Happy 1st Birthday Sweet Marin!

Marin turned one at the end of November! OH MY! How does time go so quickly? Well, we had her party all planned for the weekend before her actual birthday, since her birthday falls so close to Thanksgiving. We also had baby dedication at our church, so we figured why not roll it all into one big celebration. Yes, I was a bit over ambitious! Needless to say, things didn't turn out as planned...Kaden had some type of flu (4 day fever), so we rolled all the celebrating into one day, Sunday. It was fun and Marin LOVED every part of it.

Here are the pictures, again, better late than never (is this the new mantra for my life? I think from November-January it just may be!)

Marin and Gramie

Marin and Grandma Steckel before Baby Dedication (thanks Auntie for the cute dress!!!!)

Kaden and Grandpa Steckel

Marin in her new "car" from mommy and daddy

Marin in her new chair on her new phone

Getting ready for cake (she loved the hat!)

Cupcake was a HIT!

Mommy's birthday girl

Birthday girl with daddy and Grandpa Steckel

Getting snuggles from big brother

Purely Random Pictures

First pony tail

Outside in the sun...in November! Life is good!

Thinking about walking

This is what happens when your mom tries to make a knotted lovey without reading directions

"Beaver" teeth from Grandpa Mike: Scary, no. Hilarious, yes!

Halloween 2009

We had a super fun Halloween weekend last weekend. Dad, Teri, and my Grandma came to visit. How fun it was to have family around to share the excitement! Kaden liked dressing up, LOVED having Grandpa Mike, Grandma Teri and Great Grandma around, and had fun trick or treating with his friends. Marin hung out in the stroller. She was tired, but didn't make a peep the entire hour we were out. Kaden was ready to quit after an hour (even though his friends kept going) because I told him he could eat a piece of candy when we got home and, well, he spotted the candy he wanted...a FULL SIZE Snickers bar! After that indulgence, he passed out candy, raked leaves off the front side walk and chatted to his friends.

What a great year of Halloween celebrating!

Marin with Great Grandma

Our sweet Bee

Buzz, the Firefighter and his trusty Dalmatian dog (baby brother)

The Neighborhood Gang

Trick or Treating (aka: racing to see who could ring the door bell)

Buzz retires early to enjoy his Snickers

Mommy's favorite super hero!

(Notice the pumpkins...we ended up with pumpkins decorated 4 different ways this year: painted, Mr. Potato Head-ised, carved, and poked with lite-brite type pins! We had fun for weeks ahead of time and what an eclectic display! Thanks to generous grandparents we had 8 pumpkins!)