One Year Older and Wiser, Too.

Happy Birthday to Benjamin! The big little guy turned one a couple weekends ago. For his party, we stripped him down and let him have at a chocolate frosted chocolate cupcake -- outside. He loved it, of course.

On his actual birthday, I was orchestrating the Friday evening dance at Youth Conference for our church. We had super-fun neon and black decorations, complete with glowsticks and cool DJ lights. I'm a big fan of the DJ that we (*cough* I*cough*) have been getting the last couple of dances. He's got great equipment and music and is very willing to do anything I ask. We had some good line dances, a fun limbo and an awesome hula-hoop contest. I wore a neon blue wig -- just in case anyone needed to find the person in charge of the dance. Yeah...I don't just, like, love dressing up and stuff.

Right after Youth Conference, on Fathers' Day, Jacob left for a week long Spectroscopy conference in Ohio. Benjamin and I kept ourselves quite busy -- we started some swimming lessons, had Laura come spend the night, hosted a ladies night, and went for a swim and BBQ party with some friends.

Jacob enjoyed the time bonding with co-workers in his lab, listening to talks about "mol spec", playing video games, and reading A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett.

So. . . yeah. Isn't this kid cute?