happy 1st birthday!

Krew turned one on October 28th!  I've already mentioned my feelings about this milestone on my last post so I won't go into that today and instead I'll just talk about what a fun day his birthday was!

Of course his birthday had to include this little birthday mini-photo shoot.  Isn't he so handsome?

Since his birthday is so close to Halloween, and since he is not yet old enough to insist that they are two separate, and totally distinct holidays, we decided to have a Halloween-themed birthday party.

The birthday cake.  

All the kids at the party got these mummy juice boxes.  

I had so many ideas for Halloween cupcakes, but I had to narrow it down to just a few ideas. So, I went with mummies, spider webs, and Halloween sprinkles with "1" cupcake toppers.

As people walked in, they signed in on this cute scrapbook page so that when Krew is older, he can read the nice notes and remember who was at his first birthday party.  We did the same thing for the twins' first birthday party, and I think it's a fun tradition!

I printed out one picture from each of Krew's monthly photo shoots and hung them on the wall.  It's so fun to see how much he has changed from one month until his first birthday!  Plus, Krew loves these pictures and often points to them and laughs.

Here is the birthday boy at his party, playing with his favorite toy: mommy's phone.  It's a good thing that it only looks like a cool, smartphone and really doesn't do anything cool so that I don't feel bad about letting him play with it. All. The. Time.

Here's a better look at the cute Halloween/1st birthday onesie that I made for him.

He did NOT want to have his picture taken with Grandpa...

I think this is such a fun age to watch kids open gifts.  They don't really know what's going on.  They've never been allowed to rip anything before, and they always seem to be so interested in one thing (whether it is a particular toy, or a box, or the wrapping paper) and they lose interest in the rest of the gifts.

And now for the best part of the whole day: smash cake time!  I didn't get a picture of Krew with his cake before he got covered in frosting because pretty much as soon as we sang, and I helped him blow out the candle, he tasted the frosting with one finger and then went to town!

He was picking up handfuls of just the frosting and shoving it into his mouth as fast as he could.  I kinda felt bad for him because just straight frosting is not that good, especially if you have never had anything that sweet before.  So, I helped him rip into the cake itself and he was in heaven.

To say he loved eating his own cake would be an understatement.  It was everything I had hoped it would be!

Once he slowed down at his seat, I decided to see if I could get a few good pictures in front of the birthday background.  Of course the lighting was terrible, but the cute baby covered in cake and frosting made up for that!

After a few minutes, he stuck his little toes right in the cake.  He wasn't sure what to think about a foot covered in frosting.

Can you see how the inside of the cake is marbled and colorful?  I thought that would be a nice touch.

Mommy and her birthday boy!  Don't mind my gorgeous apron, but I did NOT want to get my new shirt covered in black frosting.

The aftermath!  I have to say that Krew's birthday was such a great day!  All the planning and hard work that went into making his party just right was totally worth it.  We were lucky to have such good friends and family with us to help us celebrate such a special day for such a special little boy!

12 months!

My baby is one!  Where did the past year go?  He grew up so fast, and changed so much from the first of these monthly photo shoots 'till now.  I. Can. Not. Believe. It.

You may notice right away that his hair is shorter and way lighter than it was last month.  I finally caved and had my friend Greta give him a "big boy" haircut.  It was all kinds of straggly and getting in his eyes, and some days I loved his long, crazy, multi-colored hair, but other days it just looked sloppy.  But, now he looks so grown up, and all his gorgeous natural low-lights are gone.  Boo.  Oh, well, it had to happen sometime, right? Plus, he is mighty handsome. Moving on.

This month was full of lots of first, and lots of new tricks.  Krew can now tell you where his head is, and where his mouth is.

He is full-on walking now!  He walks more than he crawls, and it's still so funny to me when I look down and see him walking past me.  Or, when I'm in the other room and I hear him coming, and I expect him to be crawling toward me, but no, he's walking.  It's super fun.  It happened really quick.  He took his first step the day before he turned 11 months old, and a couple of weeks later he was walking as much as he was crawling.

Besides the animal sounds mentioned last month, Krew also likes to tell us what a car says, and when asked, "What does a gator say?"  He does the gator chomp.  Actually, it looks a lot like just clapping, but he'll get the top-to-bottom motion soon enough. My favorite though is he now knows what a horse says.  Only he doesn't do the "neigh" part but the "ppthhhhht," like blowing a raspberry (you know, like the sound a horse makes?) and he spits all over.  Too funny!

Here are some of the words he says: hi and bye (these words come out with a very strong southern accent), ball, bat, bath, bus, and Buzz (as in Lightyear), although these words sound very similar when he says them, except bat (because we had a Halloween decoration hanging above our kitchen table that he was in love with) which came out very clear, but very forced and quick.  He says Mow for Mickey Mouse, dut for Donald Duck, and ha for hat.  He will sign "more" and "please" and "eat," but only when he's really desperate, as in he's asking for something like a cookie.  When I try to get him to sign please, or more, I do the sign and say it, and usually he just tries to say it instead of signing it.  I have a feeling he's going to be a talker!

He still only has his two tiny bottom front teeth, but I think the top front ones will be here shortly.  Which will not be fun because he loves to bite chins and noses.  And not just the tip of the nose either.  Be warned, if you lie down on the floor at our house, Krew will crawl over to you and try to bite your entire nose.  He's done it to several people, not sure what that's all about.

I love these next pictures of Krew playing with his daddy.  They have such a special bond and it's so fun to see them together!

This has seriously been one of the best years of my entire life!  Being Krew's mom makes me happy every single day.  (Plus add on top of that the fact that I am Ky and Kade's mom too!).  I still feel like I didn't get enough of the baby stage.  Not enough swaddling and rocking to sleep, not enough new baby smell, not enough teeny tiny baby clothes, not enough baby wearing, not enough lazy hold-my-baby-all-day while he drifts in and out of sleep days.  Just not enough.  But I am excited about what this next year holds as we get to watch this amazing little guy grow and learn new things every day!

Happy Birthday Krew!  We love you!