April 1st Rundown

April 1st was so interesting last year, what with me going into labor and all. This year's April 1st was also an "interesting" day. A full day, for sure.

This was the day that I woke up with my voice completely hoarse and bullfrog-like. Fun times, for such an unexpected twist! (Nature's April Fools joke on me??)

We started off our morning bright and early with Melinda and Jacob's swim classes. Melinda is definitely being moved to a Level 2 class. She kept insisting her teacher said she would be Level 2, but nobody talked to me about it until this week. The teacher tested her very quickly on things like "diving" into the water and floating on her back, because she wasn't sure if she'd be better off in Level 2 or Level 3, I guess. But Level 2 it is. Melinda absolutely *amazed* me by retrieving 3 toy rings from under the water at the end of class. She wouldn't open up her eyes underwater, of course, but she'd take a good long look at where the rings were, close her eyes tight, take a deep breath, and plunge underwater. She'd stay there for 3-4 seconds, feeling around with her hand, and pop back up for a breath. She later told me that she even took her feet off of the ground while she was under. With some persistence, she got all three of the rings, and dunked herself under the water at least 10 different times! She had the most proud smile on her face as she handed her three rings to the teacher! Jacob was okay for most of the swim class - he avoided getting his head near the water during the "Simon Says" portion at the beginning, but didn't hesistate with hopping back and forth between walls when it was time for that, and didn't really seem perturbed by jumping into the water off of the wall when his teacher was ready to catch him. He DID freak out about being asked to float on his back, though, even with support. I could hear his yells of "It's too scary for me! I'm tooooo scaaaaary!!!" from inside my closed-off room. He curled his body up and wouldn't relax to even try. Not unexpected, though - he does that even in the bathtub. And the other little girl in the class reacted the exact same way, only without the words. We'll see if he gets brave enough to try over the next few weeks, huh?

After swim class, we popped over to the party store and bought a boquet of balloons for Alex. Because what new 1-year-old boy doesn't like a fun floating balloon? And then we stopped by Edible Arrangments to order a special treat for Jesse. Jesse's just been amazingly supportive and loving lately, and then I got to thinking about how I wouldn't even have these adorable kids to celebrate their birthdays if it weren't for him, and I just decided it was high time he got something special, too, for always being there for us and making our lives so much better.

By the time we got home, it was 10:30. Kaija was still in bed, asleep. I certainly couldn't blame her... I'd probably still be sleeping at 10:30am if I had a quiet house, too! But we woke her up at that point, and then I baked a cake. After lunch, we headed out to Coldstone Creamery to get a free ice cream for the birthday boy (which we had *just* signed up for that morning... yay for printable birthday coupons!), and one for everyone else, of course. And really, Alex only had a few bites of the ice cream, I ate the rest. ;) After Coldstone, we were just heading back to the car, where we were going to go pick up Jesse's boquet and deliver it to his work, when he called. Hands juggling 2 ice creams, keys, a diaper bag, and trying to open a door, I opened up my cell phone and wondered why he was calling so soon after lunch. He'd been hit by a car on his way back to work. The guy was making a left-hand turn onto his road, didn't see Jesse (it *was* a dreary day, and the road is busy), and hit his bumper to Jesse's bumper. Jesse had seen him coming, and slammed on his breaks, but with the wet roads, he couldn't stop soon enough to avoid being hit. His passenger side headlight is now gone, the front grill was smashed up by another driver on the road, and the bumper and hood took some damage. But luckily, nobody was hurt, not even a little bit of whiplash. Unfortunately, with Kaija being here, and us being busy, we haven't gotten his car to a body shop yet. We were about to do it on Saturday morning, but discovered the shop that the guy's insurance recommended was MUCH too far for us to go to. When we called to check on alternatives, we discovered that the insurance rep would be gone for an entire week. So his auto care is still up in the air at this point, since we don't want to simply assume we can go wherever we'd like, but have some confirmation so we don't get stuck with a bill. Also, Jesse is really hoping they don't decide the car it totaled. It's still running well enough for him to drive it now, as long as he doesn't take it out at night when he would need a headlight. But if there's some internal damage that would get costly to fix, Jesse seems to think there's a good chance that it could cost more than the car is worth, at it's old age ('94). And then we wouldn't have enough money to get a car to replace it, more than likely. Well, we do, but with job stability being what it is, we wouldn't spend it on a car.

Anyway, so after talking to Jesse and first freaking out and then calming down, we moved on and picked up his boquet. When I dropped it off at his work, he was already talking with insurance people. So I just gave him a quick hug and kiss and let him get back to all of that... but I think it was a nice surprise.

Kaija, the kids, and I all headed out to the Towson mall to do some quick browsing and to play at the playplace. Kaija picked up some new shoes at Nordstrom Rack (holy wowza, the high heels she picked! I don't think I could walk in them! But they looked fantastic on her!). I couldn't resist buying a sweet pink lacy-overlay type of dress for Melinda that was hanging near the shoes. She can't wait to wear it to church this coming week, either.

We headed home just in time to get back and decorate Alex's cake and make dinner. Alex had fallen asleep on the way home from the mall, and he woke up with perfect timing at the end of dinner, giving us just enough time to do presents, cake and ice cream before heading out to the circus.

Now, I didn't spend tons of time on this cake... just made something simple and quick. Sorry Alex. I hope you don't mind in 15 years or so, when you're looking through all your baby pictures. We were so busy, and you were just going to smash things anyway. ;)

And now for the barrage of picture. Don't worry, I'm only showing you about 1/3 of what I actually took...

Alex plays with his balloons for a minute before he gets started with the presents:

Okay, now the fun starts! He loves the curly ribbons.

Peering past the torn paper to figure out what's inside:

Kaija puts the bow on Alex's head. Awww, how cute! (And, yeah, his clothes are dirty. Remember how short on time we were? Not gonna change the clothes just before cupcake time, not smart!)

Yes! The piggy bank was an instant hit! (This one was from myself and Jesse.) Jacob likes it a lot, too. :)

Alex opens a fun little bathtime toy from Grandma Wilcox. Really getting the hang of present-opening now!

Not the best picture ever, but it's the only one I took of Alex playing with the new ball toy (from myself and Jesse).

Aunt Rachel (I hope I got that right!) sent Alex a fun little book called Swing!. I've actually been thinking about buying this one for a couple months, so it was a perfect gift! Jacob "yoinked" it so he could look at it himself, and Alex was just walking up to him to take it back, because he was so interested in seeing it. The pictures move when you turn the pages.

Grandma and Grandpa Newson sent this adorable pajama set. It fits perfect, I love the big truck theme, and he needed new PJ's. Thank you so much!!

Uncle Ben & Aunt Brea also sent a lovely card in the mail. And a few days later, we also got a card in the mail from Aunt Megan and her family, complete with Alex's first dollar bill. Thanks everyone!

On to cake time. Here's the cake I decorated for Alex. Cream cheese frosting is difficult to decorate with because it's so soft... especially when you're in a hurry, and you had forgotten that you ran out of frosting bags and had to improvise with Ziploc bags. That's all I'm sayin'.

Alex carefullly inspects his individual cupcake.

Flips it over a couple times.

Eventually, he smashed it apart, never attempting to really eat any of it. But he definitely enjoyed licking his fingers when everything was flung off of his tray.

Such a silly birthday boy!!

Here are the videos, which, for me, is the best part:









And of course, after all of that, we spent a few minutes finishing up our cake and ice cream, cleaned up Alex, and made sure everyone had clean clothes on. There was just a couple minutes to play with toys, and then we went to the Circus down at the 1st Mariner Arena near the Inner Harbor. But that's a post all of it's own, so I'll save it for later.

Been Busy

A brief note to catch everyone up to my life, which has been unusually busy for the past week:

- My littlest  sister, Kaija (well, youngest... turns out I'm the littlest in my family), came to visit us during her spring break.  She arrived on Saturday evening, and left Friday midday.  We had TONS of fun with her here, and had something big and exciting to do almost every day she was here, including a zoo trip, swimming lessons, the circus, bike riding at the park, the ever-fun grocery trips, birthday cake & ice cream, visiting Washington, D.C., baking cookies... phew.  Usually that much stuff gets spread over an entire month!!!

-Jesse and I have new callings at church.  More on that another time.

- Alex obviously had his 1st birthday on April 1st.  I'll be working on getting birthday pictures and videos up here first, before anything else, and then I'll be going back to share what else we did with Kaija here.

- I was at the tail end of a cold when Kaija arrived.  We were so much busier than I'm used to that my body didn't like it much.  I woke up with a total bullfrog voice on April 1st.  It was really creepy. But the next morning when I woke up, it was completely gone.  Weird. 

- I was so zonked on Friday that I did absolutely nothing productive after we dropped Kaija off at the airport.  I just bemoaned her absence, as it now felt much more lonely without her around to talk to.

- Saturday & Sunday was General Conference for church, which typically takes up our entire weekend, with four 2-hour sessions, starting at noon and 4pm, with only a 2-hour break in between.  We got out into the gorgeous sunshine briefly on Saturday, and grabbed a few groceries, but otherwise, Conference was our weekend.  When Jesse was out for the Priesthood session on Saturday evening, Jacob started throwing up.  All over his bed.  He kept throwing up most of the night, and was sick with a low fever all of Sunday.  He threw up again this morning.  Still has a fever.  Currently taking a nap, which is why I can sneak on here, and he otherwise needs lots of cuddle time, and cajoling to get enough fluids.  He takes illness pretty well in stride, though, not complaining, just resting.  I'm doing my best to keep the rest of us from catching it as well, though, since it's obviously not a quick little 12-hour stomach bug.  I'd hate for that to run through the whole famiy.  In the meantime, about the only thing I'm managing to get done is all the laundry that Jacob has vomited on.  And when that includes big things like pillows and blankets, which can barely fit into our tiny washer... well, it's a full-time job.

SO.  I have a lot to post about - tons and tons!!  But it might take me a while to get around to it.  Keep your eyes peeled, though, because I wouldn't want you to miss anything if I find some time and get on a roll.  ;)

The Baby Turns One

I wish I could spend a good hour or so just talking about how I feel about Alex turning one year old today. I'm not sure I've ever felt such a bittersweet feeling on my babies' birthdays before... But for whatever reason, this little guy has been such a joy in our lives that I feel so sad that he's growing up so quickly! This year has absolutely flown by, and he has been so much like a toddler for so long already... I miss my little baby. And he's never going to get any younger, that's for sure. But at the same time, he's such an amazing little guy to observe as he grows. He's sweet as can be,chock full of energy, gives the biggest grins, the best kisses, the most adorable squeeze-hugs... he is always eager to learn something new and try to be just like the big kids. I wouldn't trade him for the world. If only I could freeze time...

At any rate, today is the day he turns one year old. Amazingly. Incredibly. Unbelievably. And we're fortunate to have my little sister Kaija visiting with us this week, so I'm busy bonding and hanging out and running us all ragged. Well, not too ragged, but I'm definitely on the go more than usual with someone to entertain in the house!

So, we will be celebrating today, but you won't get full details for a while. You'll all have to wait until later, probably after the weekend, after Kaija is gone, when I will actually have time to really sit down again. I sure have a lot to share, already! But I wouldn't want to be a negligent host/big sister. ;)

In the mean time, feel free to reminisce with me by re-reading Alex's birth story, looking at some baby pictures. I'll be enjoying the second April Fool's Day of many, many more to come that I will always cherish in a whole new way: No longer a day just for jokes and pranks, but a day to celebrate our family being blessed and forever changed for the better..