Here's a stack of pictures from Aiden's 1 year Birthday party.

Yup.. .our little man is 1 today. It has been such a wonderful year of adventures. Amazingly, our little 7 pnd 5 oz. bundle who barely even seemed a handful 365 days ago is now a 21 pound, walking, jabbering, exploring, dancing little dude.

Aiden was surrounded by lots of friends and family for his birthday party over the weekend. In all 5 babies attended the party, along with parents, Aiden's Aunt's and Uncle, All of his grandparents with the exception of mommy's dad who was on a business trip, and of course his mommy and daddy.

It was a very long day for Aiden, and in the end I think he was pretty exhausted when it got to be time to open presents. He sat in a bit of a daze as mommy and daddy ripped away the wrapping paper. Lots and lots of new toys for Aiden to play with, almost all make lots of noise to give mommy and daddy headaches, but they all are learning toys as well, which is always a good thing. It's too early to call which new toy is his favorite, but he got several musical instrument toys to play with and he loves making noise with those. He also got a lawn mower and a tonka truck that make cool sounds when he plays with them. The fridge magnet animal farm is pretty cool, but hasn't stayed on the fridge for more than about ten minutes unless he was asleep.

We also asked for Dr. Seuss books along with toys so that daddy can read to him when it is bedtime, we received something like 10 books for daddy to read. Some are tongue twister books (Fox in Sox is an early reader book?!?) some are full out books that will take many nights to read to him, and all give me the opportunity to instill the love of books into the little fella, and that is the goal.

A big Thank you to everyone who was here, thank you for all of the gifts, thank you to those who sent cards and gifts. Aiden will be drawing up thank you cards soon for everyone, he may even sign them himself, but in the meantime, know that our family was so thrilled with how things turned out for our little boy's first birthday!

Here's some pictures... video to follow. ;-)

1 yr Photo Shoot

This morning we went and had Aiden's one year photo's done, so that is what I am going to focus on here. Yes, our little man is coming up on a year old. Wow!

We had a big party this afternoon with lots of family and friends, I will go into that and the loot he got on his actual Birthday on Monday. For tonight, I just want to share a few of the pictures from the photo shoot. Keep an eye on the photo rotator on the side panel in the next few days we'll change up that rotation with some new pics mixed in.

Enjoy!!

Firsts

Well this week Aiden has officially been sick for the first time. Yeah, at almost a year he has his first cold. At the beginning of the week he was very lethargic, grumpy, feverish and snotty. Not much you can do for an infant with a cold from what we have gathered, other than try to suck out the nose and give comfort.

More snot has come out of our little boy in the past week than I think I have ever seen. Every time he sneezes we get a big huge ball of green phlegm, and if we don't get it with a tissue in time, he rubs it all over his face. Yuck! He seems to be getting better now, the fever is gone, and he seems to only really be congested in the morning, but you can still tell he isn't feeling 100%. But even at 75% he is still one happy little dude.

Today we got another first. Aiden's grandad and nana sent him his first 1st birthday present. He got a red wagon to ride around in. As you will see in the pictures below, he wanted to help put it together, and then he really enjoyed spending a portion of his afternoon in it. Yeah, we let him open it a little early, but that's okay... he'll never know the difference.

Yeah, it is hard to believe, but our little one is almost a year old already. Who can believe, in 10 days he will officially be a year old. Time really does fly by. I am so glad that I have been able to spend the first year of his life at home with him. There has been so much to see and explore with him... It has been an amazing year.

Here's a few pictures and a video for you to enjoy. :-)

Walking Dude

Got three videos for you tonight. The first two are Aiden going for a walk. The third one, is his favorite pastime, making sure mommy and daddy put the gate up or else off he goes.


Sleeping is still an issue. We're not sure what has changed in the last week or so, but the little guy is just refusing to sleep in his crib for the most part. I think we might have to go back to letting him cry it out and see if we can get thing back to an even keel.

But when he is awake he is about the happiest camper we could hope for. He likes to be held a lot more than he did a few weeks ago, so maybe we are going through a bit of a separation anxiety faze. Who knows with an 11 month old.

Enjoy the videos!

BooBoo

Well, Aiden has been having a tough week. He has not been sleeping well at all, it has been taking us a very long time to get him to sleep, and when he does fall asleep he doesn't stay down for very long before he is up again. In the middle of the night he has been getting up for a bottle again, and now instead of just going back to bed, he is up for anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

So we went to the doctor yesterday, he had been tugging on his ears and running a little bit of a fever so we thought he might have an ear infection. Well after the Doctor traumatized him cleaning the wax out of his ears (which the entire doctor's office got to hear while he screamed), she said his ears looked fine, but he might have a little bit of a cold.

So we have to run a mister over his bed and clean out his nose real good before he goes to bed. We did that last night and he did manage to sleep for 5 hours before getting up at 3:30 and was only up for 30 minutes before he let me put him back down in his crib, so that may be progress in the right direction.

But then in the afternoon Aiden was wandering around the living room with the tv and DVD remotes in his hands, suddenly he tripped and fell down with the two remotes. Somehow one of the remotes managed to fall just right to jam between the floor and Aiden's chin. Needless to say, Aiden's chin took the worst of the encounter, splitting Aiden's chin open. After the initial shock wore off, Aiden was more pissed off that I was trying to hold a towel to his chin to stop the bleeding than in actual pain. But he now has a nice little gash on his chin, his first "real" booboo.

Unconditional

One of the things you come to understand with parenthood is the true meaning of the term "Unconditional Love". It is something we talk about in church constantly, God loving us Unconditionally, and you think you know what it means. But until you have a child and you hold that baby in your arms, I don't think you truly comprehend what it is to truly love unconditionally.

Sure we all love our parents, siblings, spouses. But there is something different about the love for your child. The feeling that no matter what they do they are always utmost in your heart. It is the feeling you occationally get standing over the crib watching the little one sleep and nearly being choked up just looking at this precious little piece of you.

It even changes your perspective on other people's children. My work brings me into contact with a LOT of small children, and what once was something to be tolerated, is now an opportunity to share in the joy of parenthood. Where once I did my best to ignore the crying baby waiting in line, I now find myself engaging with the parents, asking how old the baby is and revelling in their accomplishments with them for the brief time we are together.

There is a book that mommy's parents passed down to her that she read to our little man tonight, and the repeated phrase that a mother sings to her child goes: "I love you forever, I like you for Always, For as Long as I live, my baby you'll be."

Until 11 months ago I would have thought that was kind of cutesy. Now it is touching and meaningful. All because this little child came into my life. Yes, now I know the meaning of Unconditional Love, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. I had a good one, with my mom in this morning and then wife's family over for a cookout this evening. Aiden got in the pool with his cousin and had a good old time splashing around, and I got to watch golf. As a bonus Father's Day present, I get 18 more holes of golf with Tiger and Rocco tomorrow. One of the advantages of being a stay at home dad is I will be one of the few guys lucky enough to be watching TV when that playoff goes on.

Aiden made father's day a joy. Ammazing that he is almost a year old. He's such a happy active and curious baby boy. I could not love him any more than I do, it's pretty wonderful.

Enjoy a few images and video. :-)

Little Swimmer

We all know that Aiden loves the water. So we decided we needed to have some summer fun for him outside. It is getting to the point where it is just too hot to take him over to the zoo (not to mention the outrageous cost of gas and the long drive across town to get to the zoo) so we decided to purchase a little swimming pool for the little man. He now has a 6" deep inflatable frog pool on our deck. Below is a video of him having a ball in that.

Then this weekend mommy took Aiden to a pool party at a friends house. They had purchased a pool at Target that was an inflatable family pool. About 8 feet across and 22 inches deep. After the party, mommy decided we needed something similar for our family. So Monday we went out and purchased a pool of our own. We opted for a rectangular one hoping it would stand up better to our slanted back yard. We got it all inflated and set up. It does dip on one side and we lose a significant amount of water, so daddy will have to do something about that, but we now have a 10 foot by 6 foot little pool in our back yard. Daddy took Aiden for a swim in it yesterday afternoon and then mommy took him in the evening. Unfortunately the other was at work each time Aiden went into the pool, so no pictures to share from that yet, though they will come soon.

In the meantime, enjoy these 5 pictures and the frog pool video!