Soren's First Birthday Celebrations

This week was a big week for us. It was Soren's first birthday, Greg was also in town from Germany, as well as my parents and brother from Ohio, and some other excitement.

We went to the library for Soren's storytime this week. It has been a bit much for us to try to make both storytimes in the same week, so lately we have been alternating between Keira's and Soren's.



The weather was pretty wet all day, so we didn't do much outside today. I stayed up late working on Soren's cake.

Tuesday was Soren's actual first birthday. He wore a duplicate outfit of the one he wore home from the hospital for some pictures to show his growth.
Approximately 6 months old:
Soren's ride home from the hospital (2 days old)
Keira conked out in the afternoon. She looked so cute hugging her dolls as she slept. I was sad that I had to wake her so that we could go to dinner.

Since Ryan had scouts tonight, we had to keep our celebration short, but we did go out to Pei Wei as a family for dinner, and then brought Soren home for his cake. It was very entertaining. He didn't eat much of this cake at all, but really enjoyed playing with it. It was everywhere!


Soren did not like his party hat.
He really wanted to get the cake.
The slideshow shows his fun with the cake.

We also have a short video of it.

After the cake, we did presents from us.







On Wednesday, we kept things low key and I watched Jared and Kate. We stayed in all morning. It was great, because everyone had fun and Soren was able to get a really good nap. This was important because we ended up spending 2 hours at the doctor's office for his well baby visit! Everything was fine, and amazingly, Soren is in the 75th percentile for height and 25th for weight- quite the opposite of Keira.



I was a couple minutes late to GOTR practice as a result of the very long doctor's visit, but it was a beautiful day to be outside. We went to Maybury as a family once I got home. It was a bit chilly as it got dark, so we didn't have time to play.

Thursday was another busy day. Soren slept the entire time Keira was at preschool, so I had to do errands for Soren's weekend festivities after I picked her up. After errands, we did have some fun outside in the yard and at our swings. We made a quick trip to Maybury, but were in such a hurry that there was no time to play today either. We had a quick appointment at home, and then dashed down to Canton to see Greg and grab some dinner. We kept the kids up way to late, but it was a good visit.





On Friday, we kept the morning low key, but still had to do some last minute errands. Keira and Soren took decent naps since they were so tired from staying up late. We did our own thing tonight, and went to the mall for pretzels. We also ate dinner at the Pita Cafe, a Mid-Eastern restaurant that was very good. I also worked on some party prep this evening after the kids were asleep. It was a late night for me.


Saturday was the big day of Soren's party. It was a great time. The weather was less than stellar. Ryan had to grill in the rain, but everything turned out great. My parents and brother came up from Ohio, and we had a few friends over. Soren had a great time opening presents and enjoyed his cake this time. Keira also enjoyed seeing a few of her friends and did OK with the fact that it wasn't her birthday.

After the party, I was able to get in an 11 mile run around the neighborhood. The weather had dried out a bit, and Valerie was able to join me for 5K in the middle. It was fun to have some company because running 6 laps of the pond/lake isn't the easiest way to do that many miles. That evening, Ryan attended the Priesthood Session of General Conference.

We had a restful morning on Sunday, and let Soren open his last present from Nana and papa. Then, we let him try it out! Soren was bopping his head to the music the whole ride. He liked being forward.



Being Conference Sunday, we went over to Kris and Linda's to spend the day visiting, eating, and watching conference. This was the first day the Greg was here that we were able to spend a good amount of time with him. We had a great breakfast of french toast made with chocolate chip brioche. We enjoyed watching Conference, and had a very nice dinner between sessions with Sharon.

Up for next week, Keira has her first field trip for preschool, and we have some playdates. Greg is here for a few more days, and so we will get together with him more as well.