18 months old already?

In T-minus 2 days Wes will be 18 months old - it is going by WAY to fast.  We have been so busy I have hardly had any time to update my blog and am SERIOUSLY kicking myself for this.

As I started writing this I realized I won't have too many photos to go along with this post since I lost about 300 pictures on my phone when it crashed... then it hit me.  All of Weston's video's of him learning to walk were on my phone!  Not my camera! I am truly heartbroken right now.  Not much I can do about it now, so I here is the rest of my update!

Shortly after Wes' first birthday, we spent 5 weeks at Detroit Lake.  Jake worked on the fish passage near Mill City.  We had so much fun and THAT is where Wes learned to walk!  Before his birthday he was walking along furniture and stuff.  It was about 2 weeks after his first birthday that he started talking his first steps in the campground.  The ground was pretty uneven, there were even some hills, but he learned to maneuver them pretty quickly.  NOW, he runs everywhere he goes :)

 Our friend Wyatt came to visit us at Detroit Lake!

 Kissy Kissy

 All my boys fishing!

It was colder then he thought it would be....

He is talking up a storm as well.  Some of his first words were mama, dada, duck, deer, dog, jack (our dog) - he was really good at his D's!  Now he is starting to put 2, 3 words together and within the last month has really begun to be able to communicate with me.  It is so wonderful to be able to talk to my little man.  He understands me, and I can understand what he wants.  It makes our lives so much easier!  I began teaching him sign language around 6 months.  Once we got home from Chicago this spring, I took a little break, mainly because we just got so busy.  It had been about 2 months since I had done any kind of sign and one day, Wes just randomly did the sign for "more" when asking for more food!  He had been paying attention the whole time!  Now he can do the sign for more, please and thank you.  I like that most of the time he says the word with the sign as well.

We had quit the busy summer.  Jake was home for the first part, and working in Washington for the last 2 months, able to come home on the weekends! Because it was summer and we had so much going on, it took us that long to get the trailer up to Washington finally!  Every weekend it seemed we had something going on.  We made a couple of trips - 1 to the beach with Uncle Beau, Aunt Vanessa, Madi and Marli:

And Wes and I visited Aunty Heather, Ryan and Colin in California!

 We rode the rides at Happy Hollow!

 And went to Santa Cruz!

We also picked berries, went to weddings and parties, and had a few play dates with some friends :)  A great summer, very busy and lots of changes.  Wes went from our little baby to our talking, walking toddler!

The best part of our summer though was the beginning.  We learned our family will be growing by one more and that Wes is going to have a little brother!  Let the fun begin :)

1st birthday party

While I realize this is ONLY 6 months late... My lil guys 1st birthday was SO much fun, I have to finally get this in here.  We have been just crazy busy since his birthday I have not had a chance to update our blog - there is so much to tell!  But I do want to start with just his birthday, since I can definitely make an entire blog on this very special day!

First of all, Jake and I hand made his invitations.  Due to his complete obsession with his plastic screw driver and hammer at the time, we decide to go with a construction theme.  We had it in Bampa Milo's shop - the perfect place for all the kiddo's to run wild!

"Good morning Birthday Boy!!!  You are officially 1 years old! Tomorrow is your special party!"

Now for the prep work - we had snacks for everyone, including these tool shaped, chocolate covered rice krispy treats I made.  I found tool cookie cutters on Amazon.  It was one messy, sticky project, but they turned out so yummy!

To keep the theme going, we had "dirt and worms" (crushed up oreo cookies with gummie worms) inside the dump of a tonka truck.

Rachael Ray inspired me to have a waffle bar!  After watching her "waffle week" and all the things you can do with a waffle maker, I made 3 different kinds of batter, red velvet cake, chocolate cake and regular waffle mix, with all kinds of goodies to put in it - berries, chocolate chips, you name it.  It was quit fun, and in the end looked like Lego's! (sort of - they did end up sticking a little bit so it wasn't quit the effect I was looking for).

my helpers making waffles!

And of course it's not a birthday without a cake!  Thanks to my dear friend June, she made this cake just for Wes.

And he loved it!

His cousin didn't think he was eating it fast enough...

One of the rare moments I actually got to hold my own son at his birthday party - there were so many people there trying to get their hands on him, AND we had so many fun activities, it was a crazy day!

The first activity we had for the kids was decorate their party hats!  I painted chalk board paint on the front of these plastic construction hats for the kids to write their names on, and had several stickers and fun things to put on them.  The kids really enjoyed decorating their own hats and actually wore them!

The second activity we had was a "field trip" down to the barn to see all the baby cows!

Then we played Pin the Nail on the Hammer! (yup, I made that!)

 After cake and a clothes change - we started opening presents.  Auntie Ashlie put a balloon on her card she got him, and who knew this would be the ONLY thing he cared about!  The toys didn't seem near as cool as this balloon was.

Our craft project for the party consisted of making and decorating these fun bird houses!  My parents had several pre-cut ready to make bird houses.  We painted the front with chalk board paint for the kids to decorate.  They all helped Grandpa Milo build them and decorated each one themselves.  They were a HUGE hit!

The final activity we had (well, it wasn't the final, it was there the whole time!) was a treasure hunt in the sand.  Since it was March in Oregon, we couldn't really use the swimming pool outside per-say  so we filled a kiddie pool with sand and I buried hidden treasure for the kids to dig up and find.  I bought just some dollar tree toys, filled Easter eggs with them (taped them shut...) and buried them in the sand!

 Yes, that is Wes EATING the sand, yum yum....

All in all I'd say he had a GREAT birthday party.  Everyone enjoyed themselves, adults and kids alike.  Most importantly Wes had the time of his life.  He played strong for a solid 8 hours and still had a hard time going to bed (his cousins sleeping over might have made it even harder for him...). I could not have pulled it off without some GREAT help from my dear friend Amy who helped with all the prep work and was at my beck and call throughout the whole party.  And of course my parents who made it all come together in their shop!  But what a blast we had!  If only he would remember...