Mikey's First Birthday

This post was written by Dylan in honor of his best buddy.

This is Mikey. It's his birthday! Today he is one year old.

This is the party food and drinks. We made some toast fishes with tuna and pickle relish as scales and pimentos as eyes, Kool-Aid, and a chocolate cake.

Here is the chocolate cake. Do you see the cards? The one that says "Happy Birthday, Mikey!" is a pop up card that I made. Meghan drew a picture of Mikey with red crayon. Caitlyn made the cat with the present and party hat.

Here we are singing "Happy Birthday" to Mikey.

Here is a piece of chocolate cake. Yummy!

Mikey had a lot of fun with his ball of yarn we made him.

Here he is tired out with the yarn in his claws.

Happy Birthday, Mikey!

Delicious

Seriously, sometimes I want to just eat her up!

I have this absolutely scrumptious diaper-only photo that I was going to post, too, but you know...there's the modesty factor. I'd really hate for her to be embarrassed one day down the road because her mother had the nerve to post such adorable evidence of her ever growing cuteness. She is positively plump now...tipping the scales at a whopping 14 lbs, 1 oz! So much sweetness!

Amazing.

We had a rare opportunity yesterday to witness such a strange and amazing occurrence.

Darren had told us the night before about the unbelievable number of sphinx moth caterpillars he had seen swarming the highway between work and home, moving in quantities so large that it seemed, in some places, that the ground itself was actually alive! Curiosities piqued (to say the least!), we were intrigued to see further reports of this infrequent invasion on both the evening news and in the morning newspaper. And having already arranged to take the day off to attend appointments with both Kristen and Meghan, Darren gamely decided that it would be so fun to take the children with us out into the desert to see for ourselves this fascinating phenomenon.

Wow. Really, what else can I say? I have never seen anything like it. (Wait, no, there was the tarantula migration in, like, 1991? 1992? I'll never forget that, either.) But from the moment we disembarked from the van, each and every footfall was a carefully selected placement of steps, a delicate choreography necessary to prevent the untimely demise of any of those fat, beautiful creatures.

Beautiful? Yes, I do suppose that is a word a would use to describe them. Quite striking, aren't they?

The children, with their Daddy's help, collected a bucketful of caterpillars to release in our garden. And, you know, I didn't really recognize it at the time, but looking at these pictures as I transferred them to the computer last night...Caitlyn reminds me an awful lot of myself at her age. My best friend and I still laugh now and then about how it always took us twice as long to walk to school because I was forever stopping along the way, hunkering down to investigate any interesting objects in our path, hair held back with one free hand while she tried to hurry me along. Once, after a night of particularly heavy rain, we attempted to count every single snail that we saw, and when her Daddy passed us in his car on his way to work, he admonished us that we had better get moving if we wanted to make it to school on time! I see my daughter now, so much like me, and my heart can't help but smile to see myself in her.

Of course, I couldn't resist taking an additional few dozen photos of the landscape while we were out. It was just such a beautiful day; in fact, as soon as we finally got back into the van, the gorgeous clouds that I had been admiring just moments before finally unleashed the torrent of rain (and hail!) they had been politely withholding while we explored.

I just love our skies. I love our desert. I love our mountains. I love my dear, sweet, naturalist husband, and our darling children, with whom he desires to share the beauty and wonder of our environment. We are blessed.

Mutual adoration

Skywatching

Meghan and I were just enjoying some snuggles in bed when a low rumble of thunder rolled across the morning sky, announcing the dawn of another moist gray day. I am simply loving this weather. Skywatching has become a favorite pastime of mine; I believe that, in recent weeks, I've taken more photographs of clouds than of my children. :)

A few of my favorites:

Last night

I wanted to camp out in the backyard but another massive storm moved in just as Darren was arriving home which should have come as no surprise but which was disappointing nonetheless, but only for a moment, because instead of pitching a tent and inflating numerous air mattresses we instead set up camp chairs on the porch and huddled together and watched the rain blow and hail stones bounce across the lawn and it was just as much fun, if not more so. Nothing says "togetherness" quite like cuddling excitedly frightened children while waiting for a thunderous storm to subside; even better when those said small children still delight in climbing right up into your lap to surround themselves in a protective embrace.

We roasted hot dogs over the fire pit on our porch and ate companionably around the picnic table, munching chips and sipping root beer and admiring the multitude of lovely blues painting the brilliant twilight sky. Later, Darren roasted marshmallows and my children and I indulged in the exquisiteness of deliciously warm, sticky s'mores.

After kicking a soccer ball around the yard for a while and watching with captivation the numerous Sphinx moths flitting about the butterfly bush, we were on our way back into the house when a stunning array of light caught my eye. Glorious rays of fast fading sunlight had broken through the tops of the clouds, dazzling the sky in a show not to be missed by my children. "Wow, look at how beautiful the sky is!" I said to them.

With upturned faces they gasped with astonishment and, full of childish wonder, Caitlyn asked so sweetly, reverently: "Mommy, are we seeing Heaven?"

I do believe we were.