HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Yay! Parker is officially a one-year old now! His birthday was Friday, May 16th! I was out of town shooting a wedding, so April's mom came over to babysit for the day, and then we had a family birthday party today! I'll post some pics in a bit. Thanks everyone for making the trip to help us celebrate! Here's a slideshow of photos from the afternoon:

http://garrettelliott.com/blog/?p=24

And here are some individual photos as well (pretty much in reverse chronological order -- sorry!):

Aunt Tracy is craaaaazy! And Parker likes crazy.

Parker sporting his new Nana sweater/jacket! It kind of looks like chain mail! Thanks Nana!

Parker testing out his new tow truck walker thing! It has so many buttons and makes the craziest sounds..... I think I spent more time playing with it than Parker.

Parker's cousin Connor is good at sharing! Yay for sharing!

Parker checking out the mini-birthday cake.

Parker clapping after eating a bit of cake, although I don't think he really liked it. Strangely enough, he prefers peas, brocoli, and watermelon.

This cake is made of PEOPLE!

The big, main cake, complete with Happy 1st Birthday Parker in Times New Roman font. Okay, it's not Times New Roman. But it still looks nice. And it tasted nice, too!

Super awesome card from April's cousin Ali! Thanks Ali! Parker was thoroughly impressed.

Parker coming in from the deck with Mommy with a funny look on his face and sporting his birthday outfit! Hooray for argyle vests!

Parker and Mommy opening a present.

Parker testing out the new chair he received from Nana and Papa! It matches our furniture, which is kind of scary. Now he can recline and watch the NBA playoffs with me!

Thanks to everyone for coming and all of the awesome gifts and for making Parker smile so much! There will be many fashion shows (masculine ones, of course) in the near future with all of the new clothes!

Things I've Learned About Being a Stay-At-Home Dad

Here are a few random things I've learned since being a stay-at-home dad with Parker. Most of these things would have never crossed my mind before we had a baby, but now you notice the weirdest things.

1) When grocery shopping, the best parking spot in the world is right next to the cart-return-thing. It doesn't matter if the cart-return-thing is in the far corner of the parking lot; it's still the best spot. When you get out of the car with your baby, you can grab a cart quickly, put him in, and toss his bag of goodies in as well. Then, when you're bringing your groceries out, you don't have to go far to put the cart away while your baby waits in the car seat ready to go.

2) Line-ups suck. I was at the post office today with Parker in his stroller, and 5 seconds before I got there some guy with a 7-foot box showed up. All 3 employees were helping him, but none of them seemed to be doing very much. They didn't seem to know how to mail it. Eventually, one of the employees said, "I'll keep working on this, you help all the other people in line," because by now there was a 10-person line-up. The entire time, I was hanging out with Parker and giving him drinks of water and making goofy faces, but in my mind I'm thinking, "Don't have a melt down! Don't have a melt down! HURRY UP POST OFFICE PEOPLE." Luckily Parker very rarely has crazy fits in public, but that still doesn't quell the paranoia. Plus, babies can smell the fear.

3) Babies eat a lot. Now that Parker is almost one year old (his birthday is this Friday! Yay!) he eats soooo much food. I think he eats more than we do. Well, maybe not. But he eats a LOT. It seems like we're always going to the grocery store or CostCo to get more supplies. It's good to get out and do things, though, especially when we have pretty limited time inbetween naps. Going places helps the time fly by!

Here are some photos of Parker outside on the lawn in his John McCrea (from Cake) hat.

Thanks Nana and Papa!

Here's Parker sporting his Myrtle Beach onesie and mugging it up for Nana and Papa!

(Try to ignore the water stain on his shirt -- it's not puke, or food, or dirt, or anything like that. We bathe him. Honest.)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy mother's day to all the moms out there! Parker is hoping April likes the gifts he picked out for her!

Tallest Baby In The World!

When Parker was little (as if he's still not little) I used to stand him up on my shoulders and spin him around going, "Taaaaallest baby in the woooooorld!" in a 1920's Barnum and Bailey circus voice. He'd always laugh and enjoy being 8 feet tall, but now it looks like he actually might be the tallest baby in the world. Well, okay, maybe not the tallest, but he's definitely growing. Check out what he can reach now.





And check out what the reaching and straining does to his feet. BEHOLD..................THE CLAW.

Walking Around Outside, Crawling Around Inside

Since the weather was so nice, we went outside again this afternoon (we actually went for groceries earlier in the day, but I didn't bring my camera.....plus I've probably already taken enough cart photos for now).

Here's Parker touching the grass.

I tried to take a photo of him standing as fast as I could, but apparently it wasn't fast enough for his liking. He still doesn't like the grass as you can tell from his expression.

Walking with Mommy!

More walking with Mommy........this time with ONE HAND! Ooooooo....

Parker inside, being pensive. And sporting some left-over yogurt on his mouth.

He loves hanging out by the baby gate. His new thing is to throw things down the stairs and giggle after they make their way to the bottom.

This is his mischievous smile. Since I was busy taking photos, he didn't think I could stop him from getting to the radio to push the buttons. But I did. I'm like a ninja.

Reading by himself.

Some more reading.


Some more new things for Parker: he points to things with his index finger now. He puts food in our mouths if we bend down near his stash while he's eating. He seems to get a kick out of that. He's saying a few more words now, like mama, book (sounds kind of like cock), quack quack (for duck, but sounds kind of like cock cock), and Ming Ming (which sounds like Cock Cock.....no, just kidding. It sounds like Ming Ming). He's also getting a bit pickier about the foods he eats. Sometimes he just doesn't want to eat certain things, so we're trying to introduce some new things. He loves walking with his Walk-And-Ride and he loves chasing balls around the basement. Oh, and he also loves birds. I think he'll be saying bird soon (or, at least, cock).

Parker Vs. Bananas and Grass

Now that Parker has teeth, we let him bite things himself! Here he is eating a banana. Yesterday we had some roast chicken for lunch and he looooved it.









As I mentioned earlier, Parker is repulsed by grass. He just doesn't get it. It feels weird and it seems to confuse him a bit. So my master plan was to stand him up on the lawn, hoping he would stay standing for fear of touching any part of the lawn with skin other than his feet. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way, and I think he actually got pretty comfortable on the lawn. Here are some photos of Parker hanging out on a nice spring day (in his jammies, no less).

Mr. Stands-On-His-Own

Parker is getting better at standing all by himself! The other morning when April and I were up, I stood him up in front of the TV so he could zone out into his zombie-like state. He was so into watching Hi-5 that he didn't even realize he was standing! He stood on his own for about 20 seconds or so before he finally tumbled down to the floor and crawled around. He loves walking when you hold his hands, too. I don't have any photos of him standing because he gets too giddy with the camera in his face and he doesn't bother trying to stand on his own! In lieu of a Parker photo, here's Optimus Prime, which is almost as good.

Edited to add: Parker doesn't know it yet (he's napping right now) but I thought of a way to get him to stand so I can take a photo. He is repulsed by grass, so I'm going to stand him up on the lawn and fire away. He won't want to sit because he doesn't like the lawn. Mwahahaha... I'm so evil. Hopefully I'll have some nice standing photos in a bit!

Shameless Cross-Promotion

I now have a new photography blog! If you want to check it out, the new address is this:

http://www.garrettelliott.com/blog

Parker approves this message by sleeping soundly in his crib on his face with his little bum in the air.

Goofy Faces And Swinging At The Park

I have been SUPER SICK lately, so Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty boring, low key days, but I felt better today and decided to take Parker outside to take advantage of the nice weather! Here are some pre-outside photos of Parker making goofy faces this morning while eating his snack.

"I'm happy because I'm a baby!"

"I'm so shocked at those racy Miley Cyrus photos!"

"Did I forget to turn the stove off...?"

"Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!"

"I'm the baby! Gotta love me!"

When Parker concentrates (he's looking at the straps on his car seat) he gets these crazy bumps on his forehead, not unlike a Klingon. I thought it was kind of weird at first until I looked in the mirror and noticed my forehead does the same thing! Ha!

It was cool in the morning so we had his little hat on, but he tried to yank it off.

We made a pit-stop at Fairfield Park for some swing action! Parker's first time at the park!






He seemed to really like the swings! I wasn't sure if they'd make him queasy or not (they make me sick) but he seemed pretty happy to be looking around and swinging back and forth! Maybe next time we can try the slides. I should add that I totally copied Andrea -- she did the swings first!