Justin's Birthday (cont.)

Lunch at Hooters!!!

1 going on 16.....

Hey! Get out of my way pal!

Now if I could only figure out how to use the radio....

The petting zoo - Justin's favorite part of the Peoria Zoo.

I had to protect this poor horse - Justin kept beating on him :)


Justin and his friend Luke (Rob's boss's son)

Happy Birthday Justin!!!!

Rob and I can not believe that our precious little baby is ONE! I keep thinking about it and I get emotional. I can't believe how blessed we are to have such a perfect, happy, healthy, handsome little man. Every day he learns new things and it amazes us to watch him grow up.

I always knew that I wanted children someday; I just never knew how rewarding being a Mommy would be. It does not matter what happened at work, how dirty the house is, how much laundry I have to do, etc. - When Justin looks up at us with his toothy little grin, nothing else in the world matters.

We love you so much punkin! Happy Birthday Baby!!!!!

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for coming to my Birthday Party and for all of the fun presents - I love them!

I am lucky to have such great family and friends!!!!!

Love,

Justin (and my mommy and daddy, too!)

Justin's 1st Birthday Cake Experience!

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves on this one!!!!!

Justin's 1st Birthday Party!!!!

On Sunday, September 2nd we had Justin's 1st Birthday Party at my Aunt Connie and Uncle Dave's house (Justin's godmother). His real birthday is not until Friday, but we wanted to take advantage of the long weekend!

THANK YOU SO MUCH AC & UD FOR OPENING UP YOUR HOME TO ALL OF OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS - IT MEANS ALOT TO US!!!!!!

These pictures are in no particular order (because I am too lazy to arrange them cronologically!). I will put another post up with cake pictures - that deserves it's own post :)

Thank you to everyone (we had over 40 people!!!) who travelled to Chicago for Justin's party. I know that some people would have rather been elsewhere on a holiday weekend, but it was really special to have so many of our family and friends all together to celebrate our little angel's special day!




Uncle Ryan, Aunt Amanda and Justin ready to go to the party!!!













Justin getting the party started right :)




















Aunt Michelle & Uncle Tom













Me and my little angel....











Our happy family!













Everyone eating up yummy appetizers!














Uncle Jeff, Justin and Aunt Buzzy














Opening his first set of Legos that he got from Daddy!













Ooops...this is from Saturday :)



















So is this one...I know that you're not intentionally flipping me the bird little man!












Both of Justin's Grandpas.....














Aunt Connie and Uncle Dave - so cute!!!












The Metzler Family - started out with 5 and now we're up to 9!!! I love this picture :)














Uncle Mikey and Sandra...

Hurry up! Who's going to be the first one to change their facebook/myspace profile pic??? :)











Justin's cakes - more on these to follow!

We could not find an animal cake (to match the party theme), so we bought these wooden animals at a craft store and super-glued toothpicks to the feet and made our own...I think it turned out pretty cute!














Justin's Great Grandpa and Grandpa....they are both GREAT though :) Love you both!














Uncle Ryan and Aunt Amanda - again...hurry up; who's going to be the first to use this pic??? :)













Justin's Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Metzler














Megan, Morgan and Sandra













Grandpa Brooks and Great Grandma Metzler














Justin playing with his 1st birthday balloon.













Uncle Ryan, Aunt Amanda, Uncle Mikey and Sandra got Ryan his first power wheels toy - he likes to push it around though more than ride on it so far :)












I think that Justin is telling Alec that he doesn't care how it runs on power - he wants to push!!!

He actually got two 4-wheelers for his birthday! What a lucky one year old :)












The Brooks clan hanging out at the party!

Random fun times with family!

Sorry - slowly but surely I'll get up all of the pictures from this past weekend. When me and my mom are together it seems like we have 100's of pictures...oh wait; we do!

Here are some random shots from just hanging out at our house with our family. I loved just having everyone there when we got up. We have no cable at our house (since we don't live there anymore!), so we played Wii most of the weekend. Justin loves to mimick what we do as you will see in a few pics below!





Megan and Justin playing in the backyard.













Uncle Mikey and Justin being goofy!













Justint thinking he's really playing Wii :)






















I want to be just like my daddy!!!!

Justin's 1st Haircut!

I know that I said I didn't want his hair cut before his 1st birthday, but it was getting so scraggly looking! We took him on Friday afternoon - 5 of us (Me, Rob, Justin, Grandma Metzler and Megan) walked in for one hair cut :)



He was really good! It was right before his nap time so he was pretty tired and just sat there the whole time...much better than I expected!













Okay Grandma - enough with the camera :)













I'm not going to smile!!!













Okay; if I smile will you put the camera away??

Start of a fun weekend!!!

Rob and I left for Elgin on Thursday after work. We got there around 8:30pm and then Grandpa and Grandma Metzler got there around 10pm. It was SO NICE to be able to just hang out, relax and play with Justin!

On Friday afternoon we went to BW's for lunch...this was Justin's last lunch with long hair :)







Grandma Metzler and Justin













Justin being goofy :)














The crew!