Happy Birthday Luke!

We no longer have a baby...we have a little boy! Luke is one! We celebrated his birthday in April! It has been one crazy year!

At 12 months:

• Luke is walking! Just these past few days, he has preferred walking rather than crawling around. Before, if he fell down, he would crawl around instead. Now if he falls, he'll only crawls far enough to get to something to help him up so he can walk! Even then, he can stand up in the middle of the room without anything to hold on to!
• He has 3 and a half teeth! One on the top has popped through and the other is close! It only adds to his "cheesy" smile :)
• Thanks to Grandma Koval, he knows what a kitty says and is very good at "meowing"...although somehow he can get that confused with performing his "cheesy" smile but that's ok! We are now working on what a doggy says. If "meowing" counts, he now knows 4 words including "uh-oh," "mama," and "dada."
• Even though I get major anxiety out of fear that he'll choke, he is eating more solid foods and especially loves bananas and Cheerios.
• His new carseat is now front-facing and he loves it! (So do Mommy and Daddy! No more hauling around his bucket seat!)

Being his first birthday, I had a lot of fun planning his party! I probably went a little overboard but I loved it and I hope everyone who came, did too! Thanks to my sister and her family for letting us use their home! Much easier than trying to cram everyone in our little apartment!

We had sandwiches for lunch and then Luke had his Birthday Cake! I made Luke a VERY simple cake because I didn't want him having tons of food coloring added to his frosting, to make an even bigger mess! But there were fun cupcakes for everyone else :)

A monkey, zebra, lion and tiger cupcakes

He hadn't had anything like cake before his birthday. We wanted to make sure to get a good reaction. And we did, just not what we expected! He was only picking at the cake, taking little tastes. He liked it! But Daddy wanted it to be messy, so he pushed Luke's hands into the cake. Luke still enjoyed eating his cake until he realized that his hands were a mess! Just like his Daddy, he hated having messy hands, refused to eat anymore and started throwing his hands in an effort to get the cake off! It was great! Needless to say, Luke loves cake, just not being messy, which is fine by me!

Luke prefers little bites...


...but this is a Daddy-size bite!


Luke's cousin, Callie, gave him a napkin because he was DEFINITELY going to need one!


Messy hands!

He got pretty spoiled with all the gifts he received! But we appreciated all of them and Luke does too!

Pirate Ship from Mom and Dad


Ball popper from his cousins Mailon, Hunter and Owen


By the last few gifts, he got the hang of opening them! He'll have a lot of fun this next Christmas!






Thank again to everyone!


Our Family (a little worn out from all the party craziness!)
And Luke's expression is a mixture of excitement, attitude from being held in one place and a little sleepy...it's nap time!