A boy, not a baby!

Our little man has just turned one! I can't believe it. I know I've already had that transition once with Chloe, but it just doesn't seem possible that Linus could be entering toddlerhood here shortly. Every day I look at him he looks more and more like a little boy and less like a baby, which is both exciting and frightening. Before I add pictures of the main event, I just want to take a moment and say the things I love about this special little guy:

• When I get home from work the first thing he does when he sees me is flash me the biggest smile in the world and immediately hold his arms up for me to hold him. When I pick him up, he gah's gleefully and puts his head on my chest as if to say "I missed you!". That's about one of the greatest moments of my existence from day to day. :-)
• He loves to immitate any sound you make. So far he's learned how to say "Da-da", "Ma-ma", "Day-doo" (thank you), "supwusupwusupwusupwusup" (which we're pretty sure means "what's up"), and "Hey-doo" (Hey dude!), which are phrases and words that we say to him frequently.
• He learns SO quickly. Well, obviously it took him a while to get his motor skills developed, but now that he's crawling, it's been three weeks and he's a maniac on the floor. He gets going so fast that he trips over his arms all the time and falls flat on his face, but then he just pulls himself back up and continues on like nothing happened. When we come up with a system or blockage to keep him away from things we don't want to get into, he figures out how to get around it as soon as we install it.
  
• My other favorite moment of the day is when I come into their room in the morning and he's standing in his crib and shrieks and laughs hysterically when he sees me he's so happy that we're awake. I love it!
• His giggle. When you start tickling him, he curls up into a ball and grunts out this little boy giggle with a giant smile on his face that just makes you laugh to hear it. He learned how to laugh at about two months and we've loved every minute of it since then.

He's just a ball of fun and we're so luck to have him in our lives! Now if we could just learn how to get him to not screech so loud and so high at the top of his lungs that even Chloe covers her ears and says "Mommy, Yi-sus screaming, ears hurt!" and I walk around hearing a high ringing for hours afterwards, we might just have the perfect child. Or something like that...:-)
So here's a few pictures of the festivities. We had a great evening. Grandma and Grandpa Bardeen came up with Aunt Rose and Uncle Addison and everyone from next door came to celebrate too. Well actually, we all went next door and celebrated over there so the kids would have a little more "crazy" room so we wouldn't feel so crunched and caustrophobic over at our house. Linus loved all his gifts. He got some fun toys that even Chloe can't keep her hands off of, and we got him (well, for Chloe too, really) a big wagon we can pull them around in (it's got seats and cupholders and everything, and you can buckle them in so they don't fall out of the wagon as soon as you start pulling it, ha ha). He got lots of CUTE clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Bardeen (seeing him wear those grown up boy shorts and polo shirts just makes him look so old!) and he got a tree swing for out in our backyard from Grandma and Grandpa Ellingson. It was a wonderful evening and we had lots of fun visiting with everyone!

He actually let us keep his birthday hat on his head for a while. Then he tried to eat it so we had to take it away. Notice the strap on his ear- nice touch, huh?
This was him post hat removal. I know, I'm a horrible mommy for taking a picture of my son with this pitiful pout instead of holding him, but he's even cute when he pouts. I'm sure no one else thinks so, but that's one of the perks of being a mommy to your own kids. :-)
We had to force feed him the cake before he realized he liked it. Then he dug in with heated fervor.
I meant to take out some frosting before I put the cocoa powder in it so I could do some different colors, but I forgot to. So we had lots of brown. But that's okay. As you can clearly tell, I made a sprinkled blanket, because Linus likes his blankets. Just incase you couldn't clearly tell, there's a label to remind you.


Linus enjoying his new swing in the backyard. :-)