Happy Halloween...

...from our little tiger!

Happy Birthday to my Chaddy!

(An oldie but a goodie - pre-marriage and pre-Parker)

Happy 27 years to Chaddy!

Happy birthday to my little boy!

It seems like just yesterday, but we've come so far...





Here is the video Wendie put together for us shortly after Parker was born. What a day!

And now we have Parker today...






Happy Birthday buddy!

(Thank you to Wendie for capturing a year of photos and memories!)

Little Sneak!

Here's our little sneak making himself at home in the tupperware cabinet. What could be more fun?

Our Journey through Connecticut

Last week Parker and I traveled with my mom and my sister Wendie to New Haven, Connecticut to visit my younger sister, Julie and her family. They live in a cute high-rise apartment nearly on Yale campus. It was beautiful there - especially with the start of the leaves changing colors. I love, love, love the fall!!! It is definitely my favorite and I was more than happy to head east to experience some true fall-ish activities and scenery as we don't have too much of that in Las Vegas (although it is an unseasonably cool 55 degrees this morning here).

Parker went on his first flight! He loves watching airplanes up in the sky, but I'm not sure he had any idea that what we were doing was the same thing. I have to say that overall, the long flights went pretty well. There wasn't too much crying or screaming, but I was a virtual jungle gym. We were all continually thinking in order to come up with something new to entertain him.

We were grateful that Parker had his own seat on the way there so we didn't have to hold him the whole time.

We were also very happy that he slept about an hour on the way there and a couple hours on the way home! :)

One of those fall-ish activities was going to an apple orchard and pumpkin patch. There isn't too much better than an apple right off the tree! We had to go on quite the stroller adventure down steep dirt and rock bumpy roads, but it was well worth it for the delicious apples!!

Julie lives just a couple minutes away from beach. Unfortunately, on the day we went to check it out it was only 55 degrees or so with 50 mph winds. This is about as close to the water as we got. It was pretty...just a little too chilly!

We spent another chilly day in Newport, Rhode Island - about a two hour drive from Julie's place. Although it was cloudy, it was still a pretty place. We took a walk along the coast to see the houses that were built a long the water.

Our babies were all bundled up for the day! This is Julie's daughter, Clementine (Clemie).This is just one of the many sets of stairs that we had to carry the strollers up and down on this trip.They're building my new summer home. Pretty nice, huh?

We took a short day trip to New York City by way of a two hour train ride from New Haven to take in the sites and enjoy some famous frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity. Absolutely no strollers allowed in Serendipity - we asked the guy in the parking garage across the street to hang on to our strollers while we ate. $6.

We loved our frozen hot chocolate and side of hot fudge sundae! Who could have too much dessert?

We took a quick stroll through some of Central Park.

We stopped to see one of the temples for our church that is located right smack dab in the middle of the city - not too far from Central Park or Times Square.

I love the energy of the city with all of the people going so many directions. It was fun to see a few sites of the city.

Thank you Julie for the great accommodations and for putting up with all of us overtaking your apartment! It was lots of fun to see where you live and to take in some of the feelings of fall!

11 Months!

Parker is 11 months old!

Parker is now much more interested in walking as shown in the last video. He can take a few (falling) steps before he dives. He is getting better and better at walking circles around the coffee table.

In the last couple of days Parker has also started crawling like normal up on his hands and knees. That would be a welcome change for me after the constantly dirty shirts from cleaning every floor with his chest.

Parker has taken new interest in the toilet. If we leave the bathroom door open, it won't be long before we find Parker swishing around in the toilet. Yuck!

Parker LOVES airplanes! We have a lot of planes flying overhead all the time in the Las Vegas area. As soon as he hears the Plane noise he looks toward the sky to find the plane and laughs.

Parker has a walker at my mom's house and has recently taken it to street! Last week he was found racing up and down the street with my mom and loving every minute of it.

Parker now has...count 'em.....14 teeth! He's working on four new ones on the top and two new ones on the bottom to add to 8 front teeth he already had.

This has led to Parker eating mostly whatever we have for dinner. We have been phasing out baby food for the most part. He loves eating whatever we have, but has led him to be a little bit more picky. Tonight we had dinner at Chad's parents house and we had mashed potatoes, meat loaf, and broccoli. Parker ate every bit of meat loaf and potatoes. Each bite of broccoli he reached in, pulled it out, and threw it on the floor. Lovely.

Parker also loves the stairs. If it was him, I think we'd go up and down the stairs all day. He climbs up them so quickly!

Our little guy is quite a character and is getting more and more personality everyday! The big birthday is right around the corner! ...so hard to believe!

And we have lift off...almost!