Vancouver City Library

We had a little field trip with our Joy School group about a month ago to the Vancouver City Library. I'd never been here but it is a huge library with a large play area (Children museum style) for kids. 

It was quite the fun outing and I took more blurry photos than otherwise but there you go.

The kids had a little story time at first...notice Miles on the red chair on the left. He's not sleeping, but also not participating. 

 
He likes having his own space and he doesn't really participate, but later he will tell me all about the story or the song and how he really does enjoy it.

 Edwin was just starting to walk more so he went around exploring books.

 After story time...it was playtime...

And I didn't take many photos of playtime...but I like these ones of Edwin.

Field trips are fun, and that's all.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's day was fun and simple. There was the prep work of making Valentines for Charlie's Kindergarten class and Miles' preschool class. And I used it as another excuse to get my kids gifts and books.

 I'm not a huge gift person so my kids weren't expecting anything...which it made it that much more fun to surprise them.
Max had taken Charlie to the store a couple days before Valentine's day and Charlie had seen some glittery purple nail polish and he was super persistent that he NEEDED to get it for me. So my boys ended up giving me a Valentine's gift of a pedicure. It was kind of awesome.

We had a steak dinner then put the kids to bed and had some chocolate covered strawberries. Perfect for us!

I love this Valentine of mine!

One-Year-Old Edwin James

Mr Edwin's first year of life flew by. (And even another month has flown by since his birthday)

 
The whole time I was pregnant with Edwin I thought of how crazy we were to be adding to our wild circus. Since his birth, we couldn't imagine it any other way, he brings a much needed peace and balance into our home.

 Edwin is a busy and active kid. He likes to squirm and wiggle mostly to take in all his surroundings. He loves going up the stairs and exploring the bathrooms. He gets so proud when he climbs up into Miles' bed.

  He has really been the best baby. I don't know if there's ever been a night that I had to get up with him more than twice. Usually it's 0-1 times. 

This face though....

 He is not one to snuggle. (So far, only Miles is my snuggler) Sometimes we hope he'll lie in bed with us but he has too much to explore and can't be still.

"hi guys!"

 Edwin wasn't walking until about 2 weeks after his birthday...but now he is getting better at it everyday and prefers it to crawling.

 Sometimes he has sounds that resemble words... like dada, mama, uh oh, ba (bath or ball), ba ba (bottle), Boo (balloon)

 This boy is the definition of a Daddy's boy! If Daddy is home Edwin must keep him in his sights, follows him around, and clings to his leg. When Max comes home from work, Edwin is usually in his high chair eating dinner. He will hear Max's voice but not be able to see him and he starts to do a panicky whine until he see's daddy, then gives him a big grin.

Nearly everything goes straight into his mouth and sometimes I think he purposely throws food from his high chair so he can have a snack later.

 Speaking of eating...He is my best eater! He never loved baby food...he's starting to tolerate the baby food pouches. He LOVES eggs, chicken, turkey, hot dogs, ground beef and pretty much every meat. He loves any fruit and is okay with some vegetables. He transitioned to cows milk better than my big boys too. At his 1 year checkup he was around 50% for weight, 20% for height and 80% for head circumference.

On the day before Edwin's birthday we had a birthday celebration for two of my brothers (Dan-January 29th and James-February 3rd) and for Edwin-February 5th we met at my mom's house for Sunday dinner and a party. There was a yummy Chili dinner, muddy buddy treats, and birthday cupcakes. And we of course brought a pinata! It turned out perfect and simple, just how I wanted! And my boy's best friends are their cousins so it was great that they were able to celebrate together.

So I made the same cupcakes with blue frosting that I had made with Charlie and Miles. And we got to see Edwin try it out. We didn't really give him any sugar up to this point so we didn't know how he'd react. Big brothers were more excited them him. 

Haha...that look!

 I'm just putting the whole sequence on here. He was curious but then unimpressed and eventually pushed it off his tray. haha!

We eventually made our way to the garage to attack the pinata....

Matchy matchy cousins

 Charlie knocked the chain off the ceiling

 After making a makeshift pinata holder with a ladder and broom handle...it was eventually bust open.

We stayed later than we should have but we just didn't want the fun to end. We got our sleepy boys in bed then before going to sleep, I ended up blowing the balloons up myself since I didn't want to keep my big boys up any later. They had been excited about filling Edwin's crib with balloons for months. So I had to get them up extra early on a school day to make that happen. They jumped right out of bed when they remembered. Edwin was a bit confused at first but then he really enjoyed it!

After dropping Charlie off at school, we were hoping for an exciting trip to the Library but Edwin wanted an early nap...so that's what he did...then he slept for 3 hours and we didn't really have much time to go to the library before picking Charlie up. When Max got home we had dinner, let Edwin open his birthday gift, (bath toys) offered the boys cupcakes again and then had bath and bedtime. It was such a simple and zero-stress celebration and Miles and Charlie loved making Edwin feel special all day. We sure do love having this baby boy in our family!