Best Quality Birthday

Here is the sweet birthday boy! Everyone always says they can hardly believe it's been a year since their baby was born, but I feel like Jack has been with us a lot longer. He's my little buddy. I love that he likes to be with me so much (Hannah was always more independent, Jack is my cuddly baby). Can you tell in the picture above how red his hair is getting? And it curls a little around his ears, which is so adorable.
Sometimes I regret not having a better camera. Mine has a significant time delay so I often lose perfect shots because by the time the camera takes the picture, the subject has changed faces or crawled away someplace. Above, Hannah volunteered to hold Jack still for a picture, and they cracked each other (and me!) up over some silly thing. Most of the time, Hannah and Jack really enjoy each other.
As I'm usually the family photographer, we have very few shots of me with the kids. Above Jack is not smiling and I'm smiling too big, but at least it proves we exist together in time and space. :)
Hannah graciously helped Jack figure out what presents were all about. She wasn't jealous of Jack's birthday, because she spent all week learning that her birthday is in January, and when all of her other relatives have birthdays.
Jack loved this puzzle Fran sent him, though he was perturbed by the plastic packaging and wanted to get to the pieces right away!
Hannah also helped Jack ride his new riding toy. Since Hannah has trouble sharing her tricycle, it will be nice for Jack to have his own baby toy to ride that he can push with his feet.
And here is my masterpiece cake. Josh and I agreed that this is, indeed, a "First Child Quality" cake. I modeled it after Jack's dump truck, and miraculously the blue and yellow frosting came out the right colors even though I completely used up both bottles on this project. Josh thinks normal people only buy food coloring once a decade, and finds it funny that I buy it so frequently, but I argue that most people probably don't make homemade frosting and dye it, and maybe they don't like red velvet cake as much as I do.
Presented with his piece of cake, Jack promptly picked up the whole thing and shoved it in his mouth. Notice the sippy cup ignored at right. As it is his first birthday, I gave him cow's milk in his sippy for the first time. He didn't like it. I wasn't that surprised, since Hannah wouldn't drink cow milk until about 2 months after she weaned. Oh well, it was worth a try!
Jack continued to stuff that piece of cake in his mouth with abandon, and managed to eat the whole thing! Wow! What a boy!

We love you so much Jack! You are a best quality boy for certain!

Dinnertime

Tonight I made Mexican Lasagna. Hannah enjoyed it, as you can see above.

Hannah: I like this Somalia.

Me: Somalia is a country in Africa, Pootie. This dinner is called "lasagna."

Hannah: Oh. I like this llama.

By the end of the meal, she had almost gotten it right.

Highlights

We spent last week with my parents in Virginia. Mom and I took the kids to the mall and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Above, Jack goofs off with his mouth full of bread.

Hannah enjoyed playing in my parents' garden. Mom even taught her how to dig with a trowel and how to find worms. Hannah loved the worms.

Jack read the Sports page to Mom

Mom and Hannah had a tea party
Jack enjoys some ice cream with my dad

On the way home, we visited my friend Jennifer and Hannah had fun playing with Jen's daughter Morgan

Uncle Thomas

Jack stares adoringly up at his uncle Thomas

Thomas and Hannah goofing off

And eating ice cream

Best of all, Uncle Thomas convinced Hannah that it would be super cool to wear old hair scrunchies on her ankles even out in public. She totally concurred.

What's Cooking

Baking at 98.6 degrees until December 18th or so!

Say hello to her little friend...

The other day Hannah began carrying around an imaginary "very tiny baby" pinched between her forefinger and thumb. According to Hannah, the very tiny baby is a girl, but has no name.

I took the kids to Walmart to pick up my new contact lenses. Hannah calls Walmart, "the MAWmart" with kind of a funny drawl. The very tiny baby rode along with us to the store, and accompanied us to the desk where we had to wait for the contacts.

At one point, the very tiny baby was dropped on the floor. Hannah scrounged around on the Walmart floor for a while frantically searching for the very tiny baby. To everyone's relief she eventually found the very tiny baby and got up clutching her fingers together again. I asked if the very tiny baby was a quiet baby, and Hannah replied emphatically, "NO, she NOT stay quiet, she needs me nurse her, but I nurse her at home because at the MAWmart it's not convenient."

Very tiny baby has since enjoyed adventures in the front yard flower garden, been taken to bed with Hannah, had her very small diaper changed (apparently), and so forth. I wasn't sure if Hannah was really keeping track of where she said she left very small baby, so I pinched my fingers together like she does and said, "Oh look Hannah, I found your very tiny baby, here she is!" and pretended to drop the very tiny baby in her hand. Hannah looked at me earnestly and declared, "This is NOTHING. Very tiny baby in bed now." So much for Mama trying to play along!

Yummy Treat

Yesterday was 31 cent cone day at Baskin Robbins so we went for a family treat. The Carmel Fire Department was there handing out red plastic fire hats to the kids, and there was a strange punk-style high school kid band (we could have lived without that!). Hannah was very dainty about eating her cone, and Jack was ecstatic when I let him have the bottom half of mine (after I ate most of the ice cream out of it).