Firsts and Lasts

I was packing up for our last trip to the lake for the summer and I guess Calvin thought he was going to be left behind and wanted to stow away. Out went Noah's clothes and in went Cal.

We brought some friends to the lake with us. Here is Noah and a buddy fishing :)

Ryan taught Noah to hold his mouth right so that he would catch some fish. It made us laugh.

Cal loved the baby pool!

Calvin read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" over Labor Day weekend. I tried to get him to read something a little lighter, like "Go Dog's Go" but he is captivated by the plight of the Afghan women.

Daddy was the hero and caught Noah some grasshoppers for his bug box.

Ok, a bunch of these pics loaded sideways and I'm way too lazy to fix it...sorry. It's taken me weeks to get them up and it would take me another few weeks to flip them all...

Noah found a bug in the paddle boat and it is firmly held in his right hand.

Getting ready for his first day of "school." It's really Kid's Day Out, but we won't tell.

First day of school breakfast, chocolate chip pancakes with sprinkes!

All ready to go! Noah loves school and is doing great, except for his refusal to stay on his mat during rest time. We have been working on it at home, we'll see what happens on Thursday. When I dropped him off last week, his second time, as soon as the door open he just ran in, no goodbye or anything. I guess that's a good sign. :) He is also playing soccer, I should probably use quotation marks around that too, lol. He goes straight from KDO to a Happy Feet program. He seems to love it and has started throwing balls and kicking them all over the house, which wasn't much of an interest before.

So we decided that maybe, just maybe it was time for a haircut. Cal did great! He giggled and had a good time. This is a sharp contrast to Noah's first haircut!

Ta-Dah! Beautiful.

Calvin has turned into a blanket kid, he goes and pulls his blankets through the bars of his crib and carries them all over the house. He snuggles with them, it's so cute. He also loves balls, he walks around all day saying "ball...ball...ball..." He likes to drop them and say 'Uh-oh!' and then go get them and repeat the process. He is a pretty wonderful little guy!

Calvin's First Birthday

We had Calvin's birthday party on Saturday, August 14th at the lake. We arrived at the lake Friday night about 7:15 in the beginning of a storm. There was lightning everywhere. I didn't make the connection at the time that it was a dark and stormy night on Friday the 13th! Unfortunately about 7:45 the power went out. Eek! Once again, really glad I didn't make the Friday the 13th connection! We spent a mostly sleepless hot and sticky night at the cabin, we kept expecting the power to come back on any minute, but not so much. At the lake no power also means no running water and after a while, no phones. So it was an interesting and memorable birthday. We just used lake water to keep the toilet going and had our party anyway. Luckily I had baked the cakes and made the icing before we got there, so we still had a cake. This first picture is of the cake decorating team, minus me.

Ta-Da!!! I think the cake turned out great! And it tasted very good, too!

It's the Very Hungry Caterpillar, in case you don't know of the beloved kid's book, which is shown in this picture.

Snacks

Here is the only family picture we took that day. It was hot, we needed to cool off a little.

Lunch!

Isn't he a beautiful almost 1 year old? A perk of the humidity and no air conditioning was that Calvin's too long hair curled and it was gorgeous!

the festive decorations were done by Uncle Neal and Aunt Courtney

Presents!

Finally, Calvin got his own chair, it has REALLY cut down on the fights in our house!

Can't you tell he's thrilled? I love this pic. He just looks tired and hot and totally cute.

He loves his new Lightening McQueen! So does Noah...

Cake time-there are lots o cake pictures because I'm very proud of it.

He needed a little help getting started.

Look at his hair! I think this picture is totally and completely sweet and adorable, but it doesn't really look much like Calvin :)

Calvin was dancing to Lightening McQueen's music.

Noah needed a little quiet time after all the excitement, so we put on Cars for him on our portable DVD player that luckily still had some charge. He pulled Lightening McQueen over to watch the movie with him.

We came in and found him like this. I love this! It's such an incredibly sweet picture and he doesn't look too big, right? He still looks like a little guy.

Boat Ride!!! Doesn't Cal look super-comfy in that life jacket? Sorry Little Man, those are the rules.

Noah spends a lot of time swinging at the lake (well being pushed on the swing). He gets really high!

Calvin and Great-Grandpa bonded at the party :)

The rest of these pictures were taken on his actual birthday! Happy Birthday, Cal, we love you!

He started out the morning playing in the tent and in typical Cal fashion, went in through the window :)

Jo made banana pancake men as a special birthday breakfast treat :)

After breakfast we headed to the zoo to meet some friends.

Noah has been very huggy lately with Calvin. :)

Noah is feeding Calvin Cheerios in this pic

The kids lined up watching the chimps. The chimps marched right down to the glass shortly after we got there.

I guess Cal found the Prevost's Squirrels to be very interesting

A couple of hot, tired little ones ready to go home.

We stopped back by the polar bear exhibit on our way out. The polar bear, Nikita, was hamming it up! He would swim right up to the glass then come up out of the water, plant his back paws on the glass and push off. Cal started to back up as he got closer :)

I the zoo just took it out of the little guy. I love those cheeks!

Several weeks ago we asked Noah was he wanted to get Calvin for his birthday. Without hesitation Noah said "A blue Colorado Express." The Colorado Express is an engine that we got for Noah last year in Estes Park. It is his favorite toy. He loves it, and you can tell, it is mostly held together by screws and glue at this point. Luckily my parents were going back to Estes Park shortly before Cal's birthday. Unluckily they discovered that the store that sold the Colorado Express had burned down. So, rock star Daddy to the rescue! He found some numbers on the bottom of the Co Express and was able to find a website that sold them. We had to buy a case of 12, but it came in a lot of different colors including blue and yellow (the original). I ordered them 3 days before Cal's actual birthday, so I didn't think they would get there in time. BUT, when we arrived home from the zoo I saw a box by our front door. Hooray! So now we have 11 extra CO Expresses, but we figure they will be GREAT rewards! I love Cal's expression in this picture, he loved it!

Our smiley guy :) It was a good day.