow made it through our move to St. Charles, Mo., as well as our marriage and the birth of our son.
Sarah even tried my mom’s trick by trying to toss the pillow out. I pulled it out, of course. And she later stuffed it into a zipped-tight pillow protector. But I would have none of it. Nothing could replace my pillow and all of its worn-thin goodness.
Then, about two years ago, I got sick after a work function. I spent the next couple nights sleeping in the guest room and using a newer pillow. I realized that maybe I could move on. It took a while. The pillow was my on-again-off-again sleeping partner for over a year. But I did give it up for good about seven or eight months ago.
And yesterday, the pillow finally bit the dust. With my mom in town for the weekend, I thought a fitting send off would be to let the two women in my life throw it in the trash bin.
In closing, I must say that I’ll always remember and miss that pillow. It’s seen things and been through so many highs and lows with me. No pillow will ever take it’s place. And though I’m not crying on the outside, it hurts deep down to think of my pillow rotting away at a landfill. Oh well. Life goes on.
What a day … “Dada,” work and a firetruck
Today was quite the day. Things started off well. Oliver said, “Da-da” (at least in reference to me) for the first time. It was pretty cool.
Work was fun, but it was a long day. I’ve been working on a big video project for a client.
So with the long-day theme going, at almost 6 p.m. I get a call from Sarah on my cell phone. “I just got home and all the fire alarms are going off. What should I do?,” she said in a panic.
I’ve heard of people going into burning buildings and dying, and I didn’t want to take any chances. “Go in the back door, grab the dog quickly and then go sit in the car. I’m calling the fire department,” I responded.
So that’s what I did. After making the call from my office, I sent the e-mail I had been working on and sprinted out to my car. Weaving in and out of traffic, I made it home in record time.
A firetruck was parked in front of our driveway, lights ablazing. It was a little surreal, but it wasn’t (thankfully) a fire. Everything is OK. Turns out that one of our fire alarms went bad and started firing off. That triggered all the other alarms to sound.
Who knows how long our poor dog had to listen to that noise (she said she could hear the alarms saying stuff like, “Fire. Fire. Please exit the home.”). Pretty scary, I’m sure.
After we got in the house, we had a few good laughs at all the items we had laying around. The three firefighters were in our house for about 30 minutes. They had to chuckle at the giant (I’m talking 2 pounds!) back of generic “Koo-Kies!” cereal (it’s like Cookie Crisp, and yes I enjoy me some Cookie Crisp). I’m sure the dirty underwear on the floor, “Anna Green Gables” box set and many other items in our messy house also provided some good laughs. Not really how we thought the evening would go.
In talking to one of the fine gentlemen from our local fire department, I was told that fire alarms sometimes go bad after about 10 years. Since our house is now going on 11 years, I think it’s time to swap out all the alarms in the house. Sounds like a weekend project …
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