Celebrating with friends

Patrick had a couple friends over for a little party to celebrate 1. They all stopped down to the studio for some pictures and then tore up our living room!
Elizabeth, Patrick and Miles

Miles 13months old

Elizabeth 11months old


Patrick William 1 year!

Cleaning out the Garden

We had a beautiful Minnesota afternoon today. So nice that I had no excuse to not work in the garden. We have a huge, massive, crazy garden. We have so many flowers and plants that I can't begin to name them all. With all this beauty comes a lot of work. Today Ryan and I spent the time that Patrick was napping, cleaning out the leaves from last fall. Patrick woke up eventually and decided he would help out.





*no rocks were harmed in the making of these pictures

Trip to the Dells

Shawna and Sophia, Jen and Kina, Anne/Grant and Miles and our family all enjoyed a trip to the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells. It was a great time. We enjoyed the water park and the kids enjoyed all the new things to do and look at. Here are some photos of our adventure.

Birthday party pics

Here are some additional photos from Patrick's big day.

Patrick enjoying his new jump and spin Zebra from Grandpa Bliss and Gerta.

Opening presents with mommy

Our only family shot of the day, leave it to the photographer to get no family shots!

I think he ate nearly the entire cupcake!

1st birthday cupcakes

Walking to GB.

I ♥ faces: Easter Faces

Here is my baby boy's Easter picture for the entry for I ♥ faces.
Unfortunately he spent his Easter not feeling so well. Poor baby spiked a fever again and was just not himself most of Easter day. Luckily I snapped this pic a week before!

1 year old!

Patrick turns 1 today. wow, has it really been a year? Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago and other times feels like yesterday. If you are feeling nostalgic like I, feel free to read Patrick's birth story here and a shorter version here.

A lot has happened in a year, but I'll try to recap the last month.

Moving: Wow, this kid is on the move! He is walking which has been the biggest change this month. He walks without prompting now and gets so excited when he does. He has also learned to stop and turn around as well. I'm sure that he will only get stronger on his feet and we'll see less and less of his cute crawl.

Talking: Patrick has been practicing lots of intonation lately. It is so cute to hear him talk in a sing song type voice. He usually just says "dada" but says it in a way that makes it sound like a story. He has been saying "kitty" a lot more lately too whenever Cleo is around. Of course if he is sad, he just looks at me at says "mama"!

Growth: Patrick's official word from the doctor is:
Weight: 19lbs 11oz (10%)
Height: 28in(8%)
Patrick sprouted an Easter tooth, so he now has both his top two front teeth for a total of 5 teeth.

Playing: Patrick recieved a bunch of fun toys from his party. No doubt he loves anything with wheels. Balls haven't held his interest as much and neither have stuffed animals. He seems to want to figure out how everything works and find new uses for it as well. He loves his walker cart and his push toy are still favorites. When hanging out with friends, Patrick is the quiet one who is happy to just do things on his own and not cause a real fuss over anything.

Eating: Patrick still nurses most of the time that I am around. He now takes breastmilk out of a sippy cup for his naps away from me. We'll probably try out cow's milk soon so I can be done pumping during the day at least. He eats 3 good meals each day and tries new foods all the time. He enjoyed his birthday cake this past weekend. He may have a sweet tooth!

Sleeping: Patrick continues to be on a real roller coaster as far as sleep goes. Some nights he goes down great only to wake 30min later and 4-5more times throughout the night. Other nights he struggles to go down but will sleep most of the night only waking a couple of times. The last weeks have been really hard with new teeth coming in and fighting a cold along with a fever most recently again. We have seen some great improvements though where he will settle himself back down or fall asleep on his own.

This has been a really great year with our new little family. It is fun to get to know our little boy more and more each day. I hope you have enjoyed following along on our little journey in the blog. Leave a comment today and I'll share all the birthday wishes with Patrick as he grows!

1st Year Highlights