Rowan the Toddler

 Our little guy is one year old!!!  (Actually he was a year old almost 3 months ago, but I'm finally getting to the post).

Having Rowan has been hard work, particularly dealing with his health problems, but he has definitely brought a lot of joy to our lives.  I really feel like Rowan has taught my older kids to love and it is a pretty beautiful thing.  They all love him so much and think he's so cute and shower him with attention.  They all love to make him laugh and smile.

Rowan still wakes up several times a night.  He continues to have lots of ear infections and also constantly seems to be cutting teeth.  He still smiles a lot and people are always telling me he is the smiliest baby they have ever seen.  They tell me he must be happy all the time--which is not quite true.  He's pretty bi-polar--either he's smiling huge, or he's screaming miserably.  He is finally starting to tolerate his car seat a little more, although not for long distances.  He still has not said his first word which does worry me, but I am doing all I can do.  We have been working with a speech therapist since he was 6 months old.  I am trying to do better about him wearing his hearing aid, but it seems like something always gets in the way.  Right now it's another ear infection...

Rowan did take his first steps about a month ago, and watching him walk his super cute.  He is very bowl-legged and looks like Tommy Pickles when he walks.

Rowan likes to play peek-a-boo, eat apple sauce and yogurt, and play with his siblings.  He likes going for walks in his stroller, playing in the dishwasher when I'm trying to load it, and pulling everything out of the cupboards and drawers.  He particularly enjoys dumping out cereal boxes and boxes of crayons.  He likes being outside and being pushed around in the wagon or Little Tikes car.

Jeffrey's B-day

 Since we never are quite sure where we will be and when during the summer, and since it is harder to get a hold of school friends, we decided to pick a random time and celebrate Jeffrey when it was convenient for us!   Jeffrey chose to have his birthday at Premier Gymnastics in Loveland.  Somehow I didn't get any pics of anyone actually doing any gymnastics--maybe John got some on his phone.  However you can see here there was a great turn out.  The glasses straws were a little complicated but were a big hit with the kids and their parents.

It really is a very fun place for parties and everyone always has a great time.  There is a big foam pit the kids can jump in, balance beams, rope swings, trampoline...  A couple of the boys even provided younger sister friends for Arabelle :)

Arabelle's Art Party!

Arabelle has wound up with more/bigger birthday parties than the other kids because she is so obsessed with them. She starts planning practically a year before and comes up with ideas, makes lists, and overall obsesses over every detail.  Arabelle currently wants to be an artist when she grows up, so this year it was her idea to have an art party.  I decided to postpone the date a bit so that I could have Memaw here to help me with it.  Here we are assembling the Rainbow Fruit Kebabs:

The venue was the Wildfire Arts Center in Berthoud which I rented for the afternoon.  I have taken the girls to the open studio on Saturdays a few times and I asked the lady in charge if I could do the party there.  They had never had one there, but were happy to draw up the paperwork and oblige....for a fee.

Berets and aprons purchased from Oriental Trading:

 Fabric markers, canvases and paintbrushes purchased in bulk from Amazon:

I led the kids step by step in creating this fine springtime Masterpiece:

I was impressed with the beautiful artwork created by all the little girls:

Birthdays!

 Charlotte is 4 years old!  (But don't tell her that, or she'll get mad and insist she's still 3.)

 I made this "chocolate delight" dish for Arabelle on her birthday in January and Charlotte immediately became obsessed with it.  She asked about it pretty much every day until her birthday on February 17th and has been telling everyone she meets about it.

 It seemed to live up to her expectations!

And little Rowan turned 1!!!  At first I thought he was going to tear into his angel food cake/whipped cream,

 but he was surprisingly neat with it...

He ate the whole thing, delicately licking the whipped cream off his pointer finger, and then munching on the cake.

I wasn't going to buy him anything for his birthday, but mom shamed me into getting him a couple baubles.

Memaw and Papa got him his first cell phone:

 which he loves.

100th day of School

Arabelle is super into dressing appropriately for any given day or activity, and she takes it very seriously.  For example, on Earth Day she dug out an old dress that has flags on it, pairing it with blue and green hair accessories.  When she brought her stuffed dog for show and tell, she had to wear colors to match her dog.  Anyway, a couple weeks back we had a bit of a challenge because it was the Valentine's party as well as the 100th day of school when you're supposed to dress like you're 100 years old.  Kind of a strange combination, but here's what we came up with.

I love how much use we have gotten out of this wig!

Snow Day

Pizza and Hot Chocolate--the Snow day lunch of Champions.  (Charlotte doesn't like food anymore).

Preschool lesson on art--
Making colorwheels with clips for color matching:

Mixing colors with frosting and decorating beautiful artistic cookies:

Painting with Q-tips:

My Very Own Elf

I had Rowan wear this Elf Costume at pretty much every opportunity--kids parties at school, Ward Christmas parties, family christmas party, the grocery store, etc.  He put a lot of smiles on a lot of faces, and really spread joy in an incredible way this Christmas.