One Year Ago Today....

.....changed my life in a way I could have never predicted, never imagined, nor never felt I deserved. Thank you Cavin for teaching us so many things over the last year, and leaving us with some laughs along the way.

The morning of April 20, 2009

The morning of April 20, 2010

Happy First Birthday funny bunny!

Happy Eleven Month Birthday Cavin!

I give up. Time is flying but at least we are enjoying every minute of it! Cavin is growing and developing so much every single dingle day. One day he will only eat Cheerios and the next minute he is shoving whatever we put in front of him into his mouth. He (finally) loves books and will sit and flip through one with you for a somewhat extended period of time. He 'tells' you what he wants by pointing or sitting up really straight, shaking his hands in the air, furrowing his brow, and bouncing up and down all at once. Not the most efficient form of communication but it will do and I will take it over crying any day.

He also has a favorite band. Sublime...which goes well with the fact that he was born on 4-20. I had my Ipod on shuffle when a Sublime song came on and all of a sudden Cavin was rocking back and forth to the music. Later I learned this, in fact, is referred to as 'head banging' and is quite normal for his stage. Now he rocks back and forth to just about anything and shakes his head 'no' at any chance he gets. Sigh. This stage should be fun.

15 days until I have a ONE year old on my hands. Can you believe it? I sure can not.

This month's highlights included introducing cow's milk into his diet, Cavin waving 'bye' for the first time, pointing at everything he can and commenting "there" (at least that's what we think he's saying), and lots of clapping! He's also graduated to pretty much all table foods, with the exception of nuts, citrus, and spicy foods. That's kinda exciting as we can all eat the same things together as a family at night.

At this month's Elmo picture, Cavin decided to do some light reading while waiting for his parents to set up.

Then he got pretty upset with me when I wouldn't let him grab my brand new camera.

Once we got started with the shoot, he let the games begin! As soon as we took the book from his hands and pulled the camera up he was off to chase Toby!

This month's stats:

Height: 30.75 inches (95th percentile)

Weight: 23 pounds, 3 ounces (50th percentile)

Head: 'Really big but don't remember' centimeters (95th percentile) - up from 75th percentile two months ago!!??

Happy Birthday happy boy!

Peek-a-boo!

I see you!

I apologize for being out-of-pocket for a bit. I've got some fun posts coming - including Cavin's 11 month Elmo picture and an exciting trip to Seattle to visit the newest member of Team Cousin!

They're ONE! (written by Cavin)

Hey guys! Cavin here. It has been way too long since I've written to say how things are going from MY perspective. First of all, I've been quite busy learning to move around, eat with my hands, point out things to my mommy, tell her stories, and of course hang out with my friends some more! I'm way too busy for this blogging thing. See mom...she's got tons of free time to hang out with me and blog. She keeps talking about how her "boss is keeping her busy at work" but I'm assuming by 'boss' she means me and by 'work' she means changing my diaper. That being said, where does she go for 12 hours a day? Oh well, never thought about it...I'm too busy hanging out with my friends to notice!

On to my friends. This weekend marked two of my friends' ONE year old birthday parties! We bounced from one party to the next...it was quite crazy. I was so excited for Andrew and Delaney that I didn't take a nap all morning waiting for their parties to start. Mommy and daddy were super worried about that but I didn't see what the big fuss was about. I just took a quick disco nap on the way to Andrew's party and I was good to go!

Y'all remember Andrew right? He and I hung out quite a bit when our mommies were on maternity leave together. This is us hanging out at Nordstroms (against our will...I mean, seriously? What boy likes to shop?) when I was just 1.5 months old...

And here we are now with our mommies!

Aren't we a-friggin'-dorable? Drew is quite shocked as he just downed his birthday cake! See here...

It was super fun hanging out with all my friends! They had some fun toys there too!

Everyone kept saying "you're next Cavin"...I'm not sure what this means but I hope to God it means I get to eat some of that yummy looking cake next!

Once Drew's party was over we said 'bye bye' too all of my friends and headed to Delaney's house. Mommy and daddy keep referring to Delaney as my girlfriend. Whatever. So she held my hand once. Holding my hand does not a girlfriend make. Puhlease. Bleck! Delaney and I are JUST friends. That's it.

Delaney's mommy and my mommy hung out a lot when they were on maternity leave too. We played with them at Day One, ate lunch together a lot, and walked around the Rez in Lafayette quite a bit. Here's Delaney and I when I was about a month and a half old where she allegedly tried to hold my hand.

And here we are now!

She refused to share her birthday cake with me (women...*rolling my eyes*) and she ate it reeeallly slow...but it was fun to celebrate with her nonetheless.

I also met a new friend, Braden. He and I had a tea party together. Daddy was really nervous about this...I don't get why...it's just a pink and lavender tea set daddy. How's that going to hurt me?? Geez. Parents...they just don't understand.

Here's one of Delaney and her mommy Hope!

And here's one of my mommy and I...now you see where I get my good looks from.

After all the socializing, singing Happy Birthday, playing, and eating I zonked out on the ride home!

And, apparently, I'm next!

Mooooove over winter!

The weather finally turned warmer and got drier here in the bay area so we went on a family hike in the hills about a mile from our house two weekends ago.


Here are the boys...


And then the two hot blonds who like to shake their tails...



Mike took a self portrait of him and Cavin...



When we reached the top there was all of a sudden quite a bit of cattle. The boys got a bit nervous but it was 'aint no thang for these two cowgirls...

The calf you see in the background was our new friend. She followed us up the hill and then around to this barn...and proceeded to jump into every picture she could (see above and below).

The doggies got a bit dirty stomping through the mud and rolling in, yes, cow patties. Needless to say, they both got some baths and Jerry lost some weight again (aka. got a haircut).

My favorite miner

When you marry someone that went to the Colorado School of Mines there are many things that go along with that. On the upside, they are intelligent, can fix just about anything, and know way too much about Coors products. And on the downside, you begin to learn that they will look for every opportunity to put on their mining light (Katie - you know what I'm talking about)...even if it is just to kill a spider.

In my husband's defense, this spider was stuck on my car for at least 12 hours! He rode to work with me, hung out on my car while I was at work, then rode back with me. He didn't move an inch but did grow a really large egg looking white thing on half of his body. It was very scary crazy so I made Mike, the miner, take care of it. As our driveway is very dark the light came in handy; however, that does not diffuse the fact that Mike's face lights up with a big grin anytime he gets to put that ridiculous thing on his head.

More furry friends

A couple weeks ago, Mike and I took Cavin to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. The museum is great b/c it is about a mile walk from our house, is fun for little ones, and is right next to a playground. It made for a fun (and sometimes scary...see the snakes) Sunday afternoon!

Jerry was upset he couldn't tag along to say 'hello' to his other bear friends.





The first animal Cavin got to witness was a possum in a trash can!


He enjoyed the birdies...


And thought the squirrel running around was hilarious! (He learned this from Sandy I imagine.)


And, LOOK! THREE POLAR BEARS (in the middle of California no less)!!!


Probably the scariest part was the snake...



Cavin quickly walked away from the slimy creature...



Afterwards we hung out in the park...


And, naturally, made it on over to the swing set...