Happy Birthday Baby!

What a difference a year makes!

Birthday Party

We had Everett's first birthday party today! It was a wonderful party that fell right between naps and Everett loved every second of it (especially the whole being the center of everyone's attention part). Here's a visual recap! I worked my bum off on the cakes and finally finished them at 10:00 today (party at 11:30). Ever was impressed. He was actually saying "oooo" when I took this picture. It's his new favorite thing to say. He'll point and say "ooooo" when he sees something interesting and especially for pretty things.

Here's a closer look. This is his Goodnight Moon cake. A chocolate cake topped with a yellow cake and decorated with marshmallow fondant and frosting.

And this is his smash cake. Pumpkin chocolate chip with cream cheese frosting, marshmallow fondant circles and 1 on top and frosting along the bottom.

Ever in his "1st Birthday" shirt, laughing at a balloon

Getting tickled by uncle Karl

Time for cake!

He was very gentle with his "smash" cake.


Presents!

"Here, mama!" What a nice sharer.

And then we spent the rest of present time like this. He looooved his fishbowl from Gammy.
I'll try to get a picture of all of his loot later. He is currently napping with a new stuffed kitty.

Happy Black Friday!

You know you want to!

To Do List for the Week

Tuesday: work, yoga, dinner, cleaning
Wednesday: work, bake and puree pumpkin, make pumpkin pies, dinner
Thursday: Macy's parade!!! while I'm prepping squash, yams, and potatoes, Thanksgiving at Bri's parents', dessert with my family at home, clean up, dinner
Friday: early shopping with Christy, clean the entire house (or at least the entire downstairs), bake and decorate three cakes, get food ready
Saturday: set up food, blow up balloons, arrange all necessary supplies, Everett's bithday party!
Sunday: Everett's birthday party take 2 (so g. g. grandpa can participate too)
PHEW!

One more post today

I just have to link this latest post on "The Clean Eating Mama" blog. Tasha really gets at my ideas on food (even though she's much better at obeying the rules than I am). So, without further adieu, the blog.

Amazon Black Friday Sale

Check it out! Amazon is having Black Friday sales all next week starting on Monday. I'm an "associate," so if you buy stuff through my link, I make like half a cent! Amazon Black Friday Sale!

10 days?!?

We are now only ten days from the tremendously important first birthday! And nine days away from the party! EEK! I think I'm in denial and shall refuse to accept the idea that my little teensy baby is actually at 23 lb nearly one year old. Refuse, I say! I wrapped up two presents tonight and am still in the process of making his homemade gifts (to be finished this weekend).
Anyway. We had a horribly rough night last night. Ev got to bed late and then woke up with a start around 1 am screaming. After nursing, motrin, and simethicone, he finally calmed down enough to snuggle in bed with me, then started making happy peeps. Brian put him back in the crib. He woke up again at 6. Screaming. Nursed again, back to crib, up at 7:45 for good. UGH. Needless to say, I was tiiiiiiiiired today. Thank goodness it was a non-work day and all I really had to do was a wal-mart run for groceries (and baby motrin, of which they did not have an equate version, so it did not get purchased).
Anyway!!! Brian's already up in bed, so I guess I should get going. Here's hoping for some sleeping through the night!

Brian lost the baby this morning...

...but then I found him. Brian was so nice this morning and got up, brought Ev to me for nursing, and then took him away to diaper and dress him so I could sleep in. Well, about 15 minutes later, Brian comes yelling upstairs, "I lost Everett!" which of course made me fly out of bed, saying "WHAT?!?" Apparently Brian was downstairs doing a few dishes from last night and Everett disappeared. Riiight. He was about to head back downstairs, calling Ev's name and I heard a squawk from the bathroom. Everett had crawled up the stairs, went into the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and was playing with the toilet bruch. Which made me make this face: 8|
We've eased up on gating off the stairs a bit because he has now figured out how to scoot himself backwards down the stairs on his tummy (finally!), but he still needs eyes on him all the time.
Ev also went in to the doctor this Friday and got his first H1N1 shot. You should have seen the look he gave the nurse afterward. Hoo-wee. I'm just glad she got that look instead of me!
Oh, and we're now up to five teeth!
Anyway! Here are some pictures from last week and a new video on the monster walking.

This is his new "fake cry" face.Looking at his buddy, Emma

Full of leaves!

Cuddling with mama

"Really, mama? Leaves?"

The walker.

No words, just pictures

Cat.

Last night, I couldn't find Olivia. If she gets locked in a room overnight, in the morning we are bound to find carpet destroyed by scratching, so I went searching. I remembered seeing her under Ever's crib, so I snuck into his room, crawled over to his crib, and peeked underneath. No cat. I turned around and looked in the closet and on the dresser. No cat. So I decide to check on Ev. He's all curled up in one corner, sleeping like a ....yeah. And then I notice that the other corner is also occupied. Livia is looking up at me like, "what mom? I was sleeping!" I ran and got Brian to come observe this, then grabbed her and left the room, shutting the door behind us. That cat is darn lucky she waited to try this stunt until he was 11 months old. geesh.

Happy Halloween!

We finally got trick-or-treaters this year! And quite a few of them. We happen to live on one of the best trick-or-treating streets in town (only two blocks from the street that they block off for t-o-ters) so it was a decent show. We took Ever to a few houses but his coat covered his skeleton jammies so people mostly just saw his pumpkin hat. Here's our little charmer in "costume" last night:
With the parents:And the auntie: