Happy Birthday to Cael!

Our little guy celebrated his first birthday last weekend!  We traveled to Dallas for his big day since most of our family lives in the Metroplex.  We arrived in Denton early on Saturday morning and spent a fun day with my family.

We explored Gamma and Gampa's freezer ...

... because Cael needed to check on their coffee supply.

He also got in some serious play time ...

as well as time with Gamma and Gampa ...

... but the real fun began when cousin Grayson and the balloons showed up!

The cousins enjoyed playing together with trains ...

and Cael LOVED the train box ...

... but the balloons were still undeniably exciting.

Cael had a great time exploring his new toys ...

... playing with his shopping cart ...

... tearing open gifts with Scrappy ...

... checking out his gifts ...

... and curling up with his dad after all of the excitement.

After getting a good night's rest, Cael was ready to celebrate at his party!  He loved the gym and especially the slides!

The gym was fun and the cupcakes were yummy but the special time with family (and especially those wonderful cousins) was the best part of Cael's first birthday!

Cael's Valentine

We had a sweet little Valentine's Day with Cael.  In addition to piling on the love and hugs (our favorite daily activity) we also gave Cael his first box of crayons.

He was ecstatic to say the least!

And as much as we encouraged him to create his first masterpiece, Cael simply wanted to hold the crayons and check out the box ...

But in addition to his enjoyment of the crayons, he also got to spend some quality time with his favorite girl ... Scrappy.

Cael has always found Scrappy very interesting ...

Scrappy, however, has not had the same level of interest in Cael.

You truly can't blame her given that Cael's favorite activity is popping up in her face while she's resting on the couch and then laughing like a little wild man.  Or given his continuing fascination with her tail ...

But lately Scrappy has been willing to spend a little more time around Cael ... primarily because he is now eating food that she wants.  At long last, we found a common love between the two ... goldfish crackers. 

We settled in for a little goldfish party in the kitchen.  Cael excitedly ate his new favorite treat and Scrappy watched patiently.

 
Cael snacked for awhile and then decided to share a few crackers with his little Valentine. 

He could barely contain his excitement as Scrappy ate the goldfish from his hands.

We have a long way to go until we achieve an equal level of love between these two but nothing could have made Cael happier than a little quality time with his Valentine, Scrappy.

Sneezing, Coughing, WALKING!!!

We have had a couple very interesting weeks around our house.  The beautiful part is that we have had a lot of extra time with Cael.  The not-so beautiful part is that all of this quality time has come in the form of a variety of sick days. 

Our little guy has faced just a bit of physical adversity in the past year ...

Exhibit A - First bug bite at 4 months (I know you can barely see it on his forehead but it seemed dramatic at the time):

Exhibit B - Week-long stomach bug at 8 months:

We've been blessed that those examples have largely been the extent of Cael's health drama to date but he made up for those smooth 11 months in the past two weeks.  Runny nose, hacking cough, ear infection and RSV were just the start.  Then we added a lovely little rash called Impetigo:

We finally cleared up that craziness and scored a big scratch and first black eye courtesy of the fireplace:

We topped off all of this excitement with a quick but dramatic stomach bug last night.  I'll spare you those pictures.

Needless to say, we want our little guy in one piece but we've been thankful for the extra time to love on Cael.  These past two weeks have given us a chance to closely watch him hone his latest and greatest skill ... WALKING!

We knew it was just a matter of time until he took off on his own since he was using everything he could get his hands on to walk around the house ...

his walker ...

his scooter (yes, there's a dog leash on the scooter) ...

and even my air-drying laundry.

But all of that practice made perfect when Cael took his first real set of steps this past weekend ...

... and he's been on the move ever since.