Josiah's 1-Year Portraits

A friend and member at our church is a (rock-star) professional photographer and she took some portraits of Josiah on his first birthday. You can see some of the pictures by clicking on the title of this post. Season was great with Josiah and we love the pictures she took!

The Real Party

On Sunday, we drove to Richmond to celebrate Josiah's 1st Birthday with our families. We had a cookout, opened presents, ate "beach" cupcakes, and had a great time hanging out with everyone!

Josiah loved opening his presents, and Campbell loved helping!

The lawnmower - a big hit! Soon he'll be helping Daddy cut the grass.

I decided to get creative (with the help of Martha Stewart) and made "beach" cupcakes for our summer beach baby!

And now, the fun part...eating the cupcake! I told everyone to lower their expectations for cake-eating, since Josiah hadn't really done much with his first birthday cake. He, of course, took the opportunity to show off and dive in head first!

Look y'all, no hands!

Maybe I'll pick it up now...

Woohoo! I like birthdays!

RAH, RAH, TCU!

Last week, we traveled to Texas for a PCA conference & to visit some friends. I didn't take a single picture at the conference in Dallas, but we had sweet time with some great friends from Covenant. On Friday, we headed over to Fort Worth! We stayed with "Uncle B", walked around TCU, ate yummy, authentic Mexican at Joe T. Garcia's, and had a fabulous time.

TCU is doing massive renovations on campus - they've added quite a few new buildings and are updating others. You can see some of the new dorms in the background. Here is Frog Fountain, one of the centerpieces of campus.

I tried to teach Josiah the "Frog" sign and he laughed at me. One of these days...

Campus legend says that students rub the nose of this Horned Frog statue for good luck...I never did, but we definitely spent lots of time hanging out in the courtyard around it. Josiah was fascinated.

With Uncle B at Joe T.'s

A famous margarita

A bad picture of me, but very cute of my good friend & roommate Cory. Can you tell how hot it is? We're glistening...

I miss Texas...I would definitely move back to Fort Worth in a heartbeat! Maybe we'll convince Josiah he needs to be Horned Frog later in life :) Thanks Brooks for your hospitality and Cory for hanging out - we had a great time and we miss y'all!

SUGAR!!!

Ahh, the rite of passage known as the "1st Birthday Cake"...Such a great experience full of sugar and messiness. We had a little family party after dinner last night (the party being me, Andy, Bella, & Josiah - what more do you need for a good time?!?) I made a little birthday cake for Josiah and we let him dive in! All in all, it was a bit anti-climactic. I was expecting icing smeared all over the place and at least one face plant into the cake itself, but alas, he only made a tiny mess. He wasn't even interested in the cake, he just wanted to scrape the icing off and eat it. He is his daddy's child.



And today, he had his 1 year check-up at the pediatrician's.

His current stats:
Weight: 21 lbs 11.5 ozs (35%)
Height: 30 inches (55-60%)
Head circumference: 48 cm (90%) - Again, his daddy's child :)

Last year, at this moment

As I sit here blogging, I am reminded that last year at this moment (12:24 pm CST), we were sitting in our Gulf Drive apartment, timing contractions and wondering "Should we go to the hospital now or wait a little longer?" Just a few hours later, Josiah made his debut into the world - thankfully, we had decided to go to the hospital at the right time :) It's hard to believe, but he is 1 YEAR OLD today!

Then

Now - Our little boy, getting so big!

These are from our trip last week to TCU, at Frog Fountain! More Texas pictures coming in a later post...

Sink or Swim

Good News! Josiah loves the pool! We had our first parent/child swim class at the YMCA yesterday and Josiah had a blast. While most of the class was a bit advanced (arm rowing, etc.), he did learn to sit on the side of the pool and jump/lean off into my arms, giggling & squealing the whole time! He kicks too, sometimes. I think we have a little swimmer on our hands, taking after his daddy.

Here are some action shots...

I think this officially makes me a pool mom for the summer...I will definitely NOT complain!

Bella's Boyfriend

One huge benefit of moving has been a boyfriend for Bella. Bosley, our friends' boxer, and Bella are quite the pair and LOVE playing together. Bosley and his owners live almost a mile from us, which is a short walk for playdates! We love hanging out with them and the dogs just run around & wear each other out. We even trade off "dog-sitting" for trips. Bosley was here a couple weeks ago and I snapped a few pics of them. They were basically joined at the hip the entire weekend.

We love having Bosley around...although I must admit, two big dogs in this small house for the weekend quelled any ideas of getting a second dog for our family :)

At The Beach

Andy's ordination was on a Sunday evening and all of our out-of-town guests left midday on Monday. Being the good, supportive wife that I am, I immediately packed up myself & Josiah and headed for the beach! Mimi & Papa had rented a condo for the week and I was afraid they would get bored with just each other...so, I of course did the "good daughter" thing and went to keep them company :) We got some good beach time, I got to run with my Dad and go for a long walk with my Mom, we ate good food, and just relaxed.

Good News : Josiah LOVES the beach! YAY for beach babies!

He walked all around the sand and even into the chilly ocean. He loved watching the people and the seagulls. He was happiest to just sit and dig and dig and dig with Papa. (Don't worry, we eventually got him a shovel that was more his size)

We celebrated Papa's birthday and Josiah helped him open his presents.

Thanks Mimi & Papa for a fun trip to the beach!