Coffee Break

Aiden may not be old enough to have a piping hot cup'a joe with mom and dad every morning, but that doesn't mean that we can't take lots of pictures of him with an empty Wawa cup as he tries to slurp out every last delicious drop.

Another satisifed customer.

Demolitian Derby

Lately it's seemed that Aiden's mobility has been increasing by leaps and bounds.  It wasn't too long ago that he was just flopping and rolling on the floor.  Shortly after that he was crawling around like a little speed demon.  And now he is poised on the brink of the final frontier: walking.

Just in the last few days Aiden has taken his first 'steps' toward this new endeavor.  It's too soon for him to balance on his own, but luckily he has a little lawn-mower toy that is perfect for the task.  As you'll see he's still a little shaky, but he has certainly mastered the art of smashing into things.  So thats good.

Cupcake Time

This video is a little bit overdue, but nontheless pretty entertaining.  For Aiden's birthday party we thought that instead of giving him a full-size birthday cake to dig into, he might do better with a serving size more appropriate to his age.  A cupcake perhaps!

Now we've noted this before about Aiden, but as you'll see here he's not great at being the center of attention.  When we put the cupcake in front of him- instead of turning into the ravenous cupcake devouring machine that we were expecting, he just got a little sad.  

The original video of this was about 10 minutes of us staring at Aiden expectantly and him staring back at us with equal parts befuddlement and terror.  In the interest of time and boredom I've whittled it down pretty substantially to just give some highlights.  And, don't worry, it turns out alright for our little guy in the end...

The Greatest Gift

Between Christmas and his birthday it seems like Aiden has been opening presents for about 3 months straight .  I like this picture because it perfectly portrays what recieving gifts is like for Aiden at this age. 

 As you can see there is a very cool looking sock-monkey sitting, ignored, to Aiden's right.  What is not being ignored however is the ribbon that he is gleefully playing with as if it is the best gift ever recieved by a human child.  

I am going to echo the wise words of parents through the ages here by saying that next year all he's getting is boxes filled with bows and tissue paper.  

Happy Birthday Aiden Robert!

One year ago today, this special gift came to us.  We can't imagine life without you Aiden!  We love you- Happy Birthday!

Party

Aiden's first birthday is quickly approaching.  So, this past weekend we had a little party for him.   We wanted to share some pictures of this special day.  

Aiden was really excited

There was plenty of food

and of course, Monkey cupcakes

The Birthday Boy getting lots of love

Aiden was not too happy about having all that attention when it was time to sing 'Happy Birthday' and eventually he couldn't hold it in any longer.  

and after it was all over, Aiden sat in his new sled and pondered the day

The Reader

Yesterday afternoon Aiden was hanging out in the living room with his favorite book: Touch and Feel Baby Animals.  Bailey was sprawled out next to him, lounging in the sun, being lazy.  Eventually the draw of Bailey's exposed, furry belly became to much for Aiden to resist, and Touch and Feel Baby Animals became Touch and Grab Bailey's Fur.

Every Cloud has a Cherry Red Lining

When I was driving to work on thursday night I hit a deer with my car.  I hit it pretty hard too.  It was one of those moments that was both severely frustrating, yet filled with relief.   I realized that I was fully intact and totally safe, however there was a huge deer-shaped indentation in the hood of our car.  Ugh.

So anyway, I was able to get to work and home the next morning without further incident- and since then things have actually been going pretty smoothly.  My dealings with insurance, repair shops and rental agencies have been efficient, bordering on pleasent, experiences.  And now that all the details have been squared away, I've been thinking about trying to find things to be thankful for in the midst of an angst inducing situation.  So these were the three things that I found to be thankful for despite having just recently launched a deer off the hood of my car:

 1- No people were damaged in this incident, just my car (oh, and the deer). 

2- From what I hear, deer heaven is lovely this time of year.  

3-  Our insurace totally covers a rental car while our's gets fixed, and this is the car they gave us to use...

I don't much of anything about cars, but I am pretty sure that this is race car.  I think that it is a Saab 3-90 (or maybe a 9-30?) and the rental guy desribed the car's interior to me (with a straight face) as "buttery" leather.  It turns out he was right, the interior is buttery, and it also turns out that I really like butter.  

I'm feeling a little car-loyalty guilt here so let me just say that I love our little Versa and can't wait till she comes back to us ship-shape.  But maybe, just maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if they had to take a few extra days to get things exactly right...  

The Cream of the Crop

A lot is made of the advertisements during the Super Bowl, and it creates some pretty high expectations.  I always feel just a little bit bad for a company that spend xxx million dollars on a 30 second commercial, and afterwards all you can say is, "Huh?"  

Anyway, these were some of what I thought were the best ads of the night.  A couple even made me laugh out loud.  What do you think, did I miss any?

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Hi

Hey blog, there 's not much going on here at the abode today.  Aiden wanted to say hi though- here he is!

Ok, talk to you later!