playing in the leaves

the weather here has been fan-tas-tic. no rain, no snow, just sunny skies. and boy is that awesome for this time of year. we are not complaining that's for sure. of course since the weather has been cooperating, we have been taking every chance we can get to be outside. the kids love that, and so do i. in fact, tanner begs me to play outside everytime we return from an errand and cries and cries if i don't let him.



the incredible hulk playing in the leaves. does his jacket not make him look puffed up?




katelyn is just happy not to be napping.



they started playing following the leader. well, mostly katelyn was just following tanner around.



some sisterly/brotherly love. a parent's favorite thing to see i think.



these two were yelling at each other. ah...ah...ah...ah back and forth with some giggles in between.



we decided to take an impromtu walk around the neighbor hood and happened to find some gorgeous leaves. we picked them up for a special project we were going to do later.



katelyn resfusing to look. she just wanted to walk.



this is the tree where we found our leaves, and no, i did not edit this photo. that's how pretty the leaves were.

i know this song is overplayed but my kids like to dance to it

Kids Dancing from brooke hedin on Vimeo.

birthday boy

tan the man is one. and what an incredible year it has been (and an incredibly fast year it has been as well). his actual birthday was in september, so i'm a tad bit late.

tanner is our kid that is so full of character. he is full of spunk and energy and excitement all in one. he loves to grin and laugh and loves to make us laugh. for the most part he is very laid back and loves to do his own thing. he also loves to pull funny faces. this was a favorite face a couple of month ago.



tanner is our kid that loves to roam around the house. as long as he has something in his hand to keep him occupied, he is happy. tanner also keeps us laughing by doing silly things like putting his head down and crawling around as fast as he can.



tanner is our cheerio lover. at one point you could keep him quiet for almost an hour with cheerios. those days are over now though because he is onto bigger and better things.



tanner loves to eat and eats pretty much anything (thank goodness). tyler and i were astonished the first time we gave tanner some table food, and he ate it. katelyn never did that.



tanner is our binky boy. i never realized how great binkys can be for soothing until tanner took one. he is also our animal lover. he loves to roar, moo and quack around the house. sometimes he'll also imitate some of the silent animals as well.



he is also our loud child. if he wants our attention, wants food, wants to be picked up, basically if he wants anything, he lets us know...loudly. we weren't planning on teaching him any sign, but i think we are slowly changing our minds.

for the most part though, tanner is so laid back and loves to do his own thing. we love this kid a ton.

now for the birthday celebration. obviously he had no clue what was going on, so we kept the day pretty simple. we found some of those punch balloons for him to enjoy, gave him some blueberries, bananas and strawberries to enjoy cause they're a favorite and made spaghetti for dinner (also a favorite).

tanner opened his presents from us and from the grandparents. here is playing with some of his toys he got.





and of course we finished the day with a nice big cake. tanner had no reservations about digging in. he took one taste of that cake and frosting and was sold. i had plans to let him dig into his cake outside so i could get some decent shots. too bad it was stormy that night, so i had to resort to using flash. at least i have some pictures.





the next morning i decided to snap a shot of him again with some better lighting. he didn't think my "photoshoot" was as great as i did. katelyn was a big help at making him laugh.



but that didn't last too long.