Easter, Gardens and Other Stuff

Well, no shocker -- I'm behind again. Instead of doing a few posts to catch up, this will be a long one. Kudos if you make it to the end :)

Mom, Spencer and I visited Red Butte Gardens in mid-April to see the thousands of dandelions. It was very pretty. And nice to get that first 'taste' for spring.

Red Butte Gardens

Red Butte Gardens

Red Butte Gardens

Red Butte Gardens - Spencer's favorite part was the river. Of course.

Dying Easter eggs

Licking the (chocolate frosting) beaters

Hunting eggs

Easter Sunday - thanks to my dad for taking such great photos

Easter Sunday

Cory & his mini-me

Easter Sunday

So handsome

Hunting eggs

Hunting eggs

We put him to work after Easter dinner, cleaning up (haha :)

Thanksgiving Point, Tulip Festival - gorgeous weather and gorgeous flowers

YEA for spring!

Birthday Party

Since Spencer's 1st birthday fell on a Tuesday, we had a party for him with family on Saturday (April 9th). Here's a few pictures.

Loves the homemade ice cream.

With his cake -- they're blocks (in case you couldn't tell)

He sort of got the hang of opening presents...

We got some great stuff that he's been playing with all week long. Thanks to everyone who came and made his 1st birthday party a really fun memory!

Time for a Haircut... ?

When my brother(s) & father can do this to my son's hair... does that mean it's time for a haircut?

Yeah since I can now put it in a ponytail... I think it might be time.

We tried to get a family shot at Spencer's birthday party... here's the best we got.

1 Year Old!

I'm sure I'll begin every birthday post with the line "I can't believe my baby is __!" In this case, I can't believe a whole year has passed! And what a year it's been ... moving from New York, finding a place to live, getting settled in, adjusting to being parents, starting a chiropractic business and trying to build up a cliental. Wow, sometimes I'm amazed that we survived :) We never would have made it through the year without the support of our families.

We celebrated Spencer's 1st birthday yesterday. People ask me all the time if I can imagine life without him. Well, I do remember what life was like before him (a lot easier to do stuff!) but he's a perfect fit into our little family. He's bright, inquisitive, and a whole lot of fun to have around. We love him to pieces and know that he came to our family exactly when he was supposed to.

Born 4/5/10 @ 12:10 pm (Eastern Standard Time)

4/5/11 @ 10:10 am (Mountain Standard Time)

He loved the balloons we got him.

Since Spencer has no idea what a birthday is, it was a pretty low-key day. We had family dinner, dessert and presents. Here he is with his peanut butter fingers.

Eating his peanut butter finger (loves them -- takes after his mom :)

With presents.

He's soooo close to walking on his own... we hope this will give him the encouragement he needs.

We've been very blessed to have such a happy, healthy baby. Happy birthday sweetheart. We love you so much. We're so grateful you chose to join our family!

"New" table

This post is over a month late... sorry Andrea :)

When we moved to Utah from New York, my brother gave us an old kitchen table that was in good shape. It fit perfectly into our kitchen and we were happy with it. Unfortunately, after canning some peaches, we burned the table (despite double towels!) So it looked like this:

I figured it could be fixed, but I had no idea how and didn't want to figure it out. Lucky for me, I have a brilliant and talented friend who selflessly offered her expertise to help me sand it down, paint and finish it. And yeah, it looks great!

When sanded down, the wood underneath was so pretty.

At Andrea's suggestion, we painted it a pretty off-white color.

It doesn't show too well in the picture, but you can see the gorgeous wood grain through the paint, giving it a really nice look.

Like I said, it looks great. Thanks a lot, Andrea!

Yum

Wherever the 3 of us go, people always remark on how much Spencer looks like Cory. Total strangers pet Spencer's hair and remark to Cory that he's got a "mini-me." He does look just like Cory, but I'm afraid he's got my eating habits. Here's the proof:

He loves cheese. If I get the bag of cheese out of the fridge, he comes crawling in as fast as he can and begs for some.

He loves homemade raspberry jam and licks it off his biscuit, not bothering to eat the biscuit.

He loves whip cream (from a Lion House pie that Cory shared with him).

That's my boy!

Trip to the Zoo

Spencer and I took advantage of one of the free days at Hogle Zoo and went in February (well, we went in January, too, but I forgot my camera). He loved it both times. He loves to be outside, go for walks, and loves watching other kids... so the zoo is a fun place for him. It's nice that it's not very far away (and nice that it was free!)

The ducks were his favorite.

Pretty view of "This is the Place"

(There's a giraffe in the background)