You're Only 1 Once.

Yeah, December 28th is a lousy day for a party. But the Saturday before was Christmas, and the Saturday after was New Years. So we decided there was going to be no good day to have Charlie's first birthday party, so we would just have it on his actual birthday. We invited a couple close friends and family. Even so you know me, I like to throw a party, cheesy themes and everything. I couldn't rein myself in too much, even though we all know Charlie could care less at this point.

We had two cakes. One miniature one that Charlie could destroy in the traditional 'eat cake with your hands' first birthday tradition. (Ignore the horrible icing job, maybe because it was cut out and not a mold, this thing was impossible to crumb coat, even entirely frozen.)

And one that the rest of us could eat without getting the drooley, mangled remains from whatever Charlie left over.

Lots of blue for my boy. Blue candy, blue plates, etc.

The Birthday Boy!

Didn't take any pictures but we all made our own french bread pizzas, because Charlie looooves pizza. He's become a really picky eater, but he will go to town on a pizza he can now eat more than a slice himself.

Singing Happy Birthday!


How many pictures can you possibly look at of a kid eating birthday cake? Well you're about to find out. I'll spare you the video, because it's actually about 7 minutes. Charlie started out strainning to get to the cake when we were singing and not giving it to him. But after the candle came out and John handed it over he thought we were tricking him or something. He kept looking at the cake, then looking at us, and then looking at the cake. He put his hand up to it, then pulled it away again like, 'no I'll get in trouble'. Finally he started tasting the frosting, but he actually was quite dainty about if for awhile, just enjoying a little frosting on his hand. John helped him get into it a little by opening it up, and then sticking his hand in. By about the 6th minute of the video he's just really getting into it!

Now we're getting it!

Had to show you the cool layers in this cake. I got the idea from a rainbow cake which maybe I'll make some day, but thought, 4 shades of blue, that could be cool!

The layers aren't really even whatsoever though because I didn't use the cooling strips on the pan, I don't have any here, and wasn't going to go to Logan to dig through at my moms to find mine which are still residing there!

Surprisingly his face didn't look as bad as it probably could have, but his hands were coated, and actually his jeans were the worst part. He kept putting his hands down on them, probably even wiping his cakey, icingy hands on them, and when we pulled him out here we just had to take the pants off. But hey what kind of a party would it be if you still had your pants on by the end. (I kid, I kid.)

The wreckage. See what I mean? Would you wanna eat that now?

What'd I get, what'd I get!

An airplane!?!!!

He started out just sitting on it, but he has this figured out a little too well now. So well that the other day he got rocking so hard he darn near went OVER the front. Not just him, he almost rocked the whole plane over the front. It also has little music that plays in the buttons, and he loves the songs, and wants them played over and over and over again.

Overall, a success. Thanks to everyone who came, and Charlie of course, for being one and cute!

Oh Christmas Day in the Moooooorrrrning!

Charlie's first Christmas, outside the womb, is over. And no he didn't care about it yet, he didn't even really care about ripping or playing in the wrapping paper, but I'm sure he'll love that part next year! He didn't care, but as mom I think I'm required to. :) So here we go:

It is Heywood family tradition that you must line up in the hall (they used this hall their whole lives in fact!) and have your picture taken before you go in to see what you got. Emily and Andrew even had to get into the line up, although that was more coincidental than anything.

Our little family, all lined up and ready to go!

Christmas morning magic right here, haha.
Ironically, Charlie did end up waking up an hour earlier than normal, but it was probably just his restless dad who wanted to get in and see what he got, that somehow floated in to his room and woke him. At least we got to sleep till just after seven. But I would have preferred the usual eight. It's not that I'm a bah-humbug, I just reeeaaallly like to sleep!

Charlie's present from Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Andrew.

Aunt Emily is suuuuper excited about this package.
I'm guessing it's a million dollars.

Aunt Emily put a bow on Charlie's head and we stuck him under the tree. She told us that he was the best gift we got this year... even though technically it was last year....

Wearing his pirate eye patch. Arrr!

"Ooo, what's this mom? And can I take it somewhere and hide it from you?"

The older "kids" with the toys I bought them. Aunt Em is a pirate, Uncle Andrew is in the FBI, and John is a fireman. These toys were a hit, but they were being used for about the 5th minute when John tried to cut off Andrew's legs with his toy axe and it broke. Dollar store quality is just not what it used to be. I remember back in the day when you could EASILY dismember someone with those things...

White eating breakfast Emily pierced Charlie's ear and Andrew gave him a gun to play with.... so they pretty much win for worst Aunt and Uncle ever. I kid, I kid...

And at last we're just happily playing with our new toys in the wreckage.
(I promise the kid had clothes on at one point.
I'm starting to have a little ragamuffin on my
hands, he's always running around and
caught on film in a dirty onesie!)

Christmas Eve

In the Haslem house we do the big meal Christmas Eve, and then just relax more or less Christmas day. So with the parents away, I offered to host this year. Last year no one had the energy. So we came back with a vengeance this year.

And I apologize in advance for the pictures. When you're the one cooking and serving there really isn't time to take good pictures with a nice camera.... someone just gets handed the point and shoot. And yes, it bugs me, and maybe that makes me a picture snob, haha, but it does.

(It does crack me up that Tate is lurking in this picture. Haha.)

The Potato Thief

The other day I went grocery shopping, it was getting late as soon as we got home and so I threw open the bag of potatoes that we had just bought, scrubbed some and got them in the oven first thing. Then I started putting away groceries. I found out a little later that Charlie had 'helped'. The little potato thief had got into the bag of potatoes and grabbed a few out and 'put them away' for me. Behold the spots we now keep our produce:

The lazy susan:

The drawer:

The diaper bag:

Now is this the face of someone who's naughty?

Nahhh!

O Christmas Tree!

The first Christmas that John and I were married, and had no money, and lived in Cedar, I bought a little 3 foot tall artificial Christmas tree for our apartment. We decorated that and we used it for the next 4 years. After all, we were going to head to one of our parents houses anyway for the week or so around Christmas, and it was just for fun and being festive. Then started what turned into two years of living WITH parents during the festivities, fun fun. So as we set out to decorate for Christmas this year we realized we had never ever bought our own Christmas tree!

So this year it was our whole family's very first excursion to buy our own tree. The first snag we knew we were going to run into is that John and I have very different opinions about what a Christmas tree should look like.

For me, I like the classic, see them everywhere, obvious kind of Christmas tree.



For John, his family and his grandma always had a different kind of tree, thus that is the one that looks likes Christmas to him. He likes this variety:



Before I spent Christmas with John when we were engaged I had never even seen that type of tree used before. I was not its biggest fan. To me it reminded me of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree:



Despite our differences of opinion we set off. We scoured the nursery for something we could agree on. Luckily, Charlie and I wanted this tree right off the bat:


And we got Dad on board!!!



Good thing Charlie was due for a nap when we got it home and it was time to decorate. I have a feeling he'd have been a little TOO helpful. We put it in this corner being hopeful that we can somehow seal off that front area from our little monster. We'll see how it goes!

When he woke up Charlie gave us his seal of approval. He thought the decorations were so lovely he wanted to pull them all off and put them in his mouth for closer inspection....

Good thing we got unbreakable ornaments!

Thanksgiving

We went to John's sister June's house for thanksgiving this year. This was Charlie's very first Thanksgiving that he got to actually be outside my stomach and eat the meal himself! June lives out in Nevada, close to Lake Tahoe with her family. We had never been out to visit them before, so it was a fun time. Cousins Samantha and Ethan were so excited to meet and play with Charlie. Charlie loves attention so he was a willing participant. June made all of Thanksgiving dinner for us and it was fantastic!




Charlie ate some sweet potato and stuffing and a little mashed potatoes, and made a large mess. He seemed to think it was okay, but what he really loved was the second night when we ate pizza, haha, he honestly ate probably 3/4 of a large slice of pizza entirely by himself.


After Thanksgiving we went and spent one day exploring Lake Tahoe and the shops and town up there. Evidently we learned that Lake Tahoe is the 2nd deepest lake in the US. It is deeper at its greatest depth than the Empire State Building is tall. That was really impressive to me!

Work Hard, Play Hard, Then Sleep

We have such a boy on our hands. I keep saying it, but it totally surprises me how he just came with this personality, I swear we're not consciously encouraging this...


The door knob on our bedroom door broke awhile back (leaving me locked inside in fact) and John got started fixing it last weekend. Of course there was something about a hammer and tools that made Charlie feel like he HAD to be involved, literally I tried to pull him away multiple times because I felt it was a little dangerous, but he was desperate to hammer with daddy:

Since the fall came, John and I had to face the un-fun task of putting down the swimming pool. It was a multihand job, so we put Charlie down and hoped he'd entertain himself for at least a little bit. The boy found something to do.... why am I not surprised it had something to do with a stick and dirt...?

Sometimes it's a hard job being an Aggie fan, but mostly we manage to have fun no matter the score. Even though he has to sit which he doesn't like, mostly Charlie doesn't seem to mind too much going:

(The BYU blowout, that was super fun to be at, see how excited Charlie is!)

Charlie likes to jump so hard when he plays in his jumper that one of these days I think he's going to just rocket out of it all together.

A child prodigy at piano playing perhaps?...


After a long morning of getting dirty, bleeding, jumping, hammering and what not, sometimes you just can't wait till nap time for a little shut eye:

(I found Charlie like this at like 9:30 in the morning, he doesn't usually take a nap until almost 10:30, so I figured he must really have been worn out! I even picked him up out of here and put him in his bed without him waking up. That's sleepy!)