He's super cute and so much fun, our hockey player's turning ONE!

On Saturday, January 7, Titus had a crazy day of celebrating turning the big ONE with nearly 50 friends and family members! His hockey-themed birthday was a great success and Titus LOVED getting to eat his chocolate cake with peanut-butter frosting! Although he didn't care too much about the many great presents he received, he sure thought the wrapping and tissue paper were pretty great!

YUM....Thanks to Macaille Mahoney-Hafner, Titus' cake was both cool and delicious!

As you can see, Titus had all sorts of help unwrapping his presents!

Thanks to all the Grandparents for their help in making the food, cleaning the house and busying the kiddos while we prepared for the big bash!

Titus Turns ONE!!

It is hard to believe a year has passed! After such a rocky start in life, it is fun to see what a healthy, happy, strong, funny little guy Titus has turned into in the past 365 days! Titus continues to be such a happy joy in our lives. However, with age, some of his easy-going, laid back attitude has been replaced with a short-fused temper every once in awhile! That definitely doesn't come from Dad's side of the family!Despite that, his smile is infections and one of our favorite things in the world and we love what a love he is; always wanting to snuggle and be by his family! At one year of age, Titus' favorites include: black olives, bananas, pop-up books, waving, signing "all done," blueberries, electrical outlets (even though they are covered), pointing, signing for his milk, Crosby (the blanket/stuffed animal he sleeps with), sucking his thumb, cuddling, music, dancing, reading books (especially if they have a beat to them), night lights, our carbon monoxide detector, climbing the stairs, saying "Ah Ah" (which we think means Evie), pancakes and waffles, chasing Evie, clapping, praying, playing peek-a-boo, giving high fives, "if you're happy and you know it," looking at pictures of himself, pretending to talk on the phone, throwing balls, applesauce, Ritz crackers and more! It took him awhile to get on the move (he much preferred snuggling in my lap and WATCHING everyone do everything), now that he has mastered crawling, walking and climbing the stairs, we have nicknamed him Titus the Destroyer! Nothing is safe from his curiosity! We also think he is a bit of a character/prankster! He loves to give us this little smirk that I swear I have seen before (hmmm...maybe from Dad?!?!)! It will be so fun to continue to watch his personality develop!

To help ring in turning one, Evie and I took Titus to an ornament making party, McDonald's for lunch (complete with the playland, his favorite place) and then celebrated the evening with Dad, dinner and cake! He was a fan (wonder where he gets that from?)! We look forward to celebrating with almost 50 friends and family members this weekend for his official birthday party (hockey-themed, of course)!

Titus loves to play with Evie...and has a great "fake cry!"

In the nearly three years our family has been going to Lifetime Fitness Center 5 times a week, never once have we had an incident report with Evie (in fact, I never even knew LTF HAD incident reports)! Poor Mr. Titus has been involved in two in the past four months!! Both times he has been "the victim" but my mother says I am just getting myself used to life with a rough and tumble boy (although, have you seen Evie?!)

Where Did December Go?!

With January blustering itself in, it is hard to believe December 2011 has come and gone! I shouldn't be surprised, our calendar had events nearly everyday and with Evie really getting into Christmas for the first time, we had a blast!

Our first December stop was at the Chaska Community Center where we welcomed in Christmas (and Santa on a firetruck, although we got there just a tad bit late for that) with cookie decorating (and, as you can see by the pictures, plenty of cookie tasting), crafts, a visit with Santa and petting one of his real live reindeer (Titus was all about this, Evie, not so much)!

Our next Jolly Stop was to the Mall of America for the annual Viking's Holiday Christmas Party! It's hard to tell who enjoys the limitless rides, no lines and all the treats, Caribou and food you could ever want more: the kids or the parents! Clearly, as you can tell from the pictures, Evie is not a fan of men who dress up as anything, especially Santa or Viktor! We actually took two cars to this event so Chad and Evie could stay and shut the very last ride down!

The following week, we had a fantastic Friday in downtown Minneapolis! I always forget how much I love it downtown: Christmas lights on every tree, hot chocolate vendors, great shopping, resturaunts: what's not to love! We spent the morning at the Children's Museum of Minnesota. What a treasure! We easily could have spent an entire day there and still gone back for more. Evie loved the art studio and storytime the best! That same evening, we made a second trek back downtown (due to naps we had to travel back home in between) to attend the Holidazzle Parade. Chad was able to get us tickets in the "hot seats" although we both agreed with such a great night, we would have perfered to be out on the street with everyone, although you couldn't beat the hot chocolate! Uncle Marc joined us for the fun and everyone around us got a kick out of Evie on her "cell phone" calling goodness-knows-who to tell them when to send the next float!!

We spent Christmas Eve in Alexandria with champagne, crab legs, cookies, swimming at the Y and of course, presents! The highlight for me was Evie lighting the Advent Candle at church (with a lot of help from Grandma Lucie). Christmas morning, after a wonderful visit from Santa, we headed to Little Falls to see Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Enie, Great-Grandma Deen, Uncle Marc and even a surprise visit from Uncle Marco, Josh and Mitch! Again, great food, treats and presents were had by all! In fact, the next morning, Chad went into Evie's room thinking she was crying because she had to go to the bathroom, when in fact, she was crying because she was sad Christmas, and all the presents, and all the people, was over! Hard to blame her!

We hope your holidays were as eventful and joyous as ours and hope your longest list this Christmas, was the one that counted your blessings!