Today, Tingen turned one! It was a busy day getting things done. We ran errands this morning while Clark was at Joy School, then packed up the van and headed down to our new house to get some things done. I'm supposed to be painting, but I keep putting it off...
We still found time to devote to celebrating Tingen's birthday. This morning, before David left for work, Tingen got to open a couple of presents. He really likes his brothers' "water bottle" sippy cups, so we got him the only other color available - pink. But we'll call it red. He also got a stuffed duck so he can quit taking Parker's turtle. I'd picked up a couple of big buckets of the Legos Quattros at Goodwill a couple of months ago and he got those as well.
After dinner at our new house tonight, we had cupcakes and ice cream and Tingen opened his last presents. He actually tried to open his last (5th) present. I guess he caught on to what was supposed to happen by then.
After the last presents, we took him outside to eat his cupcake. (We don't have any cleaning supplies down at the house yet.) He made a beeline for the cupcake, but just picked it up and looked at it for a while. I broke off a piece and put it in his mouth and he shoved the whole thing in after that.
Tingen got to stay up late for his birthday too! He refused to sleep in an unknown place, so we let him run around the loft with his brothers until 9:30pm.
And, just because Tingen's a cutie, here's some more pictures.
Tingen loves to wrestle. Much more than his brothers appreciate too.
He'll even wrestle mommy. Clark and Parker will usually join him for that, though.
He's recovering really well from his surgery. He's still a little swollen, but not really tender anymore.
He's still walking, sort of. He'll only take a couple of steps before he'll stop and crawl, but if you offer him a finger, he'll gladly walk all over the house. He's also taken to pushing stools, chairs and the
dining room bench all over the kitchen. He'll even push the stools with his brothers sitting on them! Parker doesn't really like that though.
Tingen idolizes Parker. He'll follow him around incessantly and try to participate in whatever Parker's doing. Most of the time, Parker's okay with it, but sometime you can tell it gets on his nerves.
He's saying more and more - that we understand anyway. He says "dad" very clearly and he
can say "mom" but if I try to get him to say it, he'll always say "dad". He thinks its funny.
He has the best giggle/laugh and is almost always smiling. He brings such joy to our family. We're glad he came to us and we can't imagine life without him now.
"Ebeneezer..."
I put these jeans on Tingen the other day and he walked up to me later on, carrying them around! I guess they're still a little big.
Parker wanted to help and insisted I take pictures of him "working hard."
Parker has really gotten into taking pictures lately. He's actually getting pretty good at it. Hopefully, he'll like his Christmas present and leave our camera alone.
Parker took this picture of me too. Gotta love the paint clothes.
Here's our little dare devil. He's really enjoying wearing his cast. I don't think this experience will be much of a deterrent in keeping him from breaking his arm (or another bone) later. He really liked having a plastic bag taped over his cast so he could bathe this morning and loved going to Nursery (first time in MONTHS) just because he could show his teacher his cast. 
Growing up, we always set up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, so Friday after I got back from Black Friday shopping, we took all the Christmas decorations down to the house and the boys and I set up the Christmas tree while David painted Clark and Parker's bedroom. We all had a lot of fun. 
