A look into our world

On Tuesday I went to go visit my Dr. for my 12-month check-up. He said I'm healthy and doing great. He told Mommy to phase out on giving me bottles - I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. Mommy tried for Wednesday morning, but then I got a fever and have had one since. Mommy thinks that since I'm not feeling completely well, she won't try to take my bottles away just yet. I might have my fever because I got 4 shots at my appointment. 4. It wasn't fun at all. And I had to have my finger pricked. 5 needles in one day isn't my idea of a good time, but Mommy said they'll keep me healthy. Here's to hoping.

Even though I have a fever, I'm still relatively happy. I've been playing lots with my guitars and drum, dump truck and piggy bank toy, and here I am in one of my new outfits for my birthday from Grandma Lou. Mommy told me that I need to think about napping a little longer - today I've only been sleeping for about 30-40 minutes at a time, which isn't normal for me. Mommy said it's hard to get things done around here when I don't sleep for long. I don't really get it - wouldn't she be happy that I'm awake more, cause then we can just play all day! I like playing.

Well, this week I turned 1!! I feel much older and bigger. My Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Jenna came to visit me this week, and we had so much fun!! Here we all are on the porch on my birthday celebrating.Here is my cousin Jamey and I playing my cool guitar and drum I got for my birthday...we were a great band.Chillin' on the porch in my lawn chair.Here I am opening my presents. This yellow shirt is from Grandpa Jere - he got it for me in Budapest, Hungary, where he just visited a few weeks ago. Grandma and Grandpa got me my very own set of golf clubs and bag! Now I can play with the big boys when they go. And with my clubs I also got some balls! I got a football, basketball, and a few other balls - I really love them.Dad and I had some fun playing time in the grass...

I had so much fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa! Grandma and I enjoyed my puzzle that makes sounds...
Then I started this funny thing outside...I don't really like crawling on the cement, so I thought I'd just walk on all fours! Everyone got a kick out of me.
Just chillin' with the fam on my birthday.
More crab-walking...
Mommy and her sweet boy...

Well, in case you didn't know, I am almost 1 year old!! Tomorrow is my real birthday, but we celebrated with a party on Saturday that lots of my friends came to. We had so much fun! We had a camo theme (Mommy said to specify that it was army camo, not hunters camo). Everyone wore mostly camo shorts, some camo shirts, and Uncle Tim even had camo flip-flops! Mommy made these camo cupcakes (and Dad helped).
I had so much fun opening my presents - you gotta love all that tissue paper and wrapping paper! I was in paper heaven.
I got some really cool stuff for my birthday, including this dumptruck and the piggy bank toy you can see in the background. It has special coins that you can put in the slot on its back, and the piggy counts and says "oink oink" and sings songs. It's really cool!
I also got this really great guitar! Actually, gues what? I got 3 guitars :) Our close friends the Reeves, the Evans, and the Mosts know me so well, and they all separately thought I needed a guitar. They were right. These guitars are so much fun!
And Uncle Tim and Auntie Sarah also got me a drum! I love that drum - I'm a natural at banging on it :) Papa and M'laine couldn't be here this weekend but left me a few presents to open at my party. One was a really fun wooden puzzle of some animals, and when you lift the puzzle piece off, the animal makes their animal noise. It's really fun! The second one is this swim floatie for when I swim this summer - I am so excited to use it! It has mesh sides, so it will let the water come up right beside me so I can splash to the fullest. I will get to use it when we go on our vacation to the beach this summer, but I'm not sure I can wait that long to get in the pool - maybe we can go to Aunt Sherri's pool before that! Here is one of my other guitars, the one Mr. Bryan and Mrs. Robin (and baby McKenzie-to-be) gave me. It's a little different than the other one that I got, so I convinced Mommy that we can keep both of them. Plus, as you can see in the background, my guitar was my cousin Jamey's favorite present. So after all the kids had left, and just Jamey and I were playing with my toys, it was a good thing we had 2 guitars to play with so we didn't have to share the same one. Yay for cool guitars! After presents, it was cake time! Mommy had a feeling that I wouldn't really care for my cake, and she was right. I'm not really into new things like that, and I had never tried anything like this before. Give me a few more times, and I'll be a cake-eating pro. But the first time? Well, no thank you. I did, however, feel like I should give a little bit of a show at least, so I humored all the people and stuck my hand in the cake a little bit. I had more fun feeding it to Dad than eating it myself. Daddy tried his hardest to help me eat some cake, but I kept saying no thank you. "I'm tired of this, can we be done with this cake-thing please?"All in all, it was a GREAT party! Thank you so much to all our friends to came to celebrate with us and thank you for all the great presents. We love you all and appreciate your love for us!

Sunday was a very special day, because it was Mother's Day and my dedication day! This is what was on the screen when it was our turn to walk up on stage.
Mr. Sam giving Mommy and Daddy a neat book about how to pray for me.

My friend Hudson got to be dedicated too! That is him with Mr. Jeff and Mrs. Kara right next to us. It was a very special time!

On Friday night, all the family went over to my Uncle Dave and Aunt Stacey's house for dinner. These are the three boys of the family, Uncle Scott, Dad, and Uncle Dave. They're really glad to have me around now, cause there's another boy to keep them company around all those girls!
Okay, Mommy says to not look at my really full diaper in this picture...just focus on how much fun I was having sticking my feet in that water! Uncle Scott and Aunt Sherri have a pool at their house, and that is where this picture was taken. Mommy said we can go over there lots more this summer and swim! I sure am going to like swimming. Mommy stuck my feet in that cold, cold water, and I loved it! I just kick, kick, kicked, and spash, splash, splashed. I love water!
On our porch swing on Mother's Day - Mommy thinks I'm such a big boy and so handsome.
Me, Mommy, M'laine (Daddy's mommy), and Grandmommie (M'laine's mommy) on our porch swing on Mother's Day.
Me in my cool lawn chair.

On Friday, Papa, Dad, Grandmommie, M'laine, Mommy and I went golfing. Well, really only Papa and Daddy golfed, and the rest of us just rode around in the cart. It was great fun! The warm breeze in my face as we drove down the cart path was my favorite part. Papa and Dad even let me get out on the greens a bit! What a great time - I wonder if Dad will take me golfing again?

Here I am sitting so big in my elmo chair watching my Praise Baby video. Boy do I love that video!

This past weekend I had so much fun with my Papa and M'laine! They came up to help celebrate my dedication on Sunday, and they got me a few early birthday presents. The first is this Elmo chair, which I love. When he is turned on, he wiggles and laughs, and I think it is so funny! It is just the right size for me, and I can watch my videos in it. Perfect!
M'laine also brought home a "happy birthday" balloon - I wasn't sure what to think about it at first, but then I warmed up to it and still enjoy playing with it.
Then I got to open a present! I did very good pulling on the wrapping paper...
It is a book! And not just any book; it's a book about tractors and a farm, and it has 55 flaps inside the book that I can pull open. It's my kind of book!
Here I am working my magic on one of the flaps inside while Dad reads to me. Thank you so much for my gifts, Papa and M'laine! I love them!