First Birthday etc...

Here is the post of all posts! We have been pretty busy at our house. We were getting ready for Sam's birthday and I was busy making my niece Kate her birthday present that I haven't been able to write in awhile. I made her alphabet magnets:

We went to the Hansen's for Sam's birthday. We made a little cake and stripped him down to his birthday suit so he could fully enjoy himself and mom could enjoy him enjoying himself.

He was a lot more bashful than we thought he would be.

Covered! He was painting with it all over the table.

This is currently my favorite picture of Sam: 

 

The next morning we opened presents and this is what Sam got:

He loves it. It was fun to watch him explore every surface of that thing.

He's a natural.

We left the plastic covering on the handles because he loves playing with it.

Sam and I headed down to Brianhead that weekend to go celebrate the two grandkids birthdays (since his cousin's is two days before his) and he discovered balloons on this trip.

Or should we call them 'pops' :).

He was having a blast with some wood puzzles from when my mom was growing up.

I thought he would like to open the present this time but he still was just content playing with the ribbon.

Grandma and Grandpa Ott gave him a tractor that has a bunch of farm animals in it and Kate got really jealous and wanted to play with it instead of Sam. It was really funny. She would keep taking things away from him while saying, "No no no no..." 

They both were entranced by this toy.

Sam eating the party hats...I'm hoping that this is a phase or we might have a lot of explaining to do when he goes to friend birthday parties. 'Of course Sam will come, just make sure there aren't any streamers or hard to swallow toxic objects.'

We were so excited to get a package from our Stout admirers.

Sam liked playing with the box of course.

He had to taste everything.

This week I've been a little more negligent in my parenting. I had a good friend getting married and made her a wedding cake topper. It was going rather poorly (broke while baking etc. etc.) and Sam was being a saintly baby and wasn't crying a lot. 

While John was babysitting him, Sam did what John calls 'his circuit'. Where Sam will go in our house in a circle while making the same pit-stops in each room. For example: In the hall he would press the start button on the catch phrase game each time he passed it, stop and chew on a shoe, make a stop at the garbage can, touch the dishwasher, etc.

Sam's most favorite places in the house are the places he should not be. Here he is getting stuck under the bed and screaming his head off! John heard him but couldn't see him anywhere... He said that Sam's whole body was completely under the bed when he went to go get the camera. Yes, we are those parents. :)