What a cute pair!
Parker loves the lights. This was when we were walking in downtown Portland.
This picture just makes me laugh so hard. It has to be the ugliest picture of Parker ever, but I just had to put it up on the blog. I think he was just blinking funny. I don't think anything was wrong with him.
We had a nice Thanksgiving. We went to Tillamook, on the coast, to Phil's house. Phil is the boyfriend of Grant's mom, Sam. It is right on a river with beautiful views. We had a great meal and had a wonderful time visiting with one another. We are so thankful for family, for our jobs, our home, and friends.
Sam and Phil with Parker and cousin Max.
Grant's sister, Kristen with her husband Malcolm and son Max.Grant wanted to take advantage of the nice weather outside yesterday and go for a bike ride. He went up to St. Helens. Parker and I met him there and we went to the park. We got some cute pics.
You can see Parker's 4 teeth pretty good in this picture. Grant thinks he doesn't look as cute with the upper teeth. He is concerned about the big gap in his teeth; he says he can fit his finger between them. They are not that bad! :) I just say, well, look at our brothers' gaps. It's in the genes. There are always braces.
Parker can stand alone for up to 10 seconds.
He walks if he is holding your hands or holding on to furniture or if he uses the push toy my mom gave him for his birthday. He can walk from one end of the house to the other with it.
He eats just about anything. He is not picky. He especially loves mac n' cheese and green beans.
He weighs 24 1/2 pounds now.
He gets so mad now if you take something away from him. I was totally surprised to see that my sweet 1 year old will now throw himself on the floor in a tantrum. What is that about? He usually recovers pretty quickly and it's only happened a few times, but it still has me worried a bit.
He loves opening and closing doors and turning on and off the light on his toy house.
He is talking more babble than ever in his little Parker language.
Parker's amazing cakes. The astronaut cake was so huge we had to invite friends over at night and then take over half still to church the next day for the young men and young women. I went a little overboard! A lady at school has a business. The cake below was made by my mom especially for Parker. She made star and rocket sugar cookies for the kids to decorate and TANG star ice cubes. She was busy in the kitchen the day before the party. She's so great.
He looks so serious in this picture. He was just so overwhelmed with everyone singing Happy Birthday and playing their kazoos. Everyone had plastic kazoos for the birthday song since Parker likes them so much.
Parker only ate maybe 4 bites of the cake. The first thing he did was slide all the frosting around the half closest to him. He thought that was really fun. He didn't realize it was edible until I broke the cake up a bit with a fork. He loved mashing it up in his hands.
Grant decided to get into the theme of the party by putting on my flight suit and helmet for a bit. Parker wasn't so sure about the helmet. It was a fun party. I made a slide show presentation of Parker's first year and we projected it on our wall, had lots of space food-- meteor meatballs, moon pie (cheese pizza), Tang, etc., decorated cookies and opened presents. He got great toys and books that he loves to play with.
I can't believe a year has passed already. We are so happy that we have him. He brings so much joy into our lives. He is such a good boy. I feel so blessed.
After having a vote for Parker's costume, I ignored your vote and purchased yet another costume. I know, I know, some of you really wanted him to be the hot dog. It just wasn't very practical. He is crawling everywhere and he is stuck in the bag and can't move. Also, we were going a few places on Halloween and then we'd have to take him in and out of it to strap him into the car seat. I didn't like the tiger that much, so that went back to Costco. The pumpkin was an even smaller bag costume than the hot dog. The rocket is awesome, but too big; maybe next year. So, he was Mickey Mouse. Found this costume at the Disney Store. The ears squeak. Very cute. I called my mom 2 days before Halloween asking if she had any ideas of where I could find bright yellow socks. She knocked out these little shoes in a couple of hours. I love that I have a mom that sews.
Parker came to my class Halloween party and had fun walking the halls with a couple of girls after school got out. When he crawled around, that strap looked like a thong. It was really funny.
I had a wonderful birthday. Saturday I went to get a pedicure and manicure (compliments of my mother in law) and Sunday we went to the beach. It was a perfect day. 70 degrees, no wind, sunny... very unlike Oregon in October! My mom met us at the outlet mall. I had a good shopping day. I found a great pair of jeans in a smaller size for $10, 2 pair of shoes, some khaki pants, and some cute clothes for Parker.
The best part was the beach. Absolutely gorgeous. Parker has always been fascinated with things stuck to his hands (hairs, dirt, sand, etc.) and it was cute to see him examine what was on him. The water was freezing so he had a very quick dip of his toes into the ocean. He never liked sand on his feet before, but this trip he was more open to it.
I was curious what Grant was going to buy me for a present since I had given him no hints. I sometimes give him a list of ideas. Not this year. I have been talking this year about how I want a hobby. Parker always calms down to this song from the "Once" soundtrack. He hears a few strums of the acoustic guitar and immediately relaxes. I thought how great it would be if I could play the guitar. SO, he bought me an acoustic guitar! I've played around on it with some online classes and boy do your fingertips hurt. I'll push through the pain till I get some calluses. I'm excited to learn. I have the most amazing husband!
Saturday we went to the park where Grant and I had serious discussions about our dating relationship. I was returning to California to teach after a summer of dating and this was the spot where we talked about whether we could make a long distance relationship work and if this relationship could possibly lead to marriage. Well, we know how that ended! :) This park is special to us and was neat to take our baby to play in the leaves.
Last weekend we wanted to get to the pumpkin patch while the weather was nice. There are several to choose from, but I am a fan of the show "Little People, Big World", so we drove to Hillsboro to go to the Roloff Farm. I wasn't the only one with this brilliant plan. We waited in traffic on the little farm road for an hour to get to their parking lot. Crazy! It's amazing how quickly you get over that frustration and into the festive spirit of pumpkins when you finally arrive.
This is Amy Roloff, the mom.
Jeremy, one of the twins, was giving tractor rides. We did not go on the tour of the farm, but just took a bunch of pictures and went on our way.
Our little pumpkin.
If you watch the show, which is on Mondays at 8pm on TLC, you know that they have been doing this huge remodel of their house. It is complete now and looks great.
This is Matt's little person friend from California. He was up for a visit and was put to work giving parking directions from a crane.
They were actually filming that day. This is the crew.
