Party Animal!

What's a birthday without a party?? I love planning parties and i'm not really sure why because they just stress me out! But, I am so happy that Kohen's party turned out so well! First off, I just wanted Kohen to enjoy the day so I made sure he got his morning nap, which he slept for 3 hours!! Just enough time for us to get everything prepared and decorated. And with the help of Aunt Heather, he was dressed and fed so he could be ready to go!
The biggest thing that stressed me out was the cake. I had a really cute idea for a monkey & banana cake but original plans fell through and I needed to simplify if I had any chance of making it on my own. So, I tried my had at making a fondant monkey for a cake topper. I did a practice run with Play dough first... (a brown monkey is much cuter than a neon orange and green one!)


I was satisfied with the way it turned out, however, I failed to store it in a cool enough place and he melted a little by the time Kohen's party came around.

Jeremy was such a big help with decorating the cupcakes and Kohens cake that morning. I still hadn't quite figured out what I was going to do with his cake. I really wanted to put the bananas all over the cake so it looked like a pile of bananas the monkey was on but they are hard candies and Kohen couldn't eat them so I didn't really know what to do with it. I had gone back and forth with so many ideas in my head I just didn't care any more. Luckily, I have a husband who is frighteningly good at everything he does so he did Kohens cake while I worked on the cupcakes.
Finally....
Decorations were up, cakes and drinks were in place.... Let the fun begin!

My friend at work is amazing at making any thing to do with scrapbook paper so I asked her to make me a banner. I love how it turned out!!!!

This was Kohen in his Born To Be Wild shirt while we were finishing setting things up...

We started with presents and boy did he make a haul! He's so lucky to have so many friends and family that came.

These were the first 3 presents he opened: the chair, bubbles and some books. Obviously he was content with just those but we were just getting started...


He loves this chair, given to him by his cousins, he opened almost all of his presents sitting in it while cousin, Dawson supplied the presents and mom assisted in opening them... talk about spoiled!



Does this picture show the excitement or what!? I think he was satisfied. (I didn't have time to photoshop so his arm looks like its broken or something. I promise it's not!)
There was just one thing that was slightly unplanned, the cupcakes started melting before we ate them but hey, frosting is frosting and it tastes good in any form! (especially the rainbow chip kind... mmm.)
But ofcourse, nothing will stand in the way of a 1 year old and their cake. Kohen just dug right in.


And we couldn't let a hot sunny day go to waste without going swimming!

It was a great 1st birthday (I'm sure Kohen would agree) and thank you to everyone who came to make it great!

A Bundle of Joy... Our Sweet Baby Boy!

Our bundle of joy isn't exactly a little bundle or a baby but he is still sweet and brings so much joy!! My little baby has turned 1. I have to say it was bittersweet but this last year has been so much fun with him! We have no recollection of what our lives were like without him! He has learned so much and it has been fun watching him grow up and I'm excited to continue to watch him grow. I just wish the years to come would go a lot slower!
My sister in law has this really cute tradition that we have adopted (well, stolen really) where she decorates her kids doors for holidays and birthdays. So we decided to start that with Kohen as well.
We had breakfast in the morning and gave him a couple of presents to open. His favorite of course were the balloons, which became a new word for him that day. He calls them "boons". So funny.

After Kohen's nap we took him to the Zoo and he loved it! It was a perfect day, the temp was great, and Kohen was so excited to see everything. Since it was a little cooler that day the animals were so active so it was fun to be able to actually see them move. Kohen loved the monkeys, I'm pretty sure right now it's his favorite animal so I'm glad he could see them so active.





We wanted to let him get something from the gift shop since it was his birthday/first time at the Zoo so we were looking around and there wasn't really anything little kid friendly besides stuffed animals or books. So we kept showing him stuffed elephants or tigers and nothing really struck his fancy and then I found this huge monkey and it was on sale! So I brought it over to him and this was his reaction...

So that was it!

Then we headed home and had dinner and then grandparents came over for presents and cake and ice cream.
He was definitely spoiled.



It was such a fun day! We are so blessed to have this little guy in our family!

Kohen weighs in at 16lbs 6oz at 12 months. The things he can do are:
Make a monkey sound
Make a cow sound
Make a firetruck sound
Make a dinosaur sound (which was new after the zoo since they have dinosaurs there)
Make a tiger sound (also new since the zoo and sounds very similar to the dinosaur)
Make a horse sound
Says the word ball
Says Koda ("Doda")
Says the word balloon ("boon")
Says the word Banana ("Nana")
Knows who Jesus is and can say his name when he sees His picture
Knows and can say the color blue ("boo")
Says the word book ("boo" occasionally with the k on the end)
Can crawl up and down the stairs
Can walk on his own if he is pushing something
Loves to swim and will kick his legs to move

Even though he is a little on the small side, the doctor was very impressed at his vocabulary and says he is beyond what kids normally are at his age. He is a very fast learner and its so fun to see!

I'm Proud to be an American!

We had quite a lot of celebrating this 4th of July. Lots of fireworks, snowies and late nights! We went to Taylorsville dayzz and let Kohen go on the Carousel. Jeremy said he didn't like it too much just because it was a little jerky but he got used to it.

He was pretty intrigued by all the rides and lights. One ride he looked very concerned for the welfare of everyone on the ride.
Kohen loves firetrucks and so of course we had to go look at it. It was a little crowded and so we were patiently waiting to let Kohen look inside and some kid comes up to us and says "you guys can come around to the other side" so we walked around to the other side to the open door the kid so nicely opened for us and set Kohen inside... We took pictures and said thank you to the boy and said, "oh, no problem, I don't work here." uuuuuuhhhhhh..... okay.

Here is Kohen sporting his first homemade shirt... not the greatest picture of it.

This is how we roll...


We went to a couple of parades and lots of fireworks which Kohen really liked. His favorite thing in the parade were the police men on their motorcycles and of course the firetrucks.

Priceless...

1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish...Blow fish??

We took Kohen too the aquarium a few weeks ago and just as I suspected he LOVED it! Although, I thought for sure he would be fascinated with the sharks or something but his favorite fish was the blow fish. We put Kohen right up to the glass and the fish just kept bumping against the glass right in front of his face and he thought it was hilarious. We took him back a couple of different times and it was the same game! He loved it.


He did enjoy the sting rays as well.

Its nice that kids are easily entertained because everytime we go back he has just as much fun as he did this time.