The Best Gift

We went in with Don's parents on a rock climbing wall for Christmas for the boys. We've been debating whether to get a swing set or a trampoline or something like that for awhile. We have a large lot but the majority of it is wooded so we only have a small flat area in the backyard. We found this "mountain" and it has been a hit. Declan constantly climbs on it, plays in the middle and jumps from it. It was perfect!

Christmas continued

Johnson Christmas

We traveled to MN for Christmas and stayed with Don's parents along with his sister and her boyfriend. It was a great 4 days, despite some rough nights with Tate - we did a lot of relaxing, eating, drinking and laughing. Unfortunately there was hardly any snow, but we did get the boys out on the lake down the street.

Sledding on Medicine Lake

Loving our bottle

Lisa and Steve with their most treasured gifts

Tate Turns 1

Eek, it's been a long time since I posted. Tate turned 1 right before Christmas (12/22) so we had a couple of celebrations. On his bday I made chicken parmigiana from scratch and we had my parents and the neighbors (Tate's godparents) over for dinner and cake. It was a perfect low key celebration and a great way to savor the end of his first year with us.

He is healthy and a big boy, around the 90th percentile for height and weight. Declan was also tall, but Tate is a bit more "solid" if you will. He's got a nice round tummy and thick legs. He is solidly walking and we dropped the bottle cold turkey right after Christmas without a hitch (which was surprising). He had become accustomed to walking around the house with it, sucking away - very cute but I was worried he'd get too attached to it if we kept it around much longer.

He is starting to comprehend more, just saying a few words like Dec Dec, dada, doggie and a little bit of mama. But he definitely understands quite a bit of what we say which is neat. We are definitely busy lately!

This is the only shot I have of the whole group

Mmmmmm, chicken parmigiana!