surprise arrival

This special little guy, my little bro,

celebrated in style this weekend!

He turned 1 years old on Friday, can you believe it?

The last year has come and gone in lightening speed...
Elijah can now screach with the best-of-em....
play peek-a-boo like an all-american...
and he is diligently honing in
on his walking skills
(so so close! closer by the day)

In honor of Elijah's birthday,

Auntie Darcee, Megan and Maycee
pulled off an incredible surprise this past weekend!

Mommy was in cahoots with them,
as they showed up in our garage
late Thursday night,
right before bedtime.

Surprise!

They came all the way from MT to spend
Elijah's birthday weekend with us!
"That is so so cool"

As you know, a birthday is no birthday without a party
(from the mind of a 4 y.o, 2 y.o., and now 1 y.o)...
so we headed to Noni and Papa's after church to celebrate!

Elijah's introduction to cupcakes....

Initial "plunge"

followed by further exploration....followed by full-on, committed inhalation!

good to the very last crumb....

(total cupcake eating time: 22-seconds, roughly :)

Hannah and I jumped in
on the sugar-loading as well...
(notice we are a little more polished in our
cupcake eating tactics :)

Elijah did his best to participate in his gift-opening...

as he had many many helpers to "assist".

Thanks everyone for the fun new,
and refreshing toys/puzzles to play with!

Other fun birthday-weekend festivities included:

staying cool at the Fort pool...

including a fun visit from Brother Bede...

(and indoors -yikes, the humidity)

Thanks Elijah for having a birthday so us cousins could be together!

I asked Mommy tonight "why don't we go live in MT?"
we agreed to going to visit in less than 2 months!

So....sad good-byes for now :(
but we'll see you in August!

minneapolis bound with rochester pit-stop

First weekend of June we headed North-west to the Twin Cities.
Auntie Jess and Uncle Nick were superb hosts!
including story-time in our room there.


Mommy did a poor job of capturing pics
from our time there :(

BUT...must have gotten a 2nd-wind
as she captured the following photos of our pit-stop
in Rochester on the way home.

Chris and Mindy had this pool
(a.k.a. automatic fun-time)!

A parade is a great way to start off Memorial Day....

(three little "hot-dogs")

(three little-gazers)...

followed by a Jelly-Belly Bean Factory visit....