Aiden's first birthday

There are a lot of birthdays in our family this week. Julie's birthday was Friday and Aiden turned one year old on Saturday. My mom and sister-in-law (Bethany) have birthdays next week (happy early birthday!). Overall, it was a pretty busy weekend at our house. Julie's family made the trip up to Baltimore on Friday night, and we all went to Ciao Bistro for Julie's birthday. The next day we got up early to prepare for Aiden's birthday party (some of us earlier than others....like my wife, who woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep!). It was mostly family, but our friends Tara & Phil (from whom we bought our house) and their kids Maia (4) and Leo (2) were there, along with a friend of Julie's from work, Dana, and her son Mason (1) also joined us for the festivities. Julie's great uncle Bob,a minister, gave a brief dedication ceremony for Aiden. Afterwards we enjoyed very good weather and grilled out hotdogs and burgers, followed by cake & ice cream.

I am not sure what the best part was but some of the highlights for me were:

1) Seeing Aiden's delight with all of his new toys. I think he went from average to spoiled overnight. In addition to all the great new gifts, Julie picked up a few things at a garage sale the weekend before, so I feel like he has enough new stuff to last him until he turns 3.

2) Seeing his reaction to cake (or sugar for that matter). People may have noticed that he hasn't really been allowed sugar, so this birthday cake was something quite new to his palate. He didn't seem to know what to do with the chocolate cake on his birthday, but I caught him eating some cake crumbs off the floor the next day so it must have agreed with him. Steve also slipped him some donut pieces while Julie was asleep (her turn) this morning (Shhhhh!).

3) Aiden interacting with Patrick (Julie's younger brother). Those two seemed to have a great time all weekend. Patrick seems to be very good with children (maybe because he is so young at heart himself). Aiden was also fascinated with Patrick's beard. He has never seen a full beard on me (probably out of the realm of possibilities actually).

4)The how old are you game. Julie taught Aiden to raise one finger when people asked how old he was. I have to tell you it was pretty cute. Now it's the day after and he'll do it on command....not on command....actually pretty much whenever he feels like it, which is about every five minutes.

5) Steve watched Aiden while the rest of went out to see the X-files movie. It got four thumbs down from us, but at this point I would go watch Ishtar II electric boogaloo if we have a free babysitter. (To give you some idea of what a treat this was for us, when the suggestion was raised we had to look up where a movie theater might be. We've lived here a year.)

Anyway, check out the pics below. As always you can click on the pictures to get to the full album. Also, I just want to give Julie's family a special thank you for all of their help both in setting up for the party and batting my hand away every time I tried to reach for my wallet. Also, another special thanks goes to Uncle Bob for the lovely ceremony. We wish more of you could have been with us, but since Julie got a camcorder from her very thoughtful husband for her birthday, we can share the video with you next time we see you.

Artscape 2008

Last weekend, Julie and I braved the Baltimore heat and took Aiden out to Artscape. Artscape is the largest free public arts festival in the country. This was the 27th year for the festival. We only stayed a couple of hours because of the heat, but we took in some of the live music, local art, some circus-side-show type performance art, and a Covergirl sponsored fashion show. Mostly, it was just a lot of fun to people watch. Anwyay, check out some of the pictures below (click on any of the photos to get to the full album).

Fourth of July

For the fourth of July, Julie, Aiden, and I headed down to Norfolk,VA. We had a very relaxing weekend and a great visit with Patrick, Steve, Paula, and Julie's grandmother Turner. I especially enjoyed having babysitters (I forgot how great uninterrupted afternoon naps can be!). We were treated to Grandma Turner's famous spaghetti and a big steak dinner during our visit. For the fourth we headed down to Virginia Beach for the annual get together with some Markham family friends (The Grills). It is a great location as you can see fireworks from several different spots in the city in addition to all the fireworks down the shoreline. As usual, Steve did not disappoint with his growing cache of illegal fireworks (curiously it is legal to purchase fireworks in Virginia, but illegal to set them off).

I gave Julie a camcorder as an early birthday gift, so to spice up this post I included a video update. I have been having a good time with the editing software that Julie's brother Patrick recommended. Anyway,check out the video below. Also to see our collection of recent pictures click here.