Bigger and Better

Hi there,

It's been almost 2 months since the last post. Lots of stuff has happened. Hadden is now well over 1 year old and he LOVES to walk and play. New skills:

• He can still walk - just much better now. Even with his hands down at his side like a "big person"...or a person who's not drunk.
• With the babbling he really "brings it" now. Many more sounds, phonemes (is that right?), etc. Still, unintelligible though.
• He has taken eating to the "next level". He eats just about anything now and if you are eating anything he gets real cranky until you give him some. Yesterday he had oranges, an avacado, scrambled eggs and flapjacks for breakfast...which is what we had too. If there was a contest for speed eating like that Coney Island hot dog one then I would put money on Hadden. He's fast.
• Showers. Hadden loves showers and pretty much hates baths. So, he gets a shower every day. Luckily, we have a shower with two heads in it so it's a family thing. This will have to change as he gets into his teens.

Now, on to the parties. First, he had a small party on his birthday (12 April 2008) in the back yard. It was a glorious 75F that day (first warm day in the spring) so we had dinner on the back patio. Hadden had a special birthday cake made from a recipe in an organic baby cookbook. Thus, it had no sugar, frosting made from yogurt and lots of carrots. Nonetheless, he loved it (see picture below).

Hadden pounds his birthday cake. "BEEFCAKE"!

Wendy was there and Donald stopped by too. All in all, a great day. We also got him one of those tow-behind bike chariots (actually, it's a Burley) and we went to Woodland Park that day too. He has to wear a bike helmet in this thing and he looks rather funny (see below).

Hadden tricked out for the bike ride

After that, Grandpa and Grandma Muench came over for a visit at the end of April for birthday #2 (we celebrate a lot here in Seattle). The weather was fine if not spectacular and it was wonderful to see everyone together. We will be back out in Hawaii in June for a week to visit them and Auntie Michelle, Uncle Andrew and Cousins Haze and Kash. Hadden, with his super pale white skin, will need LOTS of sunscreen.


Birthday celebration #3 was at the beginning of May when we had a pool party at the Ballard Pool. You can reserve the pool (and then the outside area for cake for the next hour) on the weekend there. Bunch of folks came with kids in tow. The kids had a great time in the shallow end and the adults had about as much fun on the water slide and rope swing in the deep end. Usually, at a kid's party it's the kids going off the rope swing - not here. Most all the kids were too young to use the rope swing but all the adults were old enough. Glad to see it didn't go to waste.

With Autie Sara, Uncle Matt and Cousin Gabe in the pool.

This last week (10=20 May 2008) Yvonne went to Europe for 10 days and left the boys home to fend for themselves. Yvonne will find out later that it's always a risk to leave the house to a couple of boys for 10 days. Luckily, everything went fine. I brought Hadden to a couple of my softball games (two nice grandmother ladies took care of him while played) and Angela and Wendy also helped. Hadden had brisket that week and loved it. We went to Bainbridge Island to stay at Wendy's on Saturday and went to the beach, park and pool (a full day even if you are not a 1-year old). Hadden loved the sandy/rocky beach, ran around at the park (it was 90F that day - whew) and swam around in the great Bainbridge pool that has a kiddie pool, hot tub, water slide, lazy river, 6-inch shallow end, rope swing, diving board, basketball hoop and water sprayer. Hadden didn't really nap that day but slept well that night once he actually fell asleep (techincally, after both Wendy and Steve fell asleep: Hadden = 1, Wendy/Steve = 0). All went well while Yvonne was gone save for the time Hadden "dropped a deuce" in our shower while I wasn't looking. He loves to shower these days so we do that instead of a bath. It's all cleaned up now so no worries.

Running around at Battle Point park on Bainbridge.

Yvonne is back now and the beat goes on. Yeseterday: Bainbridge and a return trip to the pool, today: the park. Also, we got to watch the new Indy Jones movie today while Angela watched Hadden this afternoon. Not bad. I kept hearing the loud THX sounds in the theater and thinking they were too loud for Hadden but had to remind myself that he wasn't there.

That's all for now,

steve