And the final birthday party

Jack, Ella, Trent, and David celebrated their first birthday together with a day at the park, followed by dinner out together (the parents chaperoned). They had a great time, especially with the cupcakes (which were really good - thanks Janell!) and throwing food on the floor.

I should get a raise for all the overtime I've been putting in

"I think I've figured out the problem - you've got a jam in the phlangey. "

(ten points to whoever can comment and provide the correct source for "phlangey" You'll either know what it means or you don't. Teresa, you better guess this or all my birthday presents and Christmas presents for the past few years must have gone to waste.)

Happy Mother's Day

Hey Jack, I don't hang out in your crib all day

Outdoor fun

Go Cardinals!

Jack is quickly becoming a huge Cardinals fan. He's been to two games already this year and didn't want to leave until the end of the game, even though both were night games. He really enjoyed everyone cheering and clapping and would start jumping up and down on Corey's lap and join in the celebration. At one of the games, Jack got everyone in the row behind us to start chanting "Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack" and cheering for him! He would jump up and down, clapping, then turn around to look at his fan club! This went on for about 20 minutes before the people stopped chanting his name, but Jack kept turning back around to look at them every time after he'd clap! He also loved walking around the stadium and watching all the people; the cars driving by on the interstate were also a big hit.

Fun times

Boo! It's Jack!

Escapee

WANTED

JACK FRANKLIN

FOR NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT, GOING THROUGH THREE+ OUTFITS A DAY, CHASING THE DOG, AND HIDING OUR SHOES

GOT HIM! IF HIS LAST NAME WAS HILTON, HE'D BE OUT ALREADY

AH-HA! YOU CAN'T KEEP ME LOCKED UP FOR LONG!

(especially if you don't shut the door on me!)

(in case you can't tell, playing in Lola's crate is the highlight of Jack's day!)

Jack's Birthday Party

We celebrated Jack's first birthday with our families at a local pizza place. Jack loved the toasted ravioli and had a great time as the center of attention. After dinner, we returned to our house to open presents and have cake and ice cream.

More first birthday festivities

The Reach family (all of them, finally, at the same time) came to St. Louis for Jack's first birthday party. We spent the afternoon of their arrival at the brewery tour, which was lots of fun. Jack enjoyed the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales; the boys enjoyed the beer (and Gus's pretzels), and the rest of us just enjoyed hanging out with everyone.

In dad's shirt

I got this idea from a parenting magazine - a woman had taken a picture of her daughter every year of her life, on her birthday, wearing one of the mom's old swimsuits. She had pictures from her first birthday until her 18th, and it was really neat. So we decided to do this with Jack, using one of Corey's dress shirts (it would have been a little strange making Jack wear one of my swimsuits!).

Still catching up on photos

If you didn't notice, I've gone back to April and are slowing catching up on adding a few photos from all the events that went on. So the earlier ones I've added correspond to earlier in April and they get more recent.

I'm now up to Jack's birthday - there are obviously TONS of photos from this. We had a few different events - the first being his actual birthday, which Corey and I celebrated with him at home, just the three of us. We had balloons (Elmo and 1st Birthday), Elmo party hats and plates, a big beach ball (which he loves and made me question why I spent more than a dollar on any of his gifts since this was the most popular one!), and a pineapple upside down cake. Grandma and Grandpa Franklin stopped by to bring Jack some more balloons (a big fish and Mickey Mouse). The big news on this day was that Jack took his first steps! It was really exciting and especially fun because it was just the three of us and Corey was home to see it happen! Jack was exhausted by the time we brought out the cake, so he didn't really get into it too much. And we wanted to save the icing for his party. He did love the Elmo plate.

Here are some photos from this celebration: