So Rex has been 1 year old now for a whole week and I still can't believe I have a 1 year old! It is very true what they say, the more kids you have, the quicker time flies by! I even have some inner guilt thinking, have I gotten enough video or pictures of him compared to the girls? Oh well, I'm sure he'll appreciate what I have gotten of him. Rex is such a sweet little boy. We have always been blessed with having very easy going children from the start. Rex has been by far the easiest even though he has had his moments (pregnancy and around 2 months a little extra fussiness) but other than that, he really has been a great baby! He sleeps great sleeping through the night without waking up at all. We put him down around 9 or 10 and he sleeps until about 9 or 10 the next morning. Then he takes about a 4 hour nap in the afternoon (if we're at home) and then he'll even take a 30-45 min cat-nap in the early evening, then back to bed around 9 or 10. And when we aren't at home for naptime, he's pretty easy going even if he doesn't get all the sleep he wants with only a little bit of fussiness. He can play "bonk", hide and go seek, blow kisses (which is really cute with his chubby hands!), do "big boy", and say Mamama..., and a little bit of Dadada... He has almost 7 teeth. Three for sure in on top with one coming through and two for sure on bottom with another one coming through. He's very calm during his teething too with almost no signs of pain! He cruises along furniture very well now and likes to climb up on our fireplace and he's learning how to come down a little at a time. He's not quite brave to start taking his own steps yet, but he's standing on his own a little here and there without holding onto anything. He had a blast for his birthday I think and still loves to play with all of his new toys.
We had quite the day for his birthday! It started out waking up to this sweet boy's face! And I can't remember if it was this day or a day or two after or before this day, but I woke him up from his nap and he grabbed my face to give me a kiss and then grabbed for my face even harder the next time and gave me a really big kiss again. It was really cute! I loved him from the first time I saw him in the hospital! It really is fun to have a little boy! I am loving to see all the differences between a little girl and a little boy!
Then we met some friends from our library storytime group to do some tie-dying for 4th of July. The kids have fun playing and Rex was very good staying in his stroller the whole time while we tie-dyed...have I said he's a great baby!?!? It was blasted hot, but we got them finished. They turned out looking pretty cute, but after a few washes they have faded quite a bit. But the girls loved being able to match Rex with their shirts! This is them lining up on the slide oldest to youngest, except Rex...I don't think they could have held one more kid!
Then the rest of the day was pretty crazy! I watched Sarah and Andrew's kids while Sarah went to the Dentist. Andrew was supposed to get home early to help with his kids, but ended up home really, really late. It was fine during naptime with Rex and Ruby asleep, but when they woke up it was kinda crazy because Ruby wasn't very used to me. Nick wasn't going to be home early as he had a meeting at St. Luke's and someone (ehem, Nick) got scheduling wrong and ended up being on call for both St. Luke's and Centerpoint at the same time! When he went to his meeting at St. Lukes, he had to finish a test before he got to come home. And then to make things worse or more gut-wrenching, he told me that they had let a tech go that day in the Nuclear Medicine department. Luckily it wasn't Nick, but it was pretty stressful thinking it could have been. We feel very blessed that he was spared and I know I'm very blessed to be married to such a hard worker! So, the party was supposed to start at 6pm and Sarah didn't get home till 5:45 or so and Nick and Andrew weren't even home by then. Luckily Mom showed up early to help me with the kids and the cooking and the cleaning and the baking! Thank you to Mom!! Either way, it was a fun party celebrating a very cute and sweet boy! Here are the pictures from the event!
Rex blowing out his candles and waiting for his presents. He didn't really know what to do with his cake....yet! But he sure learned later!
These are pictures of him playing with some of his toys he got. He loves balls and loves to put things into things....well, his presents were just as such and he loved everyone of them! It was really cute seeing him get so excited about all of his presents!
More presents and more playing with friends. His friend Anderson is only 2 months older than him and they were having a blast playing with each other. A lot of these pictures were taken after he already ate his cake which is why he's naked. A big thanks to my friend Jessica who took over taking pictures for me! We have the same camera so she knows how to work it and it was such a relief to know the pictures were taken care of!!
The big kids had a blast playing together and enjoyed sitting at the kids table both inside and outside!
And THE CAKE....it didn't take him long to figure out what to do with the cake. He demolished it! Jessica felt bad in not getting a before picture, but you can pretty much see what it looks like in this picture...a baseball.
See...as you can see, he demolished it! Well, it was a really successful party, even amongst all the stresses. And Nick and Andrew did in fact make it finally to the party, about 1 1/2 hours late, but they made it!
Here they are before the race...
And after the race enjoying their popsicles. Rex was in 7th heaven and devoured his! We even got one since there weren't that many people participating! 
Then on the 4th itself, Rex got to have a second birthday party, thanks to Ashlyn's birthday celebration and the fact that Grandma Bell and Michelle were out of town for his actual birthday party. Can you see Kayley's face in this picture? As soon as she saw Ashlyn's cake, she told Michelle, "wow! you have to teach my Mom how to do that for my birthday party!" Michelle had bought a sheet of icing off of Ebay with personalization on it and a picture of Rapunzel. Both Kayley and Cora want a Rapunzel party and agreed to have it together...so I think I'm going to have to re-create this cake for them!
And since Michelle wasn't at Rex's original party, we had to get pictures in the birthday crown and shirt he borrowed from Garrett. Isn't he cute!??! And of course he knew exactly what to do with the cake this time around when he blew the candles out. So much that when it came to opening presents, he didn't want to wait to eat his cake. So I had to keep giving him some licks of icing to tide him over till he got to eat his own cake. 
And then we let him eat his own cake again so Grandma Bell could see him get all cute and messy. He definitely enjoyed it and literally devoured all the cake so much that he lifted his plate when he was done to look under it to see if there was anymore cake. It was fun!
Then we ate dinner and headed out to William Jewel college for the 4th of July festivities there. They had bounce houses and fireworks. The kids had a blast being together. They even got to sit in an ambulance.
The first bounce house was a single slide and the kids did great getting up to the top and sliding down it. So much that Kayley and Preston almost went at the same time!
Then the biggest one was one that we knew our kids weren't going to make it through on their own. Luckily one of Michelle's friends' brother and sister were both there. I was going to go in with all four, but they volunteered to go through with them. As you can see from the bottom right picture, Cora slipped on one of the small slide parts and apparently got jarred a little bit, but made it through without crying. It was fun!
Then we waited for the fireworks show. We forgot Nick's hunting earmuffs this year, so the fireworks were really loud for the girls, but they survived! This is why I don't have any pictures of them watching fireworks or of the fireworks themselves and I was using both hands to shield Kayley's ears, which were sitting on top of Kayley's hands also shielding her ears. Rex of course loved the fireworks! It was a fun 4th of July!
