Reid's First Birthday Party!

Warning: TONS of pictures! :) 

Reid, Reid, 

What do you see?

I see friends and family 

Looking at me!

The talented Candace Parker at http://thedesignmama.me/ created our invitations! 

I absolutely loved them!!!

Reid's actual birthday is on Wednesday, May 23rd, but we had his birthday party yesterday!  We celebrated with family and friends and it was such a special day!  Reid's favorite book has always been Brown Bear, Brown Bear, so I knew that is what I wanted the theme to be for his party!  I had a lot of fun planning his party!  It was fun getting to let my teacher side come out a little bit by making some things.  I even got to cut out some laminating! ;) I was SO thankful for all the help from our parents and my sister!

We had the party at a park near our house.  Chris' parents were so great and got there at 9 am to stake out the pavilion since we couldn't reserve it!  One great thing about not having it at our house was that I didn't have to make sure my house was super clean in addition to preparing everything for the party.  One downside is that I couldn't set up the night before.  I definitely underestimated my set up time a little bit!  Between that and the wind blowing things over, I was a little stressed while setting up.  I quickly realized though that the look of the party isn't what is important at all.  The most important thing was getting to spend time with those we love and who love Reid and celebrate our precious boy!!!  I was sad that we didn't get pictures with everyone that came.  Reid was SO happy all day, even though he had no clue that it was all for him! :) 

This table had the guest book (guests signed a copy of Brown Bear, Brown Bear), party favors, a newborn picture and a 1 year picture of Reid, and a basket to collect teddy bear donations.  Our guests were so generous to donate teddy bears for our police department!  

 The party favors were Brown Bear, Brown Bear I Spy Bottles and Teddy Grahams.  

The banner says "Happy Happy Birthday Reid".  Chris didn't get why I used the word happy twice.  It was to go with the repeating word theme of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, of course. :) 

 For lunch we served sliders, rainbow fruit kabobs (made with love by Alli), potato dip, brownie batter dip, chips, and goldfish.  My mom made the delicious cupcakes.  That was a huge help!

 I was really excited about these centerpieces.  The wind, however, wasn't so into them. :( My sweet dad was holding them up for the picture!  I got a Brown Bear, Brown Bear bulletin board set and attached sticks to the animals.  Super easy!  

 Our little family of three... :) 

 My silly little birthday boy!  

Reid's birthday outfit was made by his Mumsie!  I LOVE IT.  

 With the precious Morris/Beeman ladies... Reid was so happy to have his best friend, Clara Beth, at his party!  He was showing off for her a little bit. :) 

 We love the Myers family!  

 Reid LOVED sweet Tiffany.  He just sat with her and stared at her.  It melted my heart!  

 Thank you Alli and John for helping me so much! 

 It's cupcake time!!!  Sweet boy watching everyone sing to him... I definitely got a little teary eyed while we were singing.  I can't believe he's ONE! 

 His first taste...

 Reid is so blessed to have wonderful grandmothers that adore him!! 

 Reid and his great grandmother, Guinny...

 Popsie took Reid to the playground for his favorite activity, swinging! :) I love these pictures...

 We had lots of little duck friends at the party! 

 Two of Chris' aunts got to meet Reid for the first time.  

 Cheers to our first year of parenthood! :) 

 Reid and I are excited to deliver the teddy bears to the police station this week!  

To continue the theme of the day, Reid chose his favorite book to look at after his nap.  

We had a wonderful day celebrating our precious boy!  I can't believe he will be ONE in just two days!  

Step by Step!

Reid has started taking some steps on his own!  It started on Wednesday night and he has gotten stronger and more confident over the last couple of days!  He definitely still topples forward after about 3 or 4 steps.   It's hard to know what "counts" as his first steps, but we are counting these! :) As you can see from the pictures, he is SO proud.  We are so proud of him too!  We tried to get a few pictures tonight while he was walking back and forth between us, but it was kind of tricky!  

 It's so fun to see him learn new things! 

Keeping it real!

In an effort to reach my goal of 100 posts by Reid's birthday/keep it real, I decided to document what my car looks like on a regular basis now that I have an almost 1 year old.  My excuses are that babies need a lot of stuff, Reid is in the throwing everything out of his car seat phase, and it's hard to unload everything out of your car when you need to get your baby in the house.  I have yet to go on a major grocery shopping trip with Reid for this very reason.  

 I promptly cleaned out my car once Reid was settled.  Thank goodness I have these precious little tootsies to distract me when I look back there! :) 

Something happens almost daily that makes me realize just how much my life has changed in the last year.  Today's example is that I genuinely got SO excited when I realized that my can of chicken broth had a pull tab so that I didn't have to get out the can opener and make a mess on the counter.  I actually exclaimed, "Yes!" in my head.  So pitiful.  

One More Time!

Something that I think is so funny about children is that they can do the same thing over and over and over and never get tired of it!  Reid has three books that he loves and will turn to his favorite pages 15 times in a row and look at me with his precious little grin waiting for me to read it to him.  Each time he does it I say, "One more time!", which turns into 10 more times.  I just can't tell him no when it comes to something so sweet like reading his favorite books.  I hope I never choose to be too busy that I don't take the time to read "and a comb and a brush and a bowl full of much" 237 times. ;)  (Obviously I have to draw the line at some point.  He does have to go to bed!)  One of his favorite things to do right now is pull his pacifier out of his mouth and put it in my mouth.  He giggles and giggles!  This is another one of those "One more time!" things. I was trying to get some pictures during one of these silly moments a few days ago...

Mother's Day

I am so thankful for the gift of being Reid's mommy.  I realize what a true gift it is.  We had a great weekend celebrating our wonderful mothers and Reid's wonderful grandmothers!  We love both of you so much and are so thankful for you!  On Saturday we went out to eat with Grandma and Grandpa.  Reid always has the best time when we go out to eat with them!  

 We made Mother's Day cards.  They were supposed to be hand print flowers, but that was a big flop, so we made footprint flowers instead!  I made one for myself too! ;)

 Before church... The awkward hair that keeps appearing in the middle of my forehead is a new piece of baby bang(s?).  I love Reid's expression in this picture.  Every time I see a picture of us together I just laugh because we look NOTHING alike.

 After church we went to Mumsie and Popsie's house to have lunch and play in the pool.  

 Alli brought Crave cupcakes.  YUM.  

 Pool time!

 He's been super into snuggling lately and I love it.  

 

We had a great day! 

Home

I've been thinking lately how much more "living" we are doing in our house compared to before we had Reid.  I feel like our house used to just be where Chris and I would meet up at the end of our long days.  As pitiful as it is, we hardly even ate dinner at our house together.  We were hardly ever there.  I would usually stay at work until 7 or 8, Chris would usually stay at work until 10 or 11 (the years when he wasn't traveling all week), and our house was just our house.  Now, I feel like it is our home, and I love that.  Now we have cheerios on the floor, toys EVERYWHERE, and I am actually using the kitchen!  It's not always spic and span, but I kind of love that.  It means we are living in our home and not just sleeping there.  I feel like Reid loves being at home too.  He doesn't ever want to leave the house (which can be kind of frustrating), but I'm so glad he is happiest when we are home.  I hope he always feels this way! :) 

A few things about Reid right now...

*He is starting to try to throw Annabelle's toys for her!  They only go about 2 feet and she kind of just looks at him like, "That's all you've got?" But, it's pretty cute to watch them play together!  

*He is obsessed with closing doors right now.  If I have him in the bathroom while I'm getting ready, he will crawl around and close the closet door, the linen closet door, and the toilet area door.
*We are pretty much done with baby food!  Yay!  He is eating only table food now and getting better at it by the day!  We also introduced whole milk a couple of weeks ago.  He has a cup with lunch and LOVES it (just like he loves his water).
<I realize that stuff like this is so boring, but I think I will be glad I have a point of reference when we have another baby someday.>.
*He loves, loves, loves to go in the study and look at the deer.  Anytime we say, "Let's go look at the deer!" he starts crawling towards the study.  I'm sure his daddy loves that they share a passion for animals mounted on the wall... :/
*He has a new silly face where he wrinkles up his nose.  He does it all the time.  He likes to make the face when he's in his car seat and then laugh at himself in the mirror.  I tried to get a good picture of it!    

I am looking forward to a fun and busy weekend! 

Guest Blog - The Weekly Adventures of Reid

So that no one gives Brittany any praise grief or credit blame for the following blog post, I want everyone to know that she did not create this blog nor does she know that I have created it.

I wanted to take some time this week to document all the things that Reid has been into this week.  I could probably do this every week since he has started to discover all the things in the house that he can get into that he probably shouldn't. 

So let's get started.  This week Reid's crawling speed finally got him something that he has been trying to get a hold of for a while...dog food.  He managed to steal some from Annabelle at our house and from Jack at Mumsie's and Popsie's house this weekend.  Unfortunately he got some into his mouth, but luckily we were able to get it out before he started chewing.

Reid also took the opportunity to do trying to figure out what Chloie is always barking at out the front door.  Too bad for all of our eardrums, he was unsuccessful but promised to keep trying.

The highlight of the week for me was Reid's attempt to feed himself one of his fruit pouches.  As you can see from the picture he has the squeezing part down, but he has yet to figure out the whole make sure it's in your mouth part.  I know one day he will thank me for posting this embarrassing moment.

Reid has taken up weightlifting recently in the form of doing shoulder press with my shoes.  It is pretty hilarious to see him grab one with each arm and start laughing as he lifts them up.

Just to make sure he had enough protein to maintain the muscle mass he was building from his workouts, we went and had BBQ.  We forgot to pack a bib but luckily for us the restaurant had the "I love Ribs" plastic version.  

Now that Reid has become a much better crawler, he loves to play with cars.  The cars we have are the ones that he can pull back and then let go and they roll away.  He will get lost in his own world (well with Annabelle close by always watching) and go back and forth chasing them. 

Thanks for letting me guest blog this time.  Hopefully for my sake there is a next time.