Daddy's Birthday

On Friday at the Wehrman household, we celebrated daddy's birthday. He was turning 32 this year, and isn't exactly happy about it, so Hunter and mommy tried to make it as special as possible.

Every morning, we are awakened by our bushy-tailed toddler climbing in our bed at about 7:30. We take turns getting up with him and letting the other person sleep in, and I will be the first to admit that Greg is the one that gets up 4 times out of 5 (which I am very thankful for!) Anyway, on daddy's birthday, I got up with Hunter. We both ate breakfast and then proceeded to make daddy's cake. Hunter now "helps" momma in the kitchen any time I am cooking something. When he sees me start cooking, he pulls up a kitchen chair by the island right away to help me. As he's only 22 months old, his "help" usually means more work for me, but I think it is so fun. I have always pictured my kids helping in the kitchen and am so excited our first is old enough to do so! We made daddy a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Hunter's favorite part was licking the beaters after we were finished. :)

When daddy woke up, we did presents. We gave him candy, and a tshirt from Target that he had pointed out. It has his dream Firebird on it, so of course, he wanted it.

Here he is opening the box and smiling because he saw what it was. :)

Here, he is obliging me by letting me take a picture. :) He's not a picture person, but let me take it so I could update the blogger world! Greg also received an iPod Touch, which was for Father's Day and his birthday, so he's been enjoying that present for a while now.

We relaxed much of the morning, ate frozen pizza and let Hunter take a nap. I frosted the cake, with was ALMOST disastrous! It is so hot here (even with the A/C on!) that the frosting was half melted just sitting in the cupboard. After I was finished, the top layer of the cake kept sliding off of the bottom - I had to stick it in the fridge! Thank goodness, that saved it.

After Hunter woke, we decided to check out the splash park that is at the Residents' Club in our neighborhood. The Club is only a mile away from our house, and has a big pool, a splash park, a couple of slides, a fitness center, and a lap pool, just to name some of the stuff.

Hunter was a little unsure of the whole thing at first, but he warmed up to the water (mostly.)

This is the splash park, but because of the big bucket at the top that would drop water, Hunter wouldn't even go near it. So we stayed in the calm waters of the pool. He had fun with daddy holding him and splashing momma (a nice trick he picked up from daddy.)

We found some mostly shaded lawn chairs and relaxed for a bit too.

After the water park, we went home and got the mail, which included Greg's gift from his parents: a Garmin GPS. He absolutely LOVES it, and has been using it to take him places, even if he's already been there before. He is enjoying breaking it in. :) Thanks, mom and dad!

We then ate some lasagna, which is Greg's favorite meal. Then of course, we closed with the cake. It was a simple day, but I enjoyed just being with my boys, and I hope Gregory enjoyed his day too.

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Interesting or Amusing Signs

I was a little worried about this week's assignment, because we just moved here a couple weeks ago so I haven't had much time to explore yet. I was worried that I wouldn't find a sign in time, but don't worry, I think I found a great one-and it was by accident too! I decided to make a trip to the local library and found this sign in the parking lot. Now, let me say that this is the 4th state I have lived in, and never before have I seen a speed limit sign like this...

Is this strange to anyone else???

Big Boy

Once again, we're in a stage where I am amazed at how big my baby is getting. I know, I know, he's not a baby, but he's still MY baby and will be even after he gets married.

It seemed like all of the sudden during the week we moved here to AZ, he found the confidence to try (almost, I'll explain later) any word we ask him to say. So, since then, we've been working on manners. He only needs reminded to say 'thank you' (which sounds like din noo) now about 25% of the time, and the cutie pie even thanks us for changing his diaper. He says "oh no," "oh man," "uh oh," "amen," and "Bella" very clearly. He knows to hold our hand when he gets in bed because we're going to pray. And he knows at the end of the prayer at bedtime (and at mealtimes) to say "AMEN!" He's still a little confused with amen though. We sang Rockabye Baby the other day, and when I was finished he said AMEN! But we're working on it. :) He also knows to say "down" when he's finished eating in the high chair.

He can also blow his nose in a tissue, which I think is pretty impressive for a 22 month old.

He understands about 75% of what we say, and for a toddler, he's a pretty good listener. He also is OCD about closing things, which I think the Lord instilled in him for a reason. Mama has a tendency to leave cupboards and drawers open (unintentionally!) and Hunter goes behind me and closes them all.

Another baby thing he's losing is sucking his thumb. I think it's so sweet to see him do it, but Greg decided it's time to break him of it. It's funny, becuase I always told myself that pacifiers would be gone with our children before the first birthday, yet I'm having a hard time letting go of him sucking his thumb, despite the fact that he's almost two. But, I am trying to break him of it along with Greg, even if it does break my heart.

What's funny is that, like I said, he will try to repeat almost anything we say, yet when he tell him to say "yes," without fail, even when we try to trick him, we get a loud "NO!" everytime. He may be big, but he's still stubborn.

Short and Sweet

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Relaxation

My relaxation post this week is all about my son relaxing. I guess toddlers get to rest more than us adults!

Fun in the Sun

Half Marathon

Don't worry, I didn't forget to post about the Rock n Roll Chicago Half Marathon! It was August 2nd in downtown Chicago. We left our house at 5am and made the trip down there. The gun sounded at 6:30am, but they had different corrals according to your projected finish time that started a couple minutes in between eachother so I didn't actually start running until 6:55am. The weather was PERFECT and I felt great. I was so thankful that my husband (and of course our son), his dad, my parents and sister and my aunt and uncle made the trip to see me run. It was so exciting to run the track and see my family members cheering me on. I also, was so touched by the sense of pride I saw in my husband's face each time I ran passed him. It really kept me going throughout the race.

I really did feel good the first 2/3 of the race. I would walk the water stops, but besides that, I ran most of it. About mile 10, I decided to walk for a minute because my legs were so tired, but it actually hurt MORE to walk. It is a weird feeling when you run that far where you almost feel like you are numb from the waist down, and it's harder to get one foot in front of the other while walking, so that did keep me running.

I crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 45 seconds. My goal was to do it in under 2:30, so I was really happy with my time being that it's my first one. I got my big honkin' metal, as the Rock n Roll Series likes to call them, which I am very proud of. I finished in 8890th place out of 14453 finishers.

There is another Rock n Roll half marathon here in Phoenix in January that Greg and I are considering doing together. I thought after I finished this one, I would want to do a full marathon, but I remember thinking after crossing the finish line that I could not imagine only being half way there! So for now, I'll stick with half marathons!