Simon's Party!

This is a bit overdue, but I wanted to get everyone's pictures together before putting up this post.

We had a big party for Simon's first birthday on 8/14. We rented some space at Magnolia Park, BBQ'd some burgers and dogs and celebrated with about 40 of our friends and family.

And we celebrated all weekend...Dad, Aunt Donna, Grandma and Karyn came in on Friday and we spent the day together. Simon got some fabulous new clothes for his fall wardrobe from everyone and in the afternoon we went over to University Village to order Simon an adorable personalized chair, a gift from Aunt Donna & Uncle Paul, Aunt Ceil and Grandma. We then celebrated my birthday with a delicious dinner at Piatti. Simon was a champ, eating everything from goat cheese ravioli to a caprese salad.

Saturday was the big party day, and everyone was a huge help in making it a success. Dad and Jeff manned the grills, we had work friends, PEPS friends and the family to enjoy the day with and the weather was perfect. Simon refused to eat anything all day...until we offered him some of his cake, which he enjoyed greatly!

We spent Sunday with Mom, Jeff and Karyn, enjoying some quiet time at home. Simon played his new piano for everyone, which was a gift from Karyn and Neville. We took him out back to try out his new playset from Mom and Jeff and then had a fun dinner at Rositas.

It was a wonderful weekend and we were so happy to have everyone there to help us celebrate this huge milestone. Thank you for all of your help, gifts and wishes for Simon!

Check out a lot more pictures at our Shutterfly site!

http://teamwinstanley.shutterfly.com/361

One Year Old!!

What a big day! Simon is a big one year old boy! It's been a roller coaster of a year--in some ways I can't believe it's already been a year but in others it's hard to remember life before the little man joined us.

And this month has been one full of changes. As the previous post mentioned, he is communicating more and more with us. He is also doing fun things like clapping, and he loves joining in with "If you're happy and you know it...". He is a huge fan of peekaboo--when we say "Where's Simon?" he holds something up over his eyes and then pulls it down to peek at us, with a huge grin. And then he does it again...and again...and again :)

We spent his birthday home together having a quiet day, but of course we made him a delicious cake. It's the same one I had every year growing up--a butter cake with penuche frosting. It took him some getting used to, and then he was all in.




So, without further ado, here is Simon's 1 year old picture!!

Simon's "Signs"

Simon has taken great leaps in communicating with us, which is so much fun. He has adopted a few American Sign Language signs that we have taught him and made up a few of his own. Here is a series of quick videos of how he communicates with us, oddly enough all from the same lunchtime with Matt.

First, Simon has learned a modified version of the sign for "cat". The real sign looks like you are stroking your whiskers, so he has the side to side arm movement down and he does this when Leia comes into the room:

Next, he does this all the time and is clearly trying to tell us something here, but we haven't figured it out yet. All hypotheses welcome:

He has found a clear-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt way of telling us he is done drinking:

Next, another pretty frequent one that we aren't quite sure of...what we do know is that it most certainly does NOT mean no. In fact, it seems to means anything but no, all appearances to the contrary:

Finally, he has created a sign that clearly means he is done eating and can now tell us when he's full, which is wonderful. It does look an awful lot like the sign for cat, but in context it's crystal clear:



Well, as Simon made clear in the last video, we're all done!

Bananas!

Watch Simon put away this half a banana in just about 2 minutes...

First steps (with some help)

Simon is getting steadier on his feet and starting to think about walking, it seems. Here is a short video of him taking some early steps with the help of a push toy thingy.



Also, stay tuned for lots of details and pictures of the big birthday party from this past weekend. We didn't get many pictures on our camera, so once we gather everyone else's I'll post a bunch!

Flying Tickle!

Simon loves hanging upside down and he loves being tickled...thus, we present the Flying Tickle!

Simon being Simon

This video is only for the real Simon fans...it's just a couple of minutes of him being him.