We have a one year old!

Emerson turned 1 year old on Sunday. I can't believe a year has passed so quickly. We had a birthday party for him and it was crazy! We had 15 adults and 6 children over! I will admit that I'll never invite that many people over again. Not until we have a house with a larger living area anyway. But it was a good time and lots of fun! Emerson loved every minute of it. Here are a bunch of pictures:

The farm animal themed Cake!

The anticipation...

We didn't get any pictures of him with the candle lit.
Emerson's older cousin was so excited and blew the candle
out the second the cupcake hit the tray!

He was very interested in the candle...

...but even more interested in the cake!

Yum! That's good stuff!
The Birthday Boy!

One Year Old Emerson.

Here comes Christmas

I think Christmas comes earlier in Canada. We are closer to the north pole! I have been feeling the Christmas spirit all week. I don't put my decorations up until December usually but I'm tempted to get out a Christmas CD.

I want to do a special act of service this year and make it a yearly family tradition. One year when we were kids we delivered little treats to a family that correlated to the 12 days of Christmas and it was so much fun! I also know of a family that participates in an event where you dress up like elves and hop on a city bus full of donated gifts and food to deliver it to people in need. I think that would be fun! Dean says its too "public" for him. He wants to do something more anonymous.

Does anyone have any ideas? Or can you share what you do?

Halloween

I was pretty excited about Emerson's first Halloween. Our ward had a Halloween activity and a "Trunk or Treat" on the 31st. My sister had her annual Halloween party the weekend prior to Halloween. We all dressed up like a TV star and decorated haunted gingerbread houses. So fun!

However last week I decided it would be a good idea for Em and I to get the H1N1 vaccine. This is because I am back to work at a clinic where I see a lot of patients infected with H1N1. It took a good amount of thought (and prayer) to decide to get the vaccine. We usually don't get the flu shot because I think it is unnecessary for healthy people and why expose yourself to more chemicals than you have to. Having done my research I realize the H1N1 is very unpredictable and can seriously harm even the most healthy person. Anyway, we got our shots and other than recovering from the 2.5 hour wait, we did fine. Then last Friday Emerson got very sick. It is most likely the flu... maybe the H1N1, maybe the seasonal flu. I'm not sure where he got it for sure but I'm guessing it was in the line waiting for his shot. There were a few dark days where he wouldn't eat or drink anything but we're on the mend.

So no Halloween-ing for Mr. Bean :( I put his little skeleton shirt on him and took some pictures just so that we could have them. We didn't even carve a pumpkin! Sad, eh? I guess the good thing is that Emerson will not even remember missing his first Halloween. Here are some pictures.

Dean's decorating is usually quite superb. This year he made:
"A Graveyard Collision: Zombies Arise"

This is my mom (heaven bless her) dressed up as Beth from the TV show
"Dog the Bounty Hunter".


Dean dressed up as Jeremy Clarkson from the British TV show "Top Gear".


My sister dressed up as SNL star Stuart Smally.

We also had Hannah Montana (my costume), Ninja #3 from a Chuck Norris movie, Hal and Joanne from Body Break (Canadian fitness Gurus), Deanna Troi from Star Trek, and Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. We didn't get as many pictures as we wanted because we had Emerson with us and left the party early to get him home to bed. Sorry!

Emerson's skeleton smile.

Emerson has discovered that he can take lids off and on,
so his new favorite toy is an empty bottle.