One Big Year! (Part 1)

My goodness!  I can't believe my sweet boy is one big year old!  I feel like I was just pregnant (of course if you ask Jimmy, he'll say, "she was!"  The time has flown by, but I don't feel like any of it was wished away.  What I mean is, I tried really hard to never say, "I wish Nathan would hurry up and ____."  I just enjoyed the journey as it happened and let Nathan take his own pace.  Not to say there are some things that I hoped would come sooner rather than later (see: my child still doesn't sleep through the night!), but I always tried to remind myself that we only have one time for Nathan to achieve each of his milestones.

We visited Dr. Haney the Monday after his birthday (which fell on Good Friday this year).  He was 22 lbs 4 oz (41st %ile), 31 inches long (84th %ile) and head circumference of 18.25 inches (51st %ile).  Still my long and lean boy!  He is moving into size 4 Pampers diapers and starting to fit into his 18 month clothes.  The pants are still too long on him (most of his length is in his torso) but we just roll them up and move on.

As you will see from the pictures, we've had a few achievements in the past month.  Nathan took his first steps (5 in a row) on March 4th (11 months).  Popo and I were the only 2 people to see it happen, but it was pretty exciting.  By the time we got to his birthday, Nathan was confidently (if not a bit wobbly) walking around!  It all happened so quickly!  It took about 2 weeks to go from taking 5 steps then falling and crawling to walking almost everywhere.  Crawling doesn't seem to be an acceptable mode of transportation anymore.  He would rather try to stand up and fall down 10 times than resort to crawling to get where he wants to go (this presents a problem when he's sleepy and his balance is terrible).

He also started saying "Mama" about a month or so ago, although it took some time for him to mean it.  My mom warned me that I should not want him to "mean it" too quickly...that I'll want to change my name before it's all over.  But as a first time mommy and listening to "dada" for months already, I was ready for Nathan to acknowledge me by name!  Today he actually pointed at me and said "mama" and I almost teared up. As far as his eating habits, Nathan is par for the course.  He just cut his top 4 teeth in the last 2 weeks after having his bottom 2 teeth for a long while! Still not eating table food very well, so we still give him jarred baby food most of the time.  He has oatmeal with fruit every morning for breakfast and is still taking a bottle of formula 3 or 4 times a day.  We offered him whole milk from a cup on his birthday, and he hasn't warmed up to it quite yet.  Dr. Haney said to slowly transition off of the formula as he gets better at taking the milk (he's supposed to get 16-20 oz or the equivalent per day).

Okay, now we get to the good part...pictures of the birthday boy!!!  As expected he got a bunch of presents (although, unlike Christmas, certain people exercised some restraint so we don't have to buy a second home to store his junk...er, I mean, toys).  I posted a picture of my favorite present that Nathan received at the very bottom of the blog.  Are you patient enough to read to the bottom to see what it is???  I didn't think so!  I'll wait while you scroll down to see what it is (p.s. don't be too crushed when it wasn't from you).

Nathan's favorite present is probably debatable, but the early front runner was this:

Thanks, Lolo!  He has already figured out how to open the door (with help), crawl in, get situated and turn the steering wheel.  Genius baby!  Oh!  Speaking of genius baby, his sign language is coming along really well.  He consistently knows "milk," "eat" and "bird" (of all things). Besides Mama and Dada, he also has words (okay, sounds) for ball, cat (sounds like tat, heavy on the first "t"), hi (sounds like hiiiiieeeey), and bye bye (sounds like buh bye).  There are probably more that I can't think of, but I'd say that's a good start for one year old!  Dr. Haney said he has the vocabulary of a 15 month old (side note: evidently a 15 month old's vocabulary is still pretty limited!).

Nathan still loves to read his books! He spent the morning rearranging his bookshelf for Popo.

I tried to take his usual picture update with Pluto, and this was the best I got.   Take my word for it, he's adorable.

Aunt Misty came over on the morning of his birthday to help me start getting the house ready for his party.  Luckily, he took a 2 hour nap while she was here, so we were able to get caught up and get some actual work done!

Grammy arrived in the afternoon and was promptly put to work.  She looks miserable, right?

Also making an appearance...Popo!!  Nathan loves his Popo!  They read books and crawled all around the living room.

Momo and Lolo

Aunt Ashley made it to the house that evening. This is her getting my clean kitchen dirty!   I had made crock pot chicken forgetting that none of Jimmy's family could eat meat on Friday, so Ashley is making dinner for herself and Lolo.

Uncle Cantrell came in the afternoon and was promptly put to work.  More on party preparation in the next post! 

Nathan, your daddy and I love you so much and are so proud of you.  You are our happy smiling boy and I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Next time I'll get into the jungle birthday par-tay, but here's a preview of the birthday cake (because I loved it soooo much and can't wait to share it on the blog!!!)

Love, love, love!!!!  His cake turned out even better than I imagined it would (and I knew it would be awesome!).  It was especially great since the only direction I gave the baker was, "Jungle theme, here's a picture of his party napkin, I'd like his name on it somewhere, maybe some cute animals."  See his little smash cake in the bottom left corner.  Full credit to our awesome baking duo will be given in the next post, along with more pictures : ) (spoiler alert: Thank you SO much Carolyn and Andy!!!)

Ta da!!  This awesome collage was put together by Nathan's Aunt Misty.  She took photos from  throughout his first year and had them printed on presentation board.  We hung it on the wall behind the cake table and his high chair.  This present wins the Make Mommy Cry award.  I can't wait to get it framed!  Precedent = Set!