A Year Already??!

Well, I really can't believe this little boy has already been in our lives for a year. At the same time, it's hard to remember life without him. It really seems that he just keeps getting cuter and finding new ways to amuse us. Anytime we go out, he is always making friends and entertaining all the tables around us at restaurants. Unfortunately for us the main times he's been crying these last couple of months have been at night.. He had his first ear infection on Christmas Eve and it seems like it's been almost continuous since then.  His ears don't seem to bother him at all during the day, but they do make him wake up at night. Thankfully when he finally cleared up a few weeks ago, he went pretty easily back to sleeping through the night again. It was a long couple of months though! (actually the sleepless nights pretty much started when he got his first teeth, so sleeping again was very exciting for us!). 

By his first birthday he was crawling like mad man, pointing, clapping, standing for 5-10 seconds on his own and making all sorts of noises. No walking or talking though. He has since (a few weeks later) started signing for milk (even though sometimes it just means he wants anything besides milk) and took his first few steps (at a rest area while we were out stretching our legs oddly enough). He still much prefers to crawl, but if you insist he will take a step or two and then dive into your arms. Chad picked out a little basketball goal to give him for his birthday and he couldn't be more proud of the fact that Henry immediately knew just what to do with the basketball and loves slam dunking it whenever he gets a chance! For some reason the idea of the "First Birthday Party" really had me stressed out. Maybe because I know some very creative and organized people who have thrown some super fancy ones! Anyway, we decided to go low key and just enjoyed having our family over for a cookout. I was really looking forward to Henry devouring his cake, but he honestly wasn't all that interested. His cousin Essie had set the bar pretty high. I can't seem to import the video of her eating the whole thing, but i bet you could find it on Suzanne's blog if you were so inclined :)

Here's Henry making his daddy proud:

this is about how well any sort of formal photos went on the big day

Henry had some great helpers when it came time for presents!

"Hey, what's Uncle Bryan doing?"

My attempt at cake decorating

Kind of looks like snot, gross

My favorite shot of the day

Since I just got around to finishing up a video from the 9 months clips, I can't imagine when I'll actually make the "memories of the first year" video that I have envisioned.. we'll see. For now, here are a few recent highlights. 

Not much to say about this one.. he's basically standing there holding a can. I thought it was cute, but then again, I'm his mom.. I won't judge you if you don't make it through the whole 46 seconds :)