12 Months

Today is the big day!  Noah is 1 year old!  November 16, 2009 changed our life forever and it has gotten better every single one of the 365 days since.  I am so grateful to have that precious boy as my son.  God has truly smiled down on Ben and I.

Ok, I am seriously going to start crying if I don't get down to business.

Noah, here is what you are up to at 12 BIG months!

-You are so very close to walking all over the place!  Yesterday you started taking about 2 steps at a time so I think we are in for more walking very soon.

- Your vocabulary is growing every day.  As of today, you say, Dada, Mama, dog (duh), Dixie (dee-dee), Georgia (guh-guh), and uh-oh.  You really learned uh-oh this weekend and now you say it all the time.  You are constantly dropping stuff and saying "uh-oh."  Oh and you are attempting to say "woof, woof!" like the dogs.  Every time I say "dog" I say "woof woof!" and you follow with something that sounds like "ehh ehh."  I guess that's your version of the dog sound. 

- You can be a stinker or a charmer depending on your mood.  If you are irritated you will angrily throw anything we offer you on the ground.  For example, while we were in the check out line earlier today, you were starting to get sick of being in the basket so I offered you a toy.  It wasn't enough to just push my hand away to say, "No, thanks"- you had to take the toy from me and throw it on the ground dramatically as if to say, "How could you even think to offer me that?!"  On the flip side, if you are in a silly mood, you will just ham it up and soak up the attention.  Saturday night after your party, people had cleared out and me, you and Grammar were on the couch and you kept going back and forth to us just laughing and playing, knowing you were being cute.  The cute times definitely make up for your stinky times :)

-  We are starting to transition to whole milk, which isn't going as easily as I had hoped.  Right now, I am having to mix it in with your formula in a bottle since you won't take milk from a sippy cup.  You're a little high maintenance.

- You eat 3 meals a day of table food, plus a snack in the afternoon.  You drink juice from a sippy cup without a problem.  In fact, most of the time, you chug it down like you are dying of thirst.

-  Your most favorite food is probably macaroni and cheese.  Or mandarin oranges.  You love both.

-  Your favorite toys right now are your big truck that you try and carry around, your shape sorter blocks, the leap frog table (still!), your piggy bank and probably every single one of your new toys you got for your birthday!

-  You like books if they are touch and feel.  If they aren't, then it's just not even worth it to try and read to you.  

-  You go to bed at about 7:30 or 8 and usually wake up close to 7.  Since the time change you have been getting up earlier (around 6:15) and are a little grumpy by the end of the day as a result.  

-  When you are home with me, you take 2 naps a day- one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  At school, who knows when you nap.  Usually your sheet has written down that you sleep for about 30 minutes at a time a couple times a day.  You need it pretty quiet for you to fall asleep and are very interested in what's going on around you, so it's no surprise that you aren't a good napper at school.

- You point at EVERYTHING.  Your favorite is to point at the pictures around the house.  Then you point and say, "Ehhh!  Ehh!" until we take you to look at them, one by one.  

-  We have one balloon left from your party and you are kind of obsessed with it.  It's a HUGE number 1 and you just love to hit it and touch it.  

-  You have 6 teeth that I know of.  I say that because you don't let me look in your mouth and if I stick my finger in there to feel, you can bet that you are going to bite it. 

- You wear a size 3 diaper and mostly 12 month clothes and a size 4 shoe. 

-  You are slowly but surely getting more hair.  It's mostly blonde, but in some lights it looks like a light brown.  No curls yet, but I'm still holding out hope that some will pop up :)

-  You went for your one year heart check-up with Dr. G a couple of weeks ago and she said you looked great!  You had an EKG, which was perfect, a chest x-ray and got another Holter monitor put on you for 24 hours.  So far, everything looks good and there are no signs of your SVT coming back!  We are seeing a specialist in February that will look more at the electrical side of your heart and hopefully give you the all-clear for good! 

-  You got weighed and measured at Dr. G's office, so at 11.5 months you were 19 lbs and 29.5 inches.  I have no clue what % those are, but we'll go for your 1 year well-check this Friday and get all of the stats again.

Noah, I really don't think there are words to describe just how much your daddy and I love you.  That fact makes it even harder for me to comprehend that your God loves you even MORE than that.  Your little life and this first year have been a living testament to how good our God really is.  You are a perfect, healthy, little piece of heaven on earth.  Thank you, Lord, for letting me be your mama.

Happy Birthday little boy!

*all pictures were taken by Brittany Dawson