no use

Well, I actually tried not to think about it, but I knew we'd have to start putting baby stuff away. Rafe wasn't using it, we are done with it. It is quite nostalgic. Hurts my heart. But goodbye to the well used baby swing, kick'n play, tub, play mat, exersauser... bagged, sealed, now in storage.

Oh yeah

So I forgot mention Easter. We had it. Lots of eggs. Chocolate candy a-plenty.

Rafe loved playing with his brothers soda pop. Giving it a good shake.

 Showing the goods.

Jaxon was so curious about the Resurrection. I showed him some church video's on YouTube about Christ's Crucifixion and then Resurrection. He wanted to watch it again and again. I love the way his mind is always thinking. The wheels are turning. He is full of many questions all the time about EVERYTHING. He'll be a good big brother/example. Although he did just get a "white slip" at school for fighting with a boy. I guess he got pushed and pushed back and that started it all. He was so sad to miss every recess of the day. That's what kids live for right?

I wanted to add real quick for Jax one day. That we were discussing cars being decorated after couples are married with the "just married" mess of stuff. And I told him how I hid my car so it couldn't happen to us and he decided he would hide his car. And thought of parking it on the elementary school playground. Nobody will know it's there. Perfect!

Happy Day

Not happy, I'm sad. My baby turned into a toddler. He's a 1 year old. That makes me sad. But he had a happy birthday. It was a fun one.

We started the day off with his new present. He loved it. Fun by all in the ball pit. I just got a kiddie pool and added 100 balls. I love how Rafe will go along as he's exploring the family room and stop, pull out a few balls, then puts them back in and moves on.

 The clean up hasn't been as bad as you'd think. Unless Greg gets a game of dodge ball going using all the balls possible.

I made Rafe's b-day cakes. He likes loves balls. I thought they turned out pretty good. His older brothers helped him blow out the candle. I was hoping he'd see the balls and want to grab them. So we sat him on the table and he was hesitant and wouldn't touch them. A little coaching from g-ma and he started to dab at it.

 Then we stuck a bib on and put him in his high chair. And he started picking it up and went to town on his cake. Wahoo! My first child to actually eat and enjoy his cake. He loved it. He had 2 pieces. He liked the spice cake better than the chocolate.

 I was just so happy to have a baby dig in and eat. It makes for funner video. Then we opened some presents and played.

 The never ending entertainment for him was the balloons. He always loves them. He still gets excited seeing the ones that are still floating.

Happy 1st Birthday Rafe. We all love you to pieces. Having a baby in the home is so fun. I hope to cherish every minute. Rafe is thinner at 21 lbs. and his height is in the 90th percentile. He's built like Creed. I love that he has blue eyes and lighter hair. We still don't know who he looks like. He's his own look I guess. 8 teeth and always more coming. He devours any food we place on his tray. You'd think he was starved. He loves to drink water from his sippy cup and then throw it on the floor. He is a great napper and sleeps all night. Now I just wish he would out grow his mama's boy stage. He is extremely clingy. It wears on me. But I do love that I am his favorite. I love giving him kisses and making him laugh. He loves to watch his brothers play and run around. And he'll sometime repeat when we babble to him, like dada or nanana. And I reckon he can say Hi. His first official word. I say it all the time to him, and now he says it often. For a while there I think he was doing his sound of "uh-oh" but now he doesn't. He pulls himself up to the couch and sometimes can sit himself back down, but other times, he'll just cry until we come help him. He is starting to cruise though. Just today he surprised me by standing at the ottoman and turned and stood at the couch. He's getting braver. He loves taking a bath, he gets so excited if I ever take him into the bathroom, like to get a tissue because he thinks it might be bath time. If he is mad, he will scream. Greg calls it an ugly scream. I've learned to pretend scream back at him and then he'll start laughing because it becomes a game. Well I could ramble on and on. But I just wanted to mention some things about Rafe at this milestone age.

Eggtastic

Here I am trying to hold my baby like a baby. He's not really letting me, but I'll try as long as possible. Rafe's a 1 year old now and turning into a toddler. It makes me so sad that my babies are growing up. I'll share all about his b-day when I have a chance to go through the 150 photo's.

We dyed our Easter Eggs today. Jax really got into trying to create awesome looking eggs and being creative with the dye. And Creed tried to master not breaking any and carefully putting them in and out of the dye all by himself. Bodie just wanted the stickers. And our older neighbor lady across the street from us brought us over some old Easter egg wraps she found in a box. The kind you dip in boiling water and they cling to the egg. Well they are awesome. From 1977, they are older than I am. So we have some cool retro eggs too! I kept some to use for next year.

Now I'm hoping the snow melts quickly. What a surprise to wake up to a white world this morning. We're getting ready... bring on the chocolate candy!

Moments

This last week at Jax’s school, they had the French Ambassador come and visit. So that morning he made himself a white bow tie and a black one to give to the Ambassador. He even cut the little buttonhole slit to wear it. I so wish he could have given the paper bow tie to the Ambassador. Wouldn’t that have been awesome? But Jax said he didn’t even see him or know which person was him. Lame. They probably said, but it was all in French and he didn’t catch what was going on.

In the picture Creed is helping me keep Rafe happy while I tired getting some pictures of Rafe outside. Creed is always so willing to help with anything involving Rafe. He hounds Rafe to death, but loves him and follows him around and I always catch him picking Rafe up even though he’s not supposed to. When I hear a certain scream from Rafe, I always yell to Creed to “leave Rafe alone”.

And then there’s Bodie. Cute as can be. But lately I’ve found him daily sitting or standing on Rafe. What?! I know.

I have a picture of Jax and Creed wearing the same twiner shirts that Bodie and Rafe are wearing in the picture. And we happened to be watching home movies and Jax had the same shirt on in the video and Bodie noticed and was so excited and told me he has his shirt.

The City

This last Friday night we met Greg at his work downtown. We let the kids see his office then walked down to City Creek. We wanted to check it out, had some dinner, the boys loved the stream and water fall and thought it was just a neat place. It was cool to finally be there and see it. I used to work right down town years ago, so it was nice to see it all open again. I’m happy for all the people to have something near them again. We brought 2 strollers because we thought Bodie would get tired and need to ride. But he wanted to walk the whole time. And actually Creed’s leg was hurting him and he was limping around, so he got to ride the whole time. Jax was a good sport to help push.

After dinner we walked over to my mom’s work. She put together the Treasure’s of the Collection Open House at the new Church History Library. So we checked that out as well. Moseyed through Temple Sq. and enjoyed all the flowers and blossoms. The boys threw some pennies into the reflecting pool. They got to see Grandma. Then we headed home. The weather was great. We all loved our evening.