Happy Birthday Baby Magnus!!!

Magnus & my mom (Nanna) then... Magnus & my dad (Pa Pa) now.
4 days old
1 year old!
Just a blink of a year ago today, Joe and I were heading to the hospital to receive the special gift of the birth of our little boy! He was 22" long, and can you believe he has grown over 10 inches in his first year of life? That's just insane! He's also gained about 25 lbs since then. Here are some fun "then and now" pictures. What's so awful though, is that he's grown SO fast that I can hardly remember him as a tiny baby... =( Somebody, please help me slow him down a little! Since today is his actual birthday, we saved a couple of his gifts aside from his party so he could open them today. He got a tricycle from us (he loves playing with it & scooting around on it, but hasn't figured out the pedals yet!) and a basketball hoop from my bro, sis-in-law & niece Erika. He figured it out immediately, and plans to go pro in a year or two!

1st Birthday Party Pig-out!

We threw Magnus a birthday party on Saturday (3 days early, but we have a little surprise for him on his "real" birthday too!). I was busy all day Friday making his cake, horsie cup cakes and other party foods like Oreo truffles. We ordered hot wings from Buffalo Wild Wings and had hot ham/cheese party sandwiches (thanks to my mom for help with those!), pizza roll-ups and a fruit tray. Magnus sure enjoyed his first cake, and he made sure he didn't disappoint us when we expected him to make a mess of himself! He managed to also get cake on the kitchen wall, as he squeezed a bunch of cake in his hand (frosting oozing out of his little fingers!) and then shook his hand out! Erika and Jordan helped him blow out his candle after everyone sang happy birthday to him. He thought that little fire on his cake was pretty neat. He didn't get much cake eaten though because he was too busy trying to lick it off his hands, rather than make time to pick up more pieces to eat! Mmmm! Tasty!

A great time with good friends!

Magnus had a blast at his birthday party Saturday! All his little friends were here, and they enjoyed helping him open and play with his fun gifts. It was a wild and crazy-fun time! It was so fun to see everyone again, and my parents, grandparents and niece Erika (all from NC) came up to help us celebrate with our little man. Erika and Jordan (Tim and Sherry's little 2 1/2 y.o. blonde-haired girl.) hit it off and played (hard!) non-stop, all evening! We had such a great time!

Re-creating our back yard

We've spent quite a few days trying to get the back yard how we want it. We had originally thought we may put in a retaining wall, but ended up moving dirt (and LOTS of it!) with our tractor to make a nifty little sloping hill that I personally think is rather pretty. Now if we can just get some grass to grow on it! We'd also like to cut some little steps into the hill - Jack has already beat a trail down the steeper part to his doggy door in the basement, so we figured we might as well give him some steps! We also added the gravel driveway which makes our little garage door down there much more useful. Magnus spent some "quality" time in his playpen so I could help rake, shovel and smooth the dirt. He was happy in there for quite a while before trying (unsuccessfully) to climb out of his little prison!

Home Improvements

The weather has been so beautiful lately that we've been motivated to get some long-overdue home improvements done. After spending an extremely stressful year building this house, we tried to forget all about it and haven't yet finished up all those little things we need to do. We also never "got around" to putting a sidewalk in, so that was our project last week. (And you wondered why I wasn't blogging!) The pavers actually turned out nice and I think I'm going to like them. Please excuse the little piles of sand, etc... it's not quite finished yet, and the rain we've had the past couple days has been hindering my progress! As you can see in the first picture, Jack was a very big help - I don't know how we would've managed without him!

Rub A Dub Dub

Magnus still loves his bath time! Although, he doesn't realize that it serves any purpose other than playtime, so he tends to get annoyed when I "interrupt" by washing his hair. How dare me!