The Party...

"Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday Dear Evan...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!"

I had to help Mom get ready for the party - I "fixed" all of the broken things in the living room with my spiffy hammer.

The balloons were a hit! Thanks Grandma Irvin!

Shaking hands with my buddy, Peyton.

Whew! We were sooo thirsty! It was hot out today - Here we are in my new red wagon from Grandma and Grandpa Novek. Aren't we cute?

It was sooo hot and humid on Sunday! My poor little face was all red...

...so we went for a dip in the pool! (Here I am getting a drink.)

Hooray! Cake time! I didn't blow out my candle, but I sure had a fun time eating my cake. Mommy attached the recipe at the bottom of this post. She was pretty proud of herself since she made up the recipe and it actually turned out!

I had a great time opening my presents...

...so did my buddy Jonas. (Thanks to Brena for the great photo!)



Ha ha ha! This pop-up toy cracks me up!

But I LOVE riding naked on my new John Deere tractor!

You know what they say...Nothing runs like a DEERE!

***

EVAN'S FIRST BIRTHDAY CAKE RECIPE:

1 C non-bleached baking flour
¼ C Quinoa Flour
¼ C milled flax seed
1 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cloves
¼ tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
¼ C whole or 2% milk
2 eggs
¾ C pumpkin
¾ C raw honey
½ can pineapple
½ C grated carrots
¼ C applesauce
¼ C non-processed coconut
2 small boxed of raisins

Beat until smooth. Bake in greased 8x8 or 9x9 cake pan at 350 for 30 minutes.


Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese
1/4 C honey
1 tsp. molasses

Blend in a food processor until smooth. Frost when cake cools completely. It helps if you have no air conditioning in your house, as it makes the frosting easy to spread...

***

EVAN'S TRACTOR VIDEO!

EVAN'S FIRST BIRTHDAY CAKE VIDEO!

A little note from Mom and Dad:

Thank you to all of our friends and family who came to Evan's first birthday party. It was fun to see all of you and we were thrilled that you could come spend a special day with us and help celebrate our little guy's first year. Thank you for all of your love and support, and we hope to see you all again soon!

Happy FIRST Birthday Evan!

"Take a look at how much I've grown!"

Born: 7-27-07
21 inches long
8 lbs. 3 oz.

7-27-08
32 inches long
22 lbs. 6 oz.

Day One - 12 hours old

Day 365 - One year old!
Time sure flies when you're having FUN! We wouldn't trade a single minute of our last year for anything (not even the sleepless, mind-numbing, scream-filled nights...) We love you little Boo-boo-bear - and we are so excited that you are ONE!

The Zoo

This past Saturday we decided to take a break from painting the garage and head to the MN Zoo. It was really muggy and overcast, so we were a bit weary of the weather - but it ended up being a beautiful day.
We went o the dolphin show first - and Evan loved it! He loves anything to do with water and splashing.

Next: the monkeys.

Then the petting zoo! Evan had a good time with the goats.

A rescued bald eagle.
This is how Evan spent the majority of the trip - lounging with his feet up. He cracks me up.

What's that behind Evan???

Oh, that's right - its a BEAR!

And here we are at the "watering hole" where the kids can cool off. (This one is a short video.)

We headed home just in time - check out this wall of rain we just missed on the way home! Such a strange sight.

At the pool and at the lake!

AT THE POOL (Wednesday):

Awww - aren't they cute! Jennie had to feed them all goldfish crackers to keep them sitting in one spot. That's why they are all staring off to the right - watching the crackers!
Here's Jennie trying to hold the kids in one spot in their floaties. I guess it must have been Jen's job to "pose" all of our kids for the photo ops. (In reality, Melissa and I were the ones who brought cameras, so Jen got the job by default.)

AT THE CABIN (last weekend):

Ahh, the cabin. Each year we try to make it up to Sara's family cabin on Lake Tainter up by Menomonie. This year the weather was beautiful, but did get a bit windy on Sunday. Here you can see Jonas' ears blowing back in the wind.

The beautiful view...

...with really shallow water.

Jonas enjoyed romping through it!

Sara trying desperately to get that last olive out of her beer bottle...she succeeded!

Emily trying out her macro setting on a water lily (with a bug in it.)

More macro. How pretty.

Jonas attacking the hot dog/s'more stick.

Amber was our "Master Whittler" and fashioned all of the s'more sticks for us. Good thing Becky brought a "man-tool" so she had a knife to whittle with.

Jonas munching on some weeds in the lake.

Becky making some breakfast on Sunday morning.

And, as usual, the random kitty picture that has nothing to do with anything on this blog.

Happy Belated 4th of July!

We went to the Eckhoff's for the fourth, and had a great time. There were lots of naked babies everywhere!


Here we have Peyton and Evan in the pool - we tried to get Brynn in there, too, but she was more interested in running around the yard. I think Jennie might have gotten a cute pic of all three of them in the pool - please send it my way if you did, Jen!

Weee! Evan on the slide.

Peek-A-Boo!

More Pee-A-Boo in the playground tunnel.

Yummy. Delicious Bocce ball.

Enjoying the fireworks. We missed the great view of the Rochester fireworks, but the neighbors put certainly put on a show worth seeing! Evan slept through the entire thing.

What's that all over us? Oh, yeah - peas. We are covered in peas. Evan likes to feed himself these days. Unfortunately the spoon goes everywhere except his mouth.