The First Birthday

Wow my little baby is now officially considered a toddler...

We had a beautiful birthday celebration with great friends, semi good weather, lots of yummy summer foods, lots of kids, tons of gifts, proud parents and one awesome little boy who smashed his cake like there is no tomorrow....

thank you Etsy.com for a vintage chalkboard

 

yummy summer foods

love this angle 

mmmmmhhhhhhh

cake balls and watermelon a MUST

lots of gifts

silly Mama

birthday family photo

the perfect cake for a summer themed first birthday

the birthday boy getting ready for the smash cake

the entire family

wonder what he wished for

hesitant

yummy

she wants to help her brother

this is sooooo good!!! 

can I do this everyday please???? 

perfect first birthday

i heart this picture

now that he is a toddler the baby treatment is a thing of the past

not happy

birthday boy wearing his birthday suit

Daddy is mean

time for gifts!!! 

*pictures courtesy of Sophorn Morgan and Sandra Eminger 

one year ago

I posted that we were ready and eager to meet Oliver... now I can not believe that was ONE YEAR ago.... one year ago I was VERY pregnant and ready to be done with the pregnancy... ONE YEAR ago I had no idea how much I would love him.... ONE YEAR ago his room was ready and today is room is a mess and I love it!!!!

We spend our first weekend away as a family and we went to my cousins Christopher's wedding in New York and stayed with my cousin Norma, her husband Viktor and their three kids (Jakob, Adrian and Veronika) - we.had.a.blast!!!  I can not wait to go back up there... Oliver enjoyed playing with the older kids, it is so nice to see him look at them and trying to interact.  While there he stood twice unsupported for more than 5 seconds each time.  The first time in between Patrick and yours truly while we were sleeping on the floor (best way to sleep BTW) and the second time he was showing off next to Veronika who then decided it was time to push him over...


The wedding was beautiful, seeing family was great and we also happened to not only celebrate Christopher and Krystal's wedding but also my Grandmothers 86th birthday!!!!









Last Saturday was also very eventful for me.  I nursed Oliver for the last time *popping champagne corks* and I can proudly say I DID IT!!! I didn't think I could do it, but I nursed him for 12 months minus one week (but enough frozen BM to cover for that) now he drinks whole milk and loves it (evening bottle has the BM until it is all gone!!!)


On a not so happy note - Oliver ran his first fever on Monday and is still feeling a little under the weather...  hopefully  he will recover before Saturday otherwise we will have to cancel his first birthday party :(

almost one year

Where did this year go???? How is my little boy almost one year old????  So much has happened in the last year and I have tried my hardest to blog a lot but it is surreal to me that my little 8.1lbs baby is almost walking...  Every day he gets more and more independent and he changes so fast it is scary.  I just looked through some pictures of him from our trip to Germany this past May and he already looks different.  I guess because I see him every day I do not see the changes as much, but they are there....  his hair is really full and super light and curly.  Thanks to the sun it is really blond and speaking of sun - his little legs are super tan and it is a nice tan a really deep golden tan.  He almost reminds me of a typical California Surfer Dude...

Last weekend we took him for the first time to the pool and he had a blast.

Here a few pictures:

playing with Daddy's Iphone 

first swing set :) Fun for the whole family :) 

Just Pictures

Oliver is now 11 months old and I wanted to share some of my favorites...

Having fun with Daddy 

First 4th of July

crawling up the stairs

4th of July Weekend

Every year Catonsville has a lot of things to offer for the 4th of July.  We are going to the parade and are super excited to share this experience with Oliver.  Being from Germany the small town parade feel is just like I've seen it in the movies Catonsville 4th of July.  And for one day only (and every Friday for the Catonsville live music) no one really cares that you are drinking beer in public! 

we are also hosting our 3rd annual Lamb 4th of July party.  Last year we had one baby guest (Shane)  and two more were on the way (shout out to Aria and Oliver) but this year we have three mobile babies, one infant (Fin) and one on the way (Mai) so I am anxious to see how these babies will hold up in the parade heat and how it will be with Oliver and Frankee during the fireworks (another awesome thing we have basically in our backyard).  

Mamamamamama

After weeks of dadadadadada Oliver has finally expanded his vocabulary to mamamamamama of course he still prefers dada and da but it is a start.... :)

sleeping like a big boy