One Year

Our sweet little man,

We knew this day was coming.  We would talk about it often.  Each time a month would pass, we would remind the other one how many more months until you would be a year old.  But we are still in disbelief that you are actually one year old.  For the past few days I have had flash backs to what we did and where we were on the days leading up to your birth.  For the past 24 hours we have been reminding each other of what we were doing at the specific hours one year ago.  Let me tell you, you will never understand this until you have a child of your own, but our lives changed in a way that we were not prepared for.  We have never loved anyone as much as we love you.  You are the most amazing, wonderful thing that has ever happened to us.  The moment when you were placed into my arms for the first time was the most intense moment of my life.  There you were.  Ours.  We wanted you, prayed for you, loved you, wondered about you and finally we were able to see you.  You were more than we could have ever imagined.  Truly perfect.

This past year has flown.  It seems like I was just sitting with you on our couch in Amarillo.  You would just lay on my legs and I would stare at you all day.

Daddy and I sneak in every night to see you one last time before we go to bed.  You still make this little scrunched face when you sleep.

A lot has happened in this year.  You have lived in three different homes!  You still prove yourself to be an incredibly adaptable child.  While you love quiet time at home with just us, you also love to be out and around lots of people and you absolutely adore it when you get attention from everyone.  You talk all the time.  Words that you now say "Kyou" for "Thank you", "this", "jce" for "juice" and "k" for "milk".  I love that now you are associating the words with what they are instead of just repeating the sounds.  You also know that a duck says "quack".  Saying "oooooo" about almost everything is still a common occurrence.  And we still love it!  I love to look in the backseat of the car and see you looking out the window talking or you will stick your feet out towards me so I'll tickle them.  You are so happy.  If you are upset, it's for a reason.  You love to laugh and smile.  When you are around other children, you usually sit back and watch what they are doing for a while, then slowly get in to play with them.  It's so cute to see you observe what's going on before you begin playing.

You are walking all over the place now.  You first started walking on your own right before you turned 11 months old.  For some reason, you were shy about it and would only do it for us every now and then, but that soon passed and now you are everywhere.  I love to watch you walk!  It is just so cute!  You eat pretty much whatever we give you.  Meat of any kind still isn't your favorite, but you love beans!  Crackers and cookies are also big hits with you.  Whenever we are eating something, you come up to us and say "mmmmm" until we share with you!  Sometimes you end up eating all of what we have!  You are exclusively drinking whole milk (bye bye formula!!) and have been for several weeks now.  We are thankful to be spending about $13 per month on milk instead of $120 on formula!  You have 5 (almost 6) teeth, two on the bottom and three on the top.  There is one that has been ready to cut through for a while, it's just taking it's sweet little time!  You are quite the daredevil.  You love to climb on things, dive off the bed, climb from the couch to the chair, and get thrown all over.  Fear is not something you understand!  Our absolute favorite thing you are doing now is giving kisses.  You started one day out of no where after Daddy got home from work.  He was holding you and leaned over to kiss me.  After he did that you opened your mouth and leaned into me to kiss me then leaned over to kiss Daddy.  We seriously melted into a puddle when you did that.  I won't lie, we set up the scene quite a bit so you will want to kiss us just because it is so adorable!

You are still an excellent sleeper.  You generally wake up somewhere between 8-9 in the morning.  You have your first bottle then some oatmeal or applesauce and some cheerios.  We will play or run errands in the morning, then you will go down for your nap between 10:30-11.  When you wake up around 1:30 or so, we have lunch (you eat whatever it is I'm eating that day), then we try to get out of the house if we haven't already run errands that morning.  We live right down the road from Target now, so we will usually go there, get a bag of popcorn to share, and walk around for a while.  As long as you are around people, you are a happy boy!  You love when people stop to talk to you and you will just say "hi" to random people we pass.  I never get tired of people stopping me to tell me how adorable you are!  After whatever afternoon outing we have made, we head home for you to take a little nap while I get dinner going.  About the time you get up, daddy is coming home (as long as he hasn't had to work late that day).  When daddy walks in the door, you get the biggest grin on your face.  You adore your daddy (and he most definitely adores you!).  (A lot of times during the day you will go up to our closed bedroom door, bang on it with your hand and yell "dada", thinking he's in there with the door closed.)  Daddy scoops you up and the two of you will wrestle and tumble around on the bed or the couch.  The giggles that I hear from you are unlike anything I hear all day long.  There is just something about your daddy that really gets you going!  After dinner, we usually play a little while, then it's bath time!  Bath time is still one of your favorites.  Daddy always gives you a bath then it's bedtime.  Thankfully, all we have to do is kiss you goodnight, turn on your noise machine, give you your monkey and paci and you just lie down and go to sleep.  We are often amazed at how well you go to bed.

Robby, we have loved seeing your personality come out over this past year.  We love every single thing about you.  Even when you do something that frustrates us, we can't help but melt at the site of your sweet smile.  You are our biggest blessing and (like everyone told us it would be) we cannot imagine our lives without you.  We love you more than you can ever understand!

Happy 1st Birthday!
Mommy and Daddy