Happy Birthday Hayden!

On Friday April 24 Hayden turned 1! It's just hard to believe that an entire year has passed!
We all played hooky from work and school and went to the zoo on Friday. Hayden had such a great time! I think his favorite animals were the elephants. He just pointed and looked at us like "What are those?" The elephants were putting on a good show for him and were kicking some big balls around. We had a great time.

Here are his new friends the kangaroos and the parakeets.

Then on Saturday we had Hayden's First Birthday Party. What a great turn out! Many thanks to all of our friends who came out to celebrate with us.
I don't know why, but I decided to bake Hayden's cake, I'm not sure I'll be doing that again! But I do think it turned out pretty well.

Hayden seemed to enjoy his smash cake - he had blue frosting EVERYWHERE! Thank goodness for the dogs - they did a great job helping us clean up.

After the cake it was present time!
Here are Hayden and Kyle checking out the cool Tickle Me Elmo.

The cool new 'CD' player.

The vibrating cow was a big hit!

Back to the Tickle Me Elmo.

Our friends Alan and Susan - yes, Alan has on Hayden's hat!

AND.... at the end of the day, we had one VERY tired Hayden!

I'll try to get some video up later this week of Hayden playing with his awesome new basketball set - he's a slam dunker!

Hoppy Easter!

Two weekends ago, we took Hayden up for his first official Easter Egg 'Hunt'. (I'll call it a hunt because that is what you are supposed to call it, but the reality of things for an almost one year old is more like an Easter Egg Scramble - pun intended).

We get to the park where the event is taking place and there are about 1 million kids (ok, 1 million is an exaggeration, it was more like 300,000 kids).

We lined up and patiently waited for the starting whistle... us and the other 299,999 other kids.

We met and strategized as a family the best way to keep from getting trampled and it was decided that our best bet was to have Ray go down to the far end of the field with the camera and when the time came, Hayden and I would make our way down there as fast as we could, hopefully being able to avoid if only for a short time the masses.

Finally it was time! Nimbly, Hayden and I made our way down to the far end of the field by Daddy, and we proceeded to pick up eggs and candy - Hayden was more interested in chewing on the wrappers, but he was having fun - anyway....

Within seconds I would say approximately 200,000 of the 300,000 descended upon us, it was a sea of people - people of all ages, sizes and questionable hygiene practices (ok, maybe that was just me being overly sensitive?)

Thankfully Ray threw Hayden and I a life line and was able to pull us to safety! Whew! We survived (just barely) and had candy and eggs to show for it!

Easter weekend we stayed much more subdued than the public egg hunt...Our great friends Pam and Dean came over for dinner. Afterwords, we went over to our neighbors for a much more subdued (and less frightening) egg hunt for the kids.

Here Katie was showing Hayden how it's done.

Kyle was getting into the action! what a cutie!

Hayden hit the jack pot in the tree! Go baby go!

Hayden also had tons of fun opening the great Easter cards from Grammy and Grandpa Dude, MeMe Karen, GG-Ma and G-Papa Scally and Biz and Mo. Thanks everyone for the great cards! Hayden LOVES looking at the cool pictures!

I have a couple of videos I'll try to post later in the week!

The Hayden Montage

Not to take the focus away from M&Ms awesome April Fool's joke on Ray... BUT I thought I had better hurry and make another post to refocus people! hahaha!

Here is a little video clip I've put together of Hayden's latest exploits. Hope you enjoy.

Ray's Spring Break Mishap

Ray recently took a “Boys” trip to Vail for Spring Break. When they got back several of his buddies shared with me these photos of a mishap that Ray had while trying to get on the ski lift. Do you think alcohol was involved? Ray said there wasn’t and that he was just talking and not paying attention. Hummmm, what are your thoughts? In any case, Ray was exposed ;-) Ray doesn't want to hear any "ski bum" jokes, yeah right, like that is going to happen! On a serious note, I would like to thank all the workers at Vail who helped get Ray down safely, they are awesome!

Better Late Than Never!

OK, I've been a bit delinquent on updating the blog over the last couple of weeks - sorry everyone! I'll give a quick summary of the last couple of weeks.

Hayden celebrated his first St. Patty's day, and he sure looked the part. Thanks to the new shirt from Grammy and the Irish pin from MeMe Karen, nobody would dare pinch him!

We also picked up Hayden's new car seat - I'm not sure, but I think he likes it?

Cousin G was also here the other weekend and see what happens when she is left to her own devices? Its what we call 'Baby in the Hamper' - I think his expression says it all.

Grammy was doing the true grandparent thing and spoiling Hayden - here he is playing with his cool new bunny that sings and dances and playing with the tissue in the bag that had his cool new PJs in them...

Here Hayden is enjoying pancakes on 'Pancake Sunday'...

OK, and lets face it - it doesn't matter when this next picture was taken, because it's dang cute!

Walking Man

Here is the official proof of our boy walking. He's still a little bit shaky, but every day he gets better and better.

Last Sunday, Grammy came in so we met her, Great Grandma Rita and Great Uncle Eric for a late lunch. Hayden was a complete ham as usual - he really enjoyed showing off his new walking skills for everyone.

Hayden has never been what you would consider a 'binky' lover, though he did discover a new way to use one - silly boy!

And here is one of those pictures that he will hate us for later, he was taking a nap on Daddy's shoulder - check the hairdo.

Dog Show!!

We had another dog show this past weekend, luckily the weather was a bit better than our last outing. Still a bit cold on Sat, but overall MUCH better! Plus no body was sick this time! We were finally good parents and brought the camera to take some pictures, but after about 5 pictures on Friday night, the battery died and we didn't bring the charger... oh well, next time we will get it right!

Here is Hayden already working out how to open the door:

He loves the fact that everything in the travel trailer is within his walking distance - here he is helping me feed the dogs.

Now he's tormenting Nemo with his Frisbee.

OK, and this one isn't dog show related, its just a cool picture!