Popsicles!

Popsicles are the best part of spring/summer by a huge margin. I plan to eat at least 47 million of them this season. I'm all about making worthy goals. The next best thing about summer is camping/hiking, followed closely by blossoms on trees and tennis. But since we have all of those things year-round in beautiful northern California, the popsicles are the novelty these days. Two common occurrences in our house as of late: me trying to steal Reece's popsicles, and lots of crazy baby-walking. Reece does the baby-walking, not me. He's just so much better at it than I am.

Count the steps in this next one. I counted 14. Yesterday at the park he pulled a 20-stepper, but this is a good example of his latest abilities.

He's a Big Boy and a Baby

My baby turned one. It's crazy! I am so happy to be his mama. He is so loving and fun and tender and such a jokester. John, Cory and their girls came up to spend a few days with us and celebrate the big guy's big day. Amy put it perfectly when she said, of Reece: "He's a big boy and a baby." Too true and a little sad for his mama to see him growing up so fast. Here's his birthday song video. Don't hate us for our perfectly in-tune, amazing vocals.



Let him eat more cake:

Some photos of the same event:


Natalie and Amy helped him clean off his face:

Happy birthday, baby Reece!

It's my birthday too, yeah!

Let's start this off right:

Okay, now the boring stuff. Happy birthday to me.

I'm happy to be 28. This last year has been amazing and I'm so grateful to have lived it. I am so blessed to have been Reece's mom almost the entire time I was 27. I would say this has been my best year yet. I can only hope that 28 is comparable. If so, I don't mind at all getting older. In fact, I can't wait to see what adventures lie ahead for us.

I started my 27-28 year 40 pounds heavier than I ended it. Thanks to having a baby 9 days later and then putting in some crazy hours these last two months, I am finally down to pre-pregnancy weight. That, for me, is a very happy birthday present to myself. Granted, I am not pre-pregnancy size, but you can't have everything.

I celebrated my birthday on Saturday with a great little hike in the morning with my boys (poor Reece was so sick):
This was followed immediately by a kickin' run (13.4 miles...take that, head cold!), then dinner with my amazing husband that night. We had friends over for games on Sunday and took naps to get over our various sicknesses.

Reece had a fever and so he got whatever he wanted. I ended the night with the traditional birthday dance...with myself. Pretty much just spinning in circles and flailing my arms wildly.

Yes, this qualifies as dancing. For me, anyway. Hope you all had a great my-birthday, too.

The Boy Who Could Fly

To clear this up right off the bat: Reece can't fly. But do you remember that movie? I don't. It came out in 1986 and I was four. But I will imagine what that movie would be like.

Reece can't fly, but he can almost walk. He's taken 5-6 consecutive steps in a row for the past several days, so we are increasingly worried. My attempts to capture it on film have been much harder than anticipated. Please enjoy our attempts:

At first I tried his favorite monkey as motivation. He proved too smart for me.

He's very goal-oriented.

But then he started to get frustrated.

And in the end all it took was the proper motivation.

General Cuteness (he's been promoted from Colonel)

I took these this last week. He just melts my heart.