Pass the Baton...

This is Daddy Egg here. Normally what we talk about here is all light hearted and just fun. There is nothing bad about this blog just a bit more serious (at least in my head). There are many milestones in life:

- Taking your first step
- Going to school for the first time
- Being allowed to go on a bike ride by yourself
- Going to stay at a friends house overnight
- Graduating
- Going to college (and being trusted)
- Getting my first apartment
- Getting married
- Buying a house
- Having children

These are big milestones that parents are very happy to see their children accomplishing, and children are very happy to accomplish. These are very important to me. But none of these are things that I remember seeing my parents do. So this weekend I had two smaller milestones that felt sort of like the passing of the Baton from my parents to me.

As all of you know Riker turned One on Friday, which meant it was time to change car seats for him. He now has a car seat that faces forward. The first time I was in the van and looked back and saw both kids looking back at me, I thought of all the places that we used to ride with my mom during the summers when dad was painting or roofing houses...


Baton pass number 1

The second situation that happened this weekend was Saturday morning: My dad bought us a used John Deere tractor for Christmas 2 years ago. This was an awesome gift! I used the tractor a ton last year and this spring. I had to replace 2 minor parts on the tractor since I got it, which is great for how old the tractor was (Dad only expected it to last us a year or two anyway). We decided it was time to look at getting a new one. After some research and talking with my dad I decided to by a brand new John Deere. On Saturday morning dad went with me to the John Deere store close by. He brought his trailer along so we were able to bring home my new tractor the same day. I was thinking on the way home how much I remember dad riding on HIS tractor all the time and how cool it was to watch him, and I realized that was about to be me!


Baton pass number 2

Thanks mom and dad, I hope we do you proud.

Riker's Turns One

We can't believe it has been a full year since Riker was born! It only seems like yesterday that Jamie stopped me when I was getting ready for work and said, "Don't go to work today". Unbelievably we celebrated Riker's first birthday last Friday. It was a great day. The weather was awesome and so was Riker. Here Riker is after only being awake on his birthday for 2 minutes.


Don't we all wish we woke up like this.

We decided we wanted to go with a theme for his birthday party. We thought long and hard about what he would like (well mom thought long and hard and dad just knew). He seemed to love the tires/wheels on anything Sydney was riding on, even if she wasn't riding on it. So before anyone asks, we did not pick the theme because Danny works at Tire Rack, BUT having Danny working at Tire Rack was a definite bonus for the party.

Mom decided to take on the challenge of creatimg a Tire and Car cake and went to town on the cake for Riker, and if I do say so myself it did not disappoint.


What air pressure goes in those tires?

We went with the convenience having the party in the garage. And we figured that if you are going to have a Tire and Car theme the garage is the place to have it. Here is a photo of one side of the garage to give you an idea of how much stuff we had.


So we had a lot of fun decorating for a 1 year olds birthday.

Here is a small video to give you walk through of the decoration.



Just to show that he truly does like wheels here is Riker hanging out at the party with Sydney's tricycle tire.

I think you can get another 5,000 miles out of this tire.

There were plenty of people and kids who came to enjoy the party. The kids loved spending most of their time in the driveway playing with the cars and bikes.




During the party Dad was asked by a neighbor to get Guinan out and do a little disc dog demo, and of course he would not disappoint!!! Guinan did awesome and even did some tricks with our neighbor's son (who is already a big fan of Guinan's).

Guinan: "I believe I can fly"

And a birthday is not a birthday without cake. And you cannot have cake at a 1 year olds birthday party without having a smash cake for the 1 year old. Here is a video of Riker starting to get into his cake.



Hear is the result of how Riker looked after he was done. We are pretty sure he was thinking he was delicious too!

YUMMY

Then it was time to open presents. With most kids Riker's age (Riker included) it would be hard to keep him in one place for all of the presents. Well if it is a tire theme we might as well stick with it. We took two tires and stacked them on top of each other and stuck Riker in them. He LOVED it and stood through opening all of his gifts.



Thought this was a good closing image of Riker with one his new toys with wheels.

Thanks again to everyone for coming and having fun and spoiling our "little man!"

Pitter Patter...

Riker is growing up so fast. First he is learning how COOL sunglasses are (he's so manly he can even rock pink ones):



And THEN he decided it was finally time to learn to walk! He had been doing a lot of "Falling with Style" that was almost walking, but today he finally did it (the first time was two definite steps, this was a little later):

Thumbs are getting Greener

As many of you know we built our house and had NO landscaping when we moved in. We (mainly Dad with some help here and there) spent the first summer moving dirt and grass away from the house in the front and on the 2 sides and putting rock in. This summer we are going to do the same to the back, but before we get to that we wanted to get some plants out front. So on the spur of the moment one Sunday we headed to the local nursery to "look" at plants. 22 plants later, and yes I did say 22 we came home after two trips. We had lots of work ahead of us. Here is what it looked like partially completed.



During the process of putting in the plants multiple sprinkler heads had to be moved, which is an evening project all of its own. Sydney wanted to "HELP", so she helped Dad dig one of the last holes.



After 4 days of digging holes and putting in plants we completed the plants on the front of the house. Hear is Jamie right after we finished the planting with a walk through of the landscaping.



Hope you have enjoyed our planting project! Back and sides to come....someday...

PUSH!!!!!

Well, the kids seemed to have learned to work together -- either that or Sydney has figured out one SWEET deal!
Here is their latest game - played daily:




We figure this works well, Sydney steers - so Riker gets more walking practice -- less crashing practice, and think of the muscle strength Riker is building (especially when they hit the carpet) ... just look at him PUSH!