Happy Birthday, David!

 Happy Birthday to our oldest son, David!  David broke us into parenting and we learned a lot from him. David learned to walk with lots of falling because he started when he was 9 months before he was very steady. He was okay with falling! He is not definitely afraid to take chances. He had a couple of special blankets that he liked to carry around. This is in our first apartment in Madison.

I was always looking for the toy that would keep David entertained but I never quite found one. He always wanted to play with other children.

First birthday

David had lived in 3 states by the time he was 6 months old:  Utah, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. Our second Christmas in Wisconsin, we went skating on the frozen lake near our home:  Lake Mendota. We came across an ice fisherman who let David dive into his bucket of bait fish and get one out.

Here he is, falling asleep at the end of dinner, with his hand stuffing the last of his dinner in.

When David was almost 2, he was crawling around on our bed, being a little wild, when he fell off and hit the sharp edge of a table we were using as a nightstand. He got a deep cut on his nose which required a couple of layers of stitches. It healed pretty well but he still has a little bit of a scar there which his glasses usually cover up. We got rid of the table after that.

One of the first words David learned was "side" which meant outside. He loved to go outside and see what there was to do. He especially got good at riding his various bikes.

Halloween:

David was super excited to get a little brother:

David's mad face:

David has always enjoyed building in the snow. This was a fun project he did with the neighbors:

When we went to Utah to visit, Liesl was his go-to friend.

David got to go to preschool at "University Houses Preschool" which was really close to our house. It was a high quality preschool, subsidized by the university, and David loved it. He would walk there 3 afternoons a week with a little neighbor girl. It was so helpful to me. He could be a little high-maintenance.

Here's David with his second little brother, Garrett:

I sewed a lot during David's early years. I made this blue jacket for him--it was a lot of work--and then David lost it one day at church. But I got over it eventually...😏

David was a pretty good worker:

Here's David on his 5th birthday, celebrating with our neighbors whom we spent a lot of time with, the Cohens:

Shortly after he turned 5, David learned how to ride a bike:

A month before we moved from Wisconsin, David started kindergarten. It was close by so David walked with two little girls in our neighborhood to the school. After we moved to Maryland, the neighbors were scandalized that I didn't walk him to the bus stop at the end of our street.

Happy Birthday, David! We're so glad you're in our family!