It's Time for a Party!

Happy Birthday Winfield! Everybody, children and adults, who reads this blog AND knows where we live is invited to Win's birthday party. Win turns 1 on February 28, but who wants to have a party on a Wednesday!? So, on Saturday the 3rd we will be getting together at our house at 4:00pm for a party. Win will show you everything that he has learned in the last year, like waving, blowing raspberries and dancing. It has been a productive year.

We are also going to serve Sloppy Joes at 5:00pm. Following that we are going to introduce Win to cake. He will have his own cake to demolish, so that should be some really good entertainment. At 6:30pm, about the time that he tires of his daily activities, Win will retire to his bedchamber for the evening. At that time any guest who is above the age of 10 is welcome to stay and hang out for board games and a movie. We love big crowds so don't be bashful.

Because this is a birthday party gifts are traditionally the custom. We want everyone to know that gifts are not expected at this party. Win is a really little guy. If you do want to lavish gifts on him following are a couple of ideas.
-iTunes giftcard, iTunes has a lot of children's music and Win really likes music.
-Board books, Sandra Boynton, PD Eastman, etc...
-Wooden toys (see www.oompa.com) and things like that

See you there!

One Hundred and One

Yesterday Win and I visited my 100-year-old friend Mary VandeWege. Yesterday was her 100th birthday and she doesn't look a day over 85.

Dimnet Chapel

Last week Win and I went over to the Hope College Chapel to take some practice pictures. I wanted to experiment with the lighting in the building because I'm shooting a wedding there on February 10. I am excited to be able to shoot a wedding in such a beautiful building.
Win got a little bored and kept trying to get out of the stroller.

I Just Find This Funny

Why is it that the photos that I catch of Win crying make me laugh? He just looks so cute. Especially since he isn't a fussy baby.

Daily Visits From Randall

Randall and I spent the morning together yesterday. We shopped for a birthday gift for his Grandmother's 80th birthday. Randall posted on Grandma's House, he helped me take down the last of the Christmas decorations from the church, and he gave Win a bottle.

Bath Time

Win really likes taking baths. Can you tell?

This One's for Bruce

iTunes

The other night it was late and Win got a little grumpy. We did what any other parent of our generation would do. We let him listen to his music on iTunes and watch the Visualizer.

Learing to read

Win attention span is about 25 seconds. So even though he really likes it when we read to him he usually gets bored by the second page or so. At that time he usually squirms a lot and trys to eat the book that we are reading. As a solution we have found that giving him a book to hold while we are reading another really extends his attention span. He can last through an entire book and sometimes as many as five.

Duckface

Win's latest thing is making this face all the time. It's also a favorite face from which to blow rasberries.

More Laundry

Sometimes I need to take Win downstairs with me to get the laundry. When I do that, I don't tend to have enough hands to carry up Win and the laundry at the same time. So, I tend to dump him in the basket and carry them all up together. He gets very still and just lays there, sort of like this picture.

Getting into trouble, and baskets

Win really likes to climb. A couple of weeks ago he climbed into a basket and sat down. He was so proud of himself that I had to take a picture.

Happy Baby

Jared and I have such a happy baby!

Do this for free.

Here is a little preview of what Skype can do. Skype is a free program that you can download from the Internet. All you need is a webcam and a microphone (most webcams have microphones built in). Anybody up for free video phone calls from Win?

What I see at home:


What Jared sees at work:


The audio is amazing. It is much clearer that a telephone.

Christmas Celebration at the Dean's

Win wasted no time making himself at home at Grandpa and Grandma's house.

We spent the early part of this week celebrating Christmas with my entire family. It is a rare occurance that we all can be together now that my brother lives in California with his wife and kids.

Matt, Johanna's husband, made and army of these for one of our meals. I thought that they were blog worthy.

We celebrated Christmas Eve on New Year's Day with a wonderful meal prepared by my Jed and Sara. In my scheduling of the week I neglected to remember that football tends to be a popular activity for guys on New Year's Day. Can you tell where the TV is?


Jed and Sara have one daughter, Esther, and another on the way. Esther is 2 months older than Win. Win can outcrawl her but Esther seems to be more intelligent.

Esther also seems to have just a little bit more hair.

The 2 babies had a blast doing everything together. The are so close in age that they are doing mostly the same things.

Tears were shed when the cousins parted.