I wanted to do a quick update and ask everyone to keep my dad in your thoughts. Tomorrow my dad will have hopefully the last procedure regarding his Pancreatitis. We thought that the cyst would naturally release into his stomach and for the past year we thought that was happening. After what we thought would be his last ultrasound check-up the doctors noticed that the cyst had increased by quite a bit. Tomorrow he will have an outpatient procedure to put a shunt in to the cyst and it will then drain into his stomach naturally. We will be glad to have all of this behind us after tomorrow and are so thankful that this past year has brought great health to all of us...and we hope this trend continues!

It's a Jungle Out There!

What is this thing?

Enjoying the mess...notice nothing on the shirt!


The hat mommy made for my safari!

Enjoying some of my gifts!

Our Family...sorry he wouldn't look at the camera!

The Smasher...to cute!

Aiden's First Car!

His Jungle cake from By the Dozen!

The Invite...how fun!

Well the big bash has come and gone...and I am still left here saying "Aiden is one year old now"! I am amazed by how quickly this year has come and gone...our parents were right when telling us that the years fly by. Aiden's party was a huge success and we enjoyed having our family and friends there to celebrate with. The weather was beautiful thankfully since we ate outside in our tent and we could all take in a little sunshine! Aiden really enjoyed having all the people to admire and show off his new cruising/crawling skills to. I was so thankful that he took a great morning nap and was able to make it through the afternoon and even into early evening without one meltdown. It was fun to see him rip some paper from a few gifts and really get into his cake after a few minutes went by. I think the thing that amazed me the most was that not more than a few crumbs of his chocolate on chocolate cake got onto his white onsie. I must say he IS my child, being a huge clean freak you all know what I am talking about! We are just so thankful that mostly everyone was able to make it and enjoy Aiden's big day and we are so grateful for all the wonderful gifts that Aiden received. We had our 1 year check up last Monday and Aiden was such a trooper getting 3 shots and his blood drawn to check his clotting factor. He didn't even react to the finger prick after his other shots and the nurse was so shocked as to how well he did. You all know what a great baby Aiden has been and what a layed back personality he has! I was so glad he wasn't even fussy by time we got home and has been his "normal" self this week. We are working on 2 more bottom teeth, and his top K-9's are swollen. We also took Aiden to get his feet measured and he is a 3 1/2 and a little on the wide side. We have been lucky since summer has been here and being on the boat no shoes were on our little man but with fall upon us we figured we needed to start looking into walking shoes. I can't believe the milestones that are quickly approaching and look forward to everyone of them! Thanks again for everyone that was able to make Aiden's First Birthday and for making the day wonderful for his mommy and daddy as well!

Dinner at JMK's

Aiden's Birthday Dinner September 17th, 2009

Clap your Hands!

Look at me mom!

Wow...I am good at this!

To cute for words!

Well I just had to do a quick update since I talked about this in my last posting. After enjoying a great dinner with Don's mom and dad, sister Michelle and my parents Aiden decided to give his mommy the best gift ever...he clapped! It was great because everyone was singing the Japanese birthday song that we all hear 10 times while dining there and everyone was clapping along at our table. Once the song was done Aiden decided to clap for himself...it was his birthday after all. It was such an exciting way to end the night and what a great memory for his mommy on his BIG First Birthday!

Happy First Birthday Aiden!

Happy Birthday! Aunt Shell watched me this morning!

Playing with my favorite thing my train set!

My party favors...yes those are banana runts!

Daddy and me planting mums!

Mommy and daddy doing a test run with the tent!

Well today at 8:38am our little man turned one! We can not believe how quickly this first year has gone by. We have been busy planning the big party that is this Saturday and we are so excited to share this fun day with our family and friends. Tonight we are going out to eat at Nippon's so Aiden can experience his first fire-volcano! I can't believe that it has been a year since Aiden arrived and the journey we have been on. To go from that little baby to a crawling/cruising wild man has been such a joy! Every day Aiden brings a smile to our face and even though we still don't sleep through the night (yes we still get up once for a bottle) I can only laugh when I now go into his room and he is holding the bars on his crib like a jail crying "let me out". We are excited as we enter into the first year and the milestones that are upon us... walking, eating more and more solids, talking more, and even trying milk! Maybe my little stubborn man will even finally clap his hands for his mommy! We are looking forward to this weekend and look forward to spending the day with everyone and getting to see Aiden's cake (this was a huge thing for me in the planning, since our wedding cake melted and wasn't really what I expected)and his first experience with sweats! I hope he tears into his cake and presents... I can't wait to see his expression!