Happy Birthday Phineas!

A belated very happy first birthday to our little boy!  We feel so lucky and blessed to be his parents.  He brings a smile to our face everyday.  We can't believe how quickly this past year has gone.  Here are a few of his favorite things:
1. His kitties - He cracks up when he sees them and squeals with delight when they get close (this typically has the opposite effect however, sending them running for cover).
2. Eating crunchy things - He loves eating little Cheerios or puffs.
3. Looking at books - He loves to sit and look at the pictures while you read to him.  He has also developed a new game where he crawls over to his little books shelf, pulls off every single book into a giant pile, waits for Daddy to put them all back on again, and then pulls them all off.
4. Pulling up and standing - He does this on whatever he can find.  He especially enjoys finding laps and people to pull up on.

Here are some pictures from the evening of his birthday when he enjoyed a Little Blue Truck Cake.

 

A Long Time Coming - A Birthday Party!

The number of blog posts is usually always related to how busy we are.  The past week and a half have been some of the busiest days ever.  Phineas had a great birthday party and a first birthday, we had lots of packing, and then lots of traveling until we got here to Cleveland for Thanksgiving.  Now that I finally have a chance to take pictures off the camera and update the blog, I'll try and get up all that we missed. 

First here are pictures from his birthday party.  The theme was from Phin's favorite story The Little Blue Truck.  We held it an indoor pavilion at the park near our house.  Indoor became key as it was in the low 20 degrees with lots of wind and windchill close to 5.  The party was a lot of fun.

Farm related activities and toys for the kids

The food spread.  I didn't get a picture of it, but each dish was labeled as part of the farm theme. There were pigs in a blanket, Old "Mac"Donald's Mac and Cheese, farm fresh veggies, hay (pretzel sticks), etc.

Phin enjoyed watching the balloons.

This cake is from a scene in the book where the dump truck is stuck in the mud and the little blue truck comes to help push him.

These are the farm animals that help out and are friends with Blue in the story.

Phin really likes Eden.

First bite of cake. Yummy!

An Evening of Books

I know we haven't posted much this week so I thought I'd at least take some pictures this evening.  Phineas was having a fun night, especially with reading his books.  He was babbling a lot while looking at the pictures, just like he was reading. :)  It makes my teacher heart very happy.

 

Beautiful Fall

We have had some beautiful fall weather this weekend.  I tried to get Phin to play in a bunch of leaves, since I feel that is an quintessential fall activity.  However, he just kept trying to eat them, so that didn't work out.  Here's some more pictures of our fall fun to enjoy.

Leaves must be tasty.  I couldn't keep them out of his mouth fast enough.

On the move to see the camera.

Checking out our tree.

He also had a great time on the swings.

He's our little flying ace!

Fun in Cleveland Part 2

Here is the rest of our pictures from our Cleveland trip...

The boys hanging out after Uncle Joey was all done with mass.  Mmmm, priest collars taste good!

These are the cousins (kids of Matt and his cousins on his mom's side) at Uncle Joey's welcome back party.

Siblings reunited!

The army boys

Phin showed off his true Italian colors loving the pasta (and making a complete mess)!

As we were packing up to leave, Phineas passed out.  Grammy got one last snuggle in with the baby.