Finny turned 1!

Kate (my younger sister), James (her husband), and Finn (my only nephew so far) came to visit this past weekend, just after Finn turned one on May 31! Crazy how much happens and how much he grows in a year! We had a blast picnicing at Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, bashing around the Farmer's Market after church, BBQing with the Schroeders on Sunday, playing pinochle (sorry dad!), watching movies, hitting Uptown for Ragstock, Heartbreakers, and used book stores, and sharing Finn's first birthday cake.

Finn is laughing, responding to the people around him, especially mom and dad, and even Aunt Meg and Uncle Mike a bit. In this picture, Finn is cracking up as Mike is pulling his cheeks away from his teeth, making this kind of sucking noise.

We had birthday cake Sunday evening with Schroeders after our little BBQ that got rained out. We spread a beach towel on the floor of the apartment and just let Finn go to town. At first he just stuck his fingers in the icing, then he started grabbing the cake and smooshing it around, then he grabbed the cake and flung it to his left and right and front 'n center, then he finally found that the cake itself tasted pretty good as well and proceeded to shovel it away, getting quite the sugar rush while he was at it!

For his birthday, Mike and I got him a little outfit from the Gap, of course, including this Product (Red) onesie. The Gap, along with a few other brand names have started a program in which they dedicate certain products to this Product (Red) campaign; 50% of the proceeds of these specified items goes to help stop AIDS in Africa thru the Global Fund. Gap has found fun ways to incorporate the whole (Red) symbol into some cute shirts, etc. Finny got one that says "Delivered," as you can see. He's sporting his global awareness at a young age. Here he's just woken up, and Kate is shoveling in the apple sauce. She says he's grown nine inches this year! Can you imagine how much energy and thus food it takes to grow nine inches! Thanks for driving all the way to MN to celebrate with us, Rohls; we look forward to many more reasons to eat cake!