Happy 1/2 birthday Caleb!

Yesterday, in celebration of his half-birthday, Caleb and I made yummy Cinnamon Rolls.  Unfortunately, two is hard and he missed out on trying them after dinner.  So today, we had a fun little celebration after nap time! 

Two really is the best age!  Love this sweet boy so so much!

Abel's Birth Story.

January 19th, I headed to bed feeling defeated.  At nearly 5 days past our due date, I'd been having contractions on and off for over a week with little progression.  We'd spent the past two evenings walking laps around the mall in hopes of moving things along.  Then...

At 2:30am January 20th, my water broke...like Caleb's birth, once my water broke I waited for those contractions to begin.  It was nearly 4am by the time I felt confident that my contractions were strong enough to call Janis, our midwife.  She told us to keep her updated, but that she was going to try to sleep for a few more hours and to call if there was much of a change.  (*I'm sure she was thinking things were going to progress slowly like they did for Caleb.)

By 7am, we knew it was time to call Janis again.  She arrived around 8, but after seeing me decided that she should take a nap as she'd been up all night with her little one and we surely were going to be a while. 

Around 10:30am, active labor really started to kick in.  We walked laps around the house (inside of course!) and climbed the stairs repeatedly!  It wasn't until around 12:30 when our nurse suggested I try to take a shower that things REALLY started.  By 1pm I was ready to push.

Abel Henry was born at 1:31pm, after a total of 11 hours of labor!

This video tells the story so much better than I ever could.  What a blessing to be able to look back and see this incredible experience from another perspective.  Thank you Joyce for capturing our sweet boy's home birth so beautifully!

(**I pushed for all of 10 minutes - which caused a lot of bruising for our little guy, so in the video you'll notice poor Abel's face is swollen very blue.  The swelling and bruising disappeared within a few days.)

Caleb's 1/2 birthday!

Happy 1/2 Birthday, sweet boy!!

 Started with the sprinkles!

Oh no!  Where'd it go!?!?

around here.

It's been a busy summer around here.  Here's a little re-cap... (click on the links for full posts)

Finished our chicken coop.
Our baby turned ONE!
Made a BIG announcement!
Spent the day at the lake with friends.
A video of Caleb's first year.
Celebrated our boy's first birthday with a party!
Got our first egg!!
Lots of growing going on in our garden.
Visited the Children's Museum while my friend Jess was in town.

Also, see our weekly "the 52 project" photos here.

a first birthday party

It was so much fun to celebrate our boy this weekend with family and friends.

I wanted to make a cake for Caleb's birthday, but knew I wanted to steer clear of a lot of sugar and flour, so when I found this awesome smash cake recipe it was perfect!  I ended up making 3 cakes (each recipe made one layer) and stacking them to get the look I wanted.  I even made Caleb a special cupcake all to himself!  I used our fresh raspberries to make a filling between the layers and topped it all off with a delicious cream cheese frosting.  It wasn't the prettiest cake, but when I added the sprinkles to the top, it was very fitting for a First Birthday!

I didn't realize until an hour or so into the party that all our friends have GIRLS...so we had to get a photo of Caleb with all the girls!  Seriously, where are all the boys!?

I'm pretty sure Caleb didn't mind though!

Caleb was only briefly interesting in opening gifts...

Once he realized the tissue paper was in the bag, he was in heaven!

He's all boy.  Loves anything with wheels!

Pretty sure Uncle Josh & Aunt Ris win the coolest gift award.  Not the fun car, but...

but the balloons on top!

Thank you to all our family and friends who made this day so special for us.  We loved sharing this milestone with you all!!

Celebrating our boy today.

It's amazing just how fast 365 days can pass...

love this boy to pieces and can't wait to spend the day celebrating him with our family and friends!

our little guy is ONE!

Celebrating our little guy's birthday is more special than we ever imagined.  Not only is this little guy a whole year old, but WE are a year into this parenting gig... and that's quite an accomplishment for all!

We started the day with some homemade birthday donuts...Caleb's first ever!  

To celebrate, we spent much of the day outdoors, his absolute favorite place to be!

We sorted rocks, practiced walking, and played in his new sandbox that we made for his birthday!  

Caleb Roscoe, a year ago you stole our hearts and continue to fill all the sweet spots!  We love you very much and can't wait to celebrate you for years to come!  Happy Birthday, sweet boy!  XOXO

love you always, mama & daddy!