I should post more often...

but who has time?! Between cooking, cleaning, taking care of Oliver, and working I have practically no free time. When I do get free time I just want to sit like a lump and do nothing. Although for the past few days when I get home from work Bob and I will sit and talk or play a game. AAAAh, quality time! It's a good way to wind down the day. We've been going to bed earlier too. Oliver sleeps through the night with NO wakings most of the time now. It's so nice...and he does it without having used the CIO method. Now that he's sleeping better we'll be moving his bed into his room as soon as we get the blinds up in there. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's the next step. It will be nice to have our own room back.

since he's a year old now...

He's got some new material...

He says tickle tickle tickle
He helps put on his clothes (been doing this for a while)
He walks if you hold his hand
He likes stacking things (cups, bowls, blocks)
He speaks gibberish fluently
He sits in his car seat facing the front
He dances to music
He orders food from the kids menu when we go out
He doesn't put everything in his mouth (right away)
He plays peek-a-boo (he ducks behind something and then pops out..it's too cute!)
He makes vroom noises when he plays with cars


I'm sure this isn't all but it's all I can think of for now. He's a big boy and so smart and cute and funny! What a flirt, too.

oliver at the zoo

He's not too sure about that cold stuff!

Checking out the bears.

Pointing at puffins.

By the polar bear tank.

a few more animal pictures

the elk...

We saw the elk...one male and one female...oh how peaceful they look..

but wait! What's this?

Yikes! we backed off the rail as soon as we read it but not before the male elk spotted us and gave out a warning. It sounded like a very LOUD rusty gate. He did it 3 times while we were there even though we were far from the rail after the first time. We had to keep pointing out the sign to other people because they just walked right up.

An interesting fact about his rack - once breeding season is over the antlers fall off. The female elk will eat them - since they are high in calcium and phosphorous they help to nourish the baby elk. How cool is THAT?!

some more pictures of animals...

We got a good view of the elephants because when we came over they were throwing fruit out to them. There were 3 (2 female and on male) and they all came up really close.

This is the grizzly bear. He came up really close as well although he wasn't being fed. He was HUGE!
Here are some bison that were sitting on top of a hill. They didn't move much but they looked pretty cool up there.

The ocelot was sitting there waiting for us when we walked up. He stretched and then went back into the shade of the trees.

On his actual birthday...

we went to the zoo. Here's a few pictures of Oliver checking out the animals. The gorilla played peek-a boo with him. She kept peeking around that metal bar to look at him.

He's pointing at the flamingos.

The bear came right up to see him. That rock is the closest he could get to the viewing area. Oliver waved and called him "kitty kitty kitty!" Some people looked at us like we were crazy.
The otters put on quite a show for him. There were two of them and they just kept swimming by and doing summersaults under the water.

The zoo was rather deserted since all the kids are back in school so we had the place mostly to ourselves. It was nice to not have to push through people to see or worry about anyone getting in front of Oliver so he couldn't see.

matching shirts...

This is the back view of the matching shirts Bob ordered for us...

and here's the front. Underneath the little symbol is our names (Mom, Dad, Oliver)

cowboy family...

Here we are dressed up for the party