Jonas' 1st Birthday

We were so blessed to be able to share the fun of Jonas' 1st birthday with so much of our family. I made Jonas' cake egg free and dairy free and it was pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

We definitely didn't go all out with decorations as you can see from my home-made sign. But at least it was enough to pull together some semblance of a theme.

We had our friend Chip (who is a fabulous, professional photographer) shoot some family photos and displayed them on this table where guests were encouraged to write cards to Jonas. The cards were started with things like, "Jonas you are special because..." or "When I see Jonas I think...". So we got some really great responses! I think it will be neat for him to look back on those notes when he's older.
Here is the birthday boy wearing his birthday outfit in front of his birthday sign.















Ezra and Daddy were both pretty excited about Jonas' special day.
















Opening just a few of the many wonderful presents!














Ezra got almost as many presents as Jonas! This picture looks like he's asking, "Am I not supposed to open these? I thought you said these were mine??" He was a very good boy the whole evening.









Time for cake!


The aftermath.












Jonas with friends and family.
















Jonas helping with the clean up.











Happy and tired birthday boy.

new blogs

I just created two new blogs, so if you are checking--look at both....if you want. :) The next one will be about Jonas' first birthday party so stay tuned for that, as well as some more wrap up pictures from our trip to Houston.

The Houston Zoo

Here is Ezra with his cousin Armani. Ezra loves to be tickled and Armani loves to do the tickling.
















At the zoo:
Ezra and Armani sticking their heads out to see the gophers running around in the habitat.



Mike doing some gopher hunting too.















Ezra and Jonas petting/brushing the goats in the petting zoo. Maybe Ezra was warming up to the animals at this point because he had almost as much fun and Jonas did.




We went to the zoo with Mike's sister Jenifer and her kids Patrick and Armani, and Mike's dad and Mike's brother, Caleb. It was HOT (therefore the animals weren't very active), but everyone had a blast.



Here's Jonas in the lion water fountain.





















There was a tunnel that went through this aquarium. It took some coaxing, but Ezra finally decided to try it.

















Cooling off in the splash park and grilling some burgers.

Visit to Houston-Kemah

We just got back from a two-week visit to Houston. Since we had back to back over seas tours, the military graciously paid for 1 trip back home. It was nice because we flew commercial (as opposed to being at the mercy of a cheap, yet unpredictable military flight) AND we had 4 seats. Despite the extra room, the 9 1/2-10 hour flight was still not very pleasant as the kids refused to sleep for 90% of the flight.

This first picture was actually taken about a week before we left to go to Houston. We went on a bike ride and the boys fell asleep holding hands. Too sweet!

The next pics are of some backyard fun with a kiddie pool and bubbles. What more could a boy want?




A couple of days after we arrived in Houston, we took a trip down to Kemah. We walked around the boardwalk, watched Ezra play in the water, rode the train, fed some fish, and ate some seafood.

Ezra was really scared of this shark.



Nana and Jonas on the train.