Road Trip

This past weekend, we packed up the car and headed out of town.

Miles was pretty excited about it. He actually did amazingly well in the car, not that I was all that surprised.

We left around 1100. We stopped in Moses Lake for lunch. He fell asleep about 15min before Ellensburg, where we stopped for gas. He slept through that stop. He also slept through the one hour construction delay between Cle Elum and Easton (10mile stretch). He woke up while we were stopped in traffic, held onto the sides of his car seat, rocked back and forth and said "go-go-go!" Reminds me of when I was a kid and would tell my dad "just honk, Daddy, just honk".

After the construction hang-up, we had to stop again so I could use the restroom. We stopped in North Bend at the outlet mall (and I resisted shopping!) and let Miles ride the firetruck outside the bathroom. He enjoyed it and wanted to keep riding it, but we had to move on.

Another 45min later, we were in Kirkland at my brother's house. Even in rush hour, we made great time between North Bend and Kirkland. Thank goodness for the diamond lane!

At my brother's house, Miles played with his cousin, Ethne, whom he met for the first time. Miles and Ethne spent quite a bit of time playing the piano.

The next day (Saturday), we got up early (for us), and headed to the zoo. It was Miles' first trip to the zoo, and I think he enjoyed it. It was rainy and cool, but a lot of the animals were inside because of this, so we got to see more this way.

Miles and Ethne ready for the zoo. We did not fit in on the west side of the state with our Graco. Everyone has a Bob over there (I'm talking about the strollers)!

Miles sat in his stroller for a while, but it became apparent that he wouldn't be able to see much from there. So, after a while, we decided to be brave and let our two year old out into the wild.

He started on Daddy's shoulders, but this didn't last long.

He did a very good job of holding Daddy's hand, though.

He saw Tapirs.

And elephants...

He had fun seeing all the animals and making their perspective noises.

I think this one is actually him looking at the elephants.

He saw giraffes.

We tried to get a family photo, but Miles wouldn't have it!

Can't remember what he is looking at here.

This is near some monkeys.

He really enjoyed their new penguin exhibit as well. Not sure who the read haired child is, but she seemed to enjoy showing Miles the penguins.

Here are some random pictures of animals:

And one of Miles riding a bear:

We ate lunch at the zoo, but apparently I didn't edit pictures of lunch yet. I'll have to post pics of that next. After lunch, we headed to the gift shop, bought Miles a little stuffed elephant, and then headed northward. It was nap time and time to head out.

It was great seeing Tim, Heidi and Ethne. Ethne is such a cutie and I'm glad she and Miles finally met!

Minnie

On Miles' actual birthday, his "Minnie" arrived in the mail. He likes it as much as I thought he would! He wore it the whole day, despite the fact that it was 80+ degrees outside :)



Aren't those ears so cute?

Here he's showing me his "minnie ears".

And when asked how old he is, he's "two many"!

As time goes by...

Holy cow! I cannot believe that my baby is two years old!

I was induced when I was 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant. My blood pressure was up a bit, and my doc thought it was time to get him out. I reluctantly agreed to an induction. Sunday September 16, 2007 at 2100, I arrived at the hospital for some cervidil (to help ripen my already very ripe cervix).

The next morning, my doc came in and broke my water at 0744. That immediately put me into a whirlwind labor. The contractions came on fast and strong. I didn't think I would last my entire labor without an epidural (though that was the plan), so after about an hour and a half, I asked my nurse for one. She told me that I was close to having my baby and I thought she was nutsola! I finally convinced her that I was no where near having my baby and needed the epidural. She went to get the anesthesiologist, but he was busy, so it was going to be about 20min. That was totally fine with me; there was an end in sight!

I got up (not sure how) and went to the bathroom, got back in bed and my nurse checked me. She told me I was 8-9cm and 100% effaced. She made sure I still wanted the epidural, to which I replied yes! I was still convinced I had hours and hours of labor left. No sooner did I get comfortable in bed again, and I had to push! My nurse checked me, and sure enough, I was ready. Twenty quick minutes later, my baby was born. All in all, it was 2 hours and 12 min of labor and 20 min of pushing. He was born at 1016 on Monday September 17, 2007, weighing 8# 6oz and 21.75 inches long. All day, I kept saying over and over "I can't believe he's here already, that was so fast. I can't believe he's here!"

When my doc placed him on my chest, my first thoughts were "Is he cute? He's too messy to be cute yet. He has a mullet. Oh, no! My baby has a mullet! It's ok, it'll go away. He's here! He's here! I cannot believe he's here! He's mine....he is sooo cute and he's mine! He's tiny. I cannot believe how tiny he is! He's cute, he's here, he's mine, he's tiny and he's perfect!" That was all probably in about 2 seconds! Oh, and I thought he would be closer to 9+ pounds, so he looked tiny to me.



This is my sweet boy on his very first birthday!

Funny thing is, he still looks exactly the same to me :)
He has my Dad's nose, which I noticed right away. Perfect in every way, minus a little subdural hematoma (bruise on his brain from coming out too fast!).

One year later, he was a babbling, crawling, almost walking, bordering on no longer being a baby.

This is him on his 1st birthday.

And at his first birthday party.

The caterpillar cake. I had a polka dot theme, with polka dot invites, and all the food was round.

And now it is another year later. I cannot believe how fast time goes by!

But he's still part baby :)

Birthday Party!

After the fair, we headed home for a pizza party. Ben and I cooked up pizzas while our guests watched the Seahawks and listened to music.

Miles had quite the pile of gifts! And some repeat decorations from last year. I hadn't really planned to have a real "party". It kind of ended up being a little more than I had intended!

The guests included Grandma and Grandpa McLane, Ben's friend Travis,

And Grandma and Grandpa O'Connor.

Miles enjoyed being tickled by Grandpa O and kept asking for more!

Last year I made him a special caterpillar cake. I'll show some pics in the next post. Well, turns out I set the bar high last year, so I had to do something that came close. My parents had purchased a train cake pan for me a month ago, so I used that for his cake this year.

Ben baked it the day before, and I decorated it that morning.

I wanted to make it bright and colorful.

After the cake, which Miles didn't really eat, just wanted to play with, we started opening gifts. Though he did keep saying "Choo-choo cake, nummy!".

He was a very tired boy (now long past nap time), we gave him a bottle so he wouldn't scream when we took the cake away.

He actually "got" opening them this year. He understood that there was something fun inside!

He got a lot of great gifts. This is a Velcro sandwich set. He made a very tasty looking sandwich!

This was from Granparents O.

Grandparents M gave him this truck that makes construction noises. Miles loves it!

He got a lot of new puzzles from Grandparents O and from Ben and myself.

He got a shape sorter, some books, a couple outfits, some DVDs (Thomas the Train, Chip and Dale in Technicolor, Bob the Builder, and some Veggie Tales). He had more gifts than I anticipated!

Sorry for the quality of some of the pics, Ben was the photographer and had his finger over the flash, or part of it, for a lot of the pics!

I think that sums up his birthday non-party this year!