Christmas Eve

We celebrated Christmas Eve at my dad & Shelly's house with our traditional Mexican dinner and songs around the bonfire. It was a lot of fun! We opened presents with Donny's parents that night because they were headed to Elko the next morning. They got Patrick a fun little laptop (so he can stop banging on mine!), some gigantic Legos (no choking hazards there), and a "Fridge DJ" - which is a fancy name for a radio that is magnetic. He loves them all of course!

It's hard to see in this picture, but Grandma and Grandpa Patterson got Patrick this adorable little recliner (we're sitting in it) so he can sit with Grandpa and watch "Mickey" (Patrick's current obsession) at their house.

Happy Birthday Dad!

This post is a little late. My dad's birthday is on December 20th, but I still wanted to wish him a Happy Birthday and thank him for being such a great dad and grandpa!! We love you Dad!

Go Bengals!

The Bengals are on their way to the play-offs, so luckily Uncle Dan & Aunt Cindy sent Patrick a new Bengals shirt to wear every Sunday. We're going to try to go to a play-off game in Cincinnati - stay tuned for more on that.

Aspiring Photographer

Patrick loves to play with anything electronic. I have multiple phone numbers he has "programmed" into my cell phone, he knows the remote control practically better than we do, and he LOVES to play with the camera. So, here are some pics he has taken of himself.

Ok, so I don't think he actually took this one of himself and Daisy (in the background), but the picture cracks me up because I've seen Donny give this exact look a few times! I really didn't contribute much to this kid - he's all Daddy!

Pioneer Christmas Party

We took most of these pictures for Jeff & Asha, but I thought I'd post them anyway. I think Patrick has licked the camera a few too many times, because there seems to be a haze on these pictures! We'll try to get that fixed before the next batch.

Don't we all LOVE Santa?

Um, maybe not so much! Patrick loved seeing Santa from a distance, but when we got up close to him and I sat him on his lap....well, you can see what happened!

In all fairness to Patrick we had waited for almost an hour and it was exactly his nap time when it was finally our turn. Still pretty funny though!

Halloween 2009

For Halloween this year we took Patrick to Salt Lake to Trick-or-Treat in my cousin's neighborhood with her kids. We had lots of fun walking the neighborhood with Greg and their nice neighbors. One little boy in front of us was dressed like Elmo and Patrick just kept pointing and saying Melmo, Melmo....I think he was a little surprised to see Elmo actually out walking around! Thanks to our cousin-in-law Greg for taking the great pictures!

Lil' Bat Patrick, Batman Max, Tinkerbell Claire, Hans Solo Will & Baby Bumblebee Kate

He's got his bucket ready for lots of candy!

Patrick's Tree

Our very good friends Jeff & Asha MacDonald are moving to Ohio on Thursday. We're going to really miss them and the many fun evenings we've spent together eating, playing games & laughing. They are both fantastic artists (they did Patrick's bedroom ceiling) and I feel very fortunate to own one of Asha's paintings which she gave me for Christmas a few years ago. So, I can't tell you how excited I am that Asha GAVE us another very special painting of hers that we call "Patrick's Tree". This painting is of a fertility tree in India that people tie a string around to bring them fertility. Jeff & Asha tied a string around the tree for us when Donny & I were trying to conceive and Asha painted the tree some time afterwards. It is a beautiful painting - the oranges are SO vibrant and fantastic (this picture does not do it justice). It is hard to let them go, but we know this is a great professional opportunity for Jeff, so we're excited for them. Good luck Jeff, Asha & new baby Iyla - we'll miss you!

End of Summer

Don't look now, but I think we're headed into Fall. The temperatures dramatically decreased over the weekend and the sun is setting earlier. We stayed really busy this summer enjoying all the sunshine we could get. We got 3/4 of our landscaping finished and tried to play as much as we could. It's a lot to accomplish in a 12 week Summer!

Over the last couple of months, Patrick grew his two front teeth, learned how to walk (ok, that was just last week) and learned how to say an entire vocabulary of words (momma, daddy, grandma, grandpa, Daisy, Boone, clock, tree, car, truck, food, banana....) he's such a little sponge - it amazes us the words he picks up.

Donny was able to spend 1 week in Leadville, CO the last week of August for the International Preservation Trades Workshop where he was an instructor of re-locating a log building and participated in several other preservation demonstrations. Patrick & I spent the week with Grandma J who spent lots of time bonding (babysitting) him while I was at work. It was great to see her for all of that time!

Patrick's surgery in July was a success! He has completely healed and we have witnessed him peeing several times and.....still just one hole! So, we are so grateful for that.

Sorry I haven't posted much - just busy. I'll try to do better, but in the meantime - enjoy these pics of Patrick!

Surgery.....Take 2

Patrick's second surgery for hypospadias happened on July 7th at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, UT. We've been dreading it since the day we found out he had to have surgery again because the first surgery (specifically the recovery) was such a nightmare. I have to say it went much better this time though. He had 3 really rough nights/days of pain, but then he started to pull out of it and ever since he's been fine. Donny did witness him peeing the other night and it was one hole this time, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that is how it will stay! One thing I did learn through that whole process is to keep life in perspective. We felt awful for what Patrick had to go through, but sitting in the waiting room we realized that if this is the only thing he has to go through in life - we're quite fortunate. One family in there had twin boys around the age of 4 who were both blind and handicapped. They were both going in for surgery.
There were several other children who had life long ailments going in for surgery. So, now when I start to feel sorry for myself in anyway, shape or form - I remember those families and think about how truly fortunate we are for having a healthy happy little boy!

Super Model Photo Shoot

ROAD TRIP 2009!!

We've driven to Salt Lake quite a few times, but on July 2nd we left for a road trip to Elko, NV to spend 3 days with Donny's family and then onto Salt Lake for 6 days. It was so great to see all of Donny's family including two new nieces Dakota Steeley and Mya Dudley. Patrick was asleep way before the fireworks went off, but luckily we had a perfect view from our hotel room. While in Salt Lake we got to see 90% of my family at the 1st Annual GT (Grandma Tulin) Family Reunion at my cousin Rachael's house. It was a great pool party and for some reason we did not get ONE picture! So, if anyone got some cute pics from that night - please send them our way. Stay tuned for more blog posts from that trip.

Green cast

Patrick's second cast for his broken arm was green and it was on for 2 weeks. It was kind of neat though because it could get completely wet and it would dry out quickly. The entire doctor's office was so impressed with Patrick because he did not even flinch when they were sawing it off. He's amazing!

Little Cowboy

Aren't these pictures cute! Our friend Abi at the Montana Picture Gallery took these this weekend. He sat on the saddle very nicely for a 1 year old who is VERY busy! He still rarely smiles for the camera - just the closed mouth smile like his Grandpa Pat.

Even a dirty face is an adorable face!

Mom of the Year Award....

Would certainly not go to me this year! On May 26th I was holding Patrick on my lap while sitting on the couch and when I went to stand up he sort of threw himself forward and I basically dropped him on the floor. He broke his left arm just above the wrist and I felt so terrible! He was such a trouper though! I wouldn't have even known it was broken had it not been for the fact that he couldn't crawl, so Donny & I took him to Butte to have it x-rayed and put in a cast. He had that cast on for 10 days and just got it taken off today. Now he has a smaller (waterproof - yippee!) cast that he'll wear for 2 weeks. We'll post pics of the new cast soon, but enjoy these little moments in the first cast....it didn't slow him down a bit!He crawls on his elbow and his good hand but we borrowed a walker from a friend to spare his elbow a little bit. I love all of his expressions in the following pictures - he's such a happy guy....and his tongue is out all the time!