Luckiest kid in the whole world

Des got a sandbox from his grandparents' Davies for his birthday! We tried it out as soon as it got sunny and he loves it! At first we just played in the empty box while we figured out where to put it. Our yard is about the size of the sandbox so it wasn't too hard....

Then once we figured out the perfect spot, we dumped in a bag of sand. We have five more...but one seemed to do the trick for now!

Of course des had to try out how sand tastes...
I was just glad it wasn't the other side of the shovel. Eventually he licked his hand that was COVERED in sand. That didn't go so well for him. But I was happy to see he didn't like the taste.

He even figured out today that when I shake my head and say "no" it means to stop doing what you are doing. Even if he starts back up again just to get the reaction...at least things are clicking in that slightly large noggin of his.

Did I mention that we went to the dr's the other day? His head is in the 95% and his weight and height are both in the 50%. nice. Like an orange on a tooth-pick. :D Except this toothpick weighs 23 pounds! I got me one sturdy baby!

If I had some cash to burn....

I'd totally spend it here!

P-A-R-T-why? Because we GOTTA!!

Des's first bday was CrAzY fun and we had lots of people come a celebrate with us! I LOVE when my sister-in-law comes to functions because a) she's great anyway and we always have fun and b) she has an amazing camera!! YAY! So most of these pics are courtesy of Rachel--THANKS!!

Here's the birthday boy all ready to start digging in! I stenciled his shirt for the big day (get the instructions here on a fantastic blog I read every day!) Easy-peasy and super cute! And a shout-out to Kellie and her bf in the background--yeah!

Here's the birthday cake from HECK it caused me a few hard-to-sleep nights and a little of my sanity. Disclaimer: one of those blocks was harmed in the making of this cake. It may have been attacked by a butter knife with a vengeance. Kolt says I need anger management. I say only when it comes to making crazy cakes. But I was mostly happy with the end result.

Oh man we were excited to see what would happen. We knew it was only a matter of a few seconds....

And then his mom chickened out and put a bib on. "Party-pooper!" we all yelled.

He LOVED the cake, this face has nothing to do with his enjoyment or lack-thereof. He actually ate cake until the gag reflex started kicking in and we rushed in to administer 4 cc's of milk STAT!! (seriously. Gagging, face was red, eyes watering...and my grandmother had a white tablecloth on the table in front. Not good.) But we saved our little patient and spared the tablecloth a chocolate fountain of horribleness.

And then it was time for presents!! Des got as much, if not more, toys as he did at Christmas! It was INSANE but good thing we had a bunch of helpers who were more than willing to open some presents. Des did the usual "open one and was done" thing. I'm still trying to get my head around how great everyone was to bring gifts and hang out and all of that stuff. Thanks again, everyone! It was a great day and a great party!

p.s. look at how long my hair is getting! Ack!! Time for a stinking hair cut. And it looks way brown in this photo too. Dang it. Where's my hair stylist when I need her??!

Des AKA cutest batman ever!

Um, ok I wish this was more centered but it's hard to get a kid on the move to be "centered" in a photo. But its pretty much my favorite photo from the past few days. I just love how he's marching and smiling with his two little teethies. It makes me giggle every time I look at it!

Happy Birthday Des!

I can't believe my baby is ONE YEAR OLD today! This time last year I was starting to push! Aack! But as we got up this morning and he started doing his little des stuff I smiled. Even at 7 am he's pretty stinking cute.

He's chattering all the time now, although refuses to say anything more than "dada" and "alldone" even when he's said "mama" and "doggie" more than once.

He laughs at things all the time, thinks his mommy is pretty stinking hilarious when she pretends to sneeze...

He's got two teeth on the bottom and two more coming in the top.

His hair is reaching baby-mullet lengths and his dad keeps telling me to cut it. :( But I think the red will stay (at least for a little while) so a hair cut would be cute...

He's walking all over the place now, my dad calls him Frankenstein, I call him my little monkey. But that's how we walks--stiff like frank and his arms up in the air like a crazy monkey.

His favorite book is "Blue Hat Green Hat" and he even points to the different animals as we read.

We're working on ditching the bottles...mostly because they're so stinking convenient I'm having a hard time. Des mostly could care less although he does like a good bottle in the morning and before bed. We're on our last can of formula, when that goes so do the bottles!

Des loves going outside, even yesterday when he was at my grandma's he kept walking over to the door and asking to go out.

So I guess that's it for what my muffin is doing these days. His Dr's appointment on Monday will tell us how huge he's grown (weight, not height) so that should be fun.

The next page in Des' quiet book

It's kind of simple but way fun still. The flowers are removable and have pipe cleaners in the stems so they're bendy. We took this to church last Sunday and the little girls behind us LOVED the flowers so we shared.

Sewing the "vase" was tricky but after unpicking the sides a few times I employed my walking foot on my sewing machine and the problem was solved. The fabric was too slippery for the normal foot. I did the top of the vase a little bigger so it hangs out a bit for easy flower-sticking/access.

A service Auction

Last night my Relief Society held a service auction. What's a service auction, you might ask? Well, they passed around a sign-up where you could donate items or service to be auctioned off. I donated Baby Windsor ties but other popular ones were cookies, hair bows, books (I won these!!) , baby sitting, house cleaning, etc... It. Was. So. Fun. !. yes the "!" even gets a period. We all got bidding points for doing stuff like reading our scriptures for the past two months, cleaning out a closet, if we went on a mission, saying hello to a neighbor, stuff like that. We tallied up our points and that's what we got to bid with.

I was a little skeptical at first and a little worried no one would bid on my ties. Oh was I wrong. People were jumping out of their seats, bidding cards waving, prices being screamed out. There were even some harsh words being thrown out during the bidding--"She doesn't even have a baby!!" was heard amongst the crowd. And there were three ties. It happened all three times. Crazy. At the end I had to announce that you could buy a tie if you wanted. That seemed to make people happy. (this makes it seem like people were unhappy but they weren't. Just some friendly competition and we all just went on to the next thing we wanted. It was just funny.)

Other hot items were home made cards, scrapbook stuff, cinnamon rolls, éclairs, a baby tutu, and five hours of babysitting, the use of a cricut machine.

So, for those who are in a planning position for RS, I TOTALLY recommend hosting your own Service Auction. Have the bishop be the auctioneer (unless he's soft spoken, because it gets pretty loud. Our bishop has a big booming voice so it was perfect). It was really fun and cool to see everyone's talents