{"id":10318,"date":"2016-10-17T14:06:03","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T14:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abeandlily.darais.com\/?p=10318"},"modified":"2016-10-17T14:06:03","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T14:06:03","slug":"happy-first-birthday-ammon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/17\/happy-first-birthday-ammon\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy first birthday, Ammon!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ammon turned one year old on Saturday!! He is the best, the sweetest, the most darling child. We feel blessed, lucky, fortunate, and every other adjective that connotes how undeserving we are to have this incredible child in our family.<\/p>\n

As he turns one, Ammon’s personality is still emerging. However, some things are clear. This child is a peacemaker and loves to obey. I have never experienced parenting a baby who doesn’t view the word “no” as a game. Whenever we say “no” to Ammon, he looks at us with an expression of query, redoes his action one time to make sure he understands what is off limits, and then when the “no” is repeated–he crawls away. The first time this happened my jaw dropped open. My girls thought “no” was the greatest game ever. Ammon just wants peace.<\/p>\n

He creates peace in our home by balancing everyone out. When people are feeling edgy, a smile or cuddle from Ammon can completely change the atmosphere. I also firmly believe he has played a part in helping Lydia to even out. Even Mary, who jealously guarded her baby status for so long, has come to love Ammon. Her delight is to make him laugh.<\/p>\n

Ammon also lights up my mom’s days by clapping and greeting her with smiles whenever he sees her. He is a joy.<\/p>\n

As incredible a child as he is, Ammon gets ignored\u00a0a lot<\/em>. He has learned to cope with this by playing quietly by himself for embarrassingly long stretches of time. He doesn’t complain about this state of affairs until poop or hunger get the best of him.<\/p>\n

To make up for his attention-deprived life, we decided to celebrate his birthday in part by paying loads of attention to him. We all sang to him, clapped for him, and ooh’d and aah’d over everything he did all day long. We also gave him too many presents so that when he is being ignored he will have new things to play with.<\/p>\n

In the morning we took Ammon to pick out his birthday balloons, and then we gave him a birthday donut and sang to him.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0073\"<\/a> \"IMG_0074\"<\/a> \"IMG_0118\"<\/a> \"IMG_0108\"<\/a> \"IMG_0107\"<\/a> \"IMG_0145\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Abe gave Lydia and Ammon a towering bubble bath, after which Ammon took a nap.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0176\"<\/a> \"IMG_0193\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When he woke up, we fed him and then gave him his presents.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0236\"<\/a> \"IMG_0241\"<\/a> \"IMG_0224\"<\/a> \"IMG_0233\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Pre-present<\/a>
Pre-present excitement with Daddy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"IMG_0254\"<\/a> \"IMG_0264\"<\/a> \"IMG_0279\"<\/a> \"IMG_0286\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Lydia<\/a>
Lydia drew Ammon a card.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"IMG_0305\"<\/a> \"IMG_0306\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This conveys Lydia’s love for Ammon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After presents, we sang again and had cupcakes.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0310\"<\/a> \"IMG_0328\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Nana<\/a>
Nana with cupcake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then we packed everyone into the car and headed to Salt Lake. We met Tom and Suzanne in Sugarhouse Park so they could give Ammon their presents. They gave him lots of cute clothes and a really fun ball popper toy.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0350\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When it got dark, we headed over to the zoo for Boolights. At this point, Ammon’s bedtime was already come and gone, but he was happy and content the whole time. He didn’t make a single peep of complaint until after Boolights when we were almost back to the car.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0363\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
We should have gotten more pictures of Boolights, but it was dark. The weather, though, was AMAZING. It was a balmy 73 degrees the whole time. I think I over bundled Ammon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ammon was so excited about his day that even though we had blown through his bedtime hours before, he stayed awake in the car until almost 10:30.<\/p>\n

I can’t believe Ammon is one. It feels like he was born a lifetime ago–life without him feels like an alternate reality that I can’t wrap my mind around. When I think back to the actual day I gave birth to him, I can’t help but marvel: Has it really only been one year? Haven’t we\u00a0always<\/em> had Ammon? The great news is, because of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will\u00a0always<\/em>\u00a0have this precious child in our lives.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday, sweet baby of mine!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ammon turned one year old on Saturday!! He is the best, the sweetest, the most darling child. We feel blessed, lucky, fortunate, and every other adjective that connotes how undeserving we are to have this incredible child in our family. As he turns one, Ammon’s personality is still emerging. However, some things are clear. This … Continue reading Happy first birthday, Ammon!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}