HE MADE IT!!! (one years old)

Invite verbage:

"Despite the very real possibility of not making it past the negligence of his parents and the rough play of his brother, Aram has succeeded in reaching the one year milestone! So leave your plastic bags, unsupervised swimming pools, fire and knives at home and join us for a very safe and sane celebration of the cake and ice cream variety."


We had a monster party with close friends and family to celebrate Aram's birthday. We choose monster theme because that is one of the cutest "tricks" that he does---When you ask him what does a monster say he growls. It is too cute!

I was especially proud of my decorations and the cake frosting --- food coloring became my best friend...

birthday boy with big smiles

party favors of pet monster rocks

monster feet lead to house in case you get lost

seven-karat(carrot) cake with cream cheese frosting...yum!

salsa or monster blood?

Monster eyeballs or fruit loops? 

hummus or monster goo?

punch or monster slime?

everyone needs a party hat

Not quiet sure what to think of it all...

But I love this stuff!

And at times it seemed a little chaotic but it was fun. Thanks everyone!

Breath That Fresh Air Son

Our summer started with a celebration trip camping in the redwoods in Northern Cali for Uncle Danpa's 30th birthday. It was a bit moist but not down right wet...just a bit damp but still lots of fun as the dirt caked little boys could attest to at the end of 3 days and 2 nights among the giants. We met up with family from both Old's mom's side and father's side plus a few friends to do camp stove cooking, hiking, sleeping (or there lack of) in tents (we need to get a bigger one now that there is 4 in our family), cuddling in sleeping bags, river swimming, camp fire warming, and smores making...to name a few.

Granpops demonstrates to little J how to whittle

evidence of mornings after a tight squeeze of four in a two-person tent

night card games by the light of a lantern

Camp fire chillin'

river swimming

smores making

snoozin

But the best part was the bow and arrows that Uncle Danpa and Grandpops crafted J--and after some practice he got quiet good with them and I am sure he will be hunting small animals (not his brother hopefully) on our next camping trip.

This is hopefully one in many of camping trips this summer!

Daddy celebration

This year was the first of many good father's days...I hope. It was for me anyways...I hope Old felt the same. It started with a good sleep in, followed by a reading books in bed with a fresh cup o' joe...

followed by a written card by J-man himself.

Yep, first of many, I am sure, cards from his sons.

Thank you Old for being the bestest dad, daddy, and father to our sons, as well as the bestest partner in this crazy world of parenting. I couldn't do this without you!

Tub Time

Bath time has become so much fun in our house these days with both boys able to play side by side in the warm water and thanks to Auntie Ren Ren's gift for Aram's 1st birthday you can see it is even more fun than usual.

Chompers Have Arrived

The are so cute as they peek out from his smile...he is a gapped tooth one for sure. He loves trying new food, brushing them and even having someone lightly tap them. Mostly recently he has learned to smile big where he shows those pearlies off. Here is a glimpse of the white beauties.

So far no real biting issues when nursing or otherwise, which is good and he has not learned to use them as a weapon against his brother yet either.

They came in fairly easy too. A lot of snot and drooling but not that many sleepless nights and whining. So far he has 4 front bottom and 2 upper middle ones in. Here's to many more fun mouthfuls of yum son!

Family from Cali a come a knockin'

A visit from Nana, Bruce and Bri-guy in May brought many giggles and fun times...peek the photos below.

almost walking

tiddle and toddle...here he goes...the first steps in action! (from back in May)

It is such a proud moment in a parent's life when your baby starts to walk and then after a few days of really cute attempts of trying to be upright you realize....oh SHIT! he can get away from me a lot faster. Aram has no fear...I think it comes from his big brother doing it all in front of him but he will climb and run away much faster than Jasper ever did. AND he seemed to go from crawling to walking in one day. What I mean is that with Jasper I remember there being a month of a couple of steps then fall and crawl, but with Aram that was not the case, as soon as he could put one foot in front of the other there was no more crawling. A large learning curve for the parents for sure!

a spring fling with Auntie RiRi and Uncle Danpa

Some months ago...They came and brought marvelous sunshine with them, and we began to thaw a bit while we got out and did some fun activities as captured here in some photos...

Marie, Squirt, Olde, Aram and TT at Rocky Butte

At the Ape Caves across the state line in WA

The Micheletti Gang at the Tulip Fields

Lovin' from the Danpa