Our first child's first birthday!

It is snowing like mad here right now, so I might as well blog where it's warm and stay out of the cold!

We can't believe we're "grown up" enough to be celebrating a birthday for a kid! 

At one year old, Nathan is the sweetest little man you'll ever meet, when he wants to be. He is definitely cautious in every way, but has a strange defiant, independent streak in him. I'm very interested to see what happens when his shyness and nervousness mix with independence...

Nathan loves fridge magnets, books, and his toys. Some days he's completely bored with everything around him, and others it's as if he's never played with his toys before, or seen any of them! He loves cars and balls and anything that will roll across the kitchen floor.

Nathan is 100% BOY. I'm excited to see how this develops as well. After we moved, we had lots of furniture and other things to assemble. Whenever Mitch had a tool out, Nathan was there. He claimed daddy's little level as his own (he would've taken the screwdriver, if I'd let him), and carried it all over the house. He loves to know how things work. Again, the boys can always be found together when daddy's making something work. 

Our little man loves to beg for food like a stray dog. Nowadays he stands at our feet, pulling as hard has he can on our pants leg, saying "UMMMM!!! UMMMM!" ("Food" is "num-nums" in this house.) However, if we give him a taste (or he takes it himself) and he absolutely hates it, that message doesn't make it to his brain to stop the begging. He is relentless! He is also very picky by nature. We're doing our best to establish the "this is what's for dinner!" rule, but we do try to add in favorites sometimes that we know he loves. He will eat anything that comes in a baby food jar, but now that we're making the transition to full meals of solids, he doesn't know what to think! 

Nathan has one little bottom tooth that has taken about two months to cut through and gain some height. Poor kid! (Poor parents!) He actually just cut a top tooth last week, and it's trying its best to push on through. They are opposites, so he'll have a little jack-o-lantern smile for a little bit. :o)

At his one year appointment, Nathan weighed 20 lbs, he was 29.5 inches tall, had a head circumference of 18.3 in and a BMI of 16.7%. I just love these little statistics, and the chart they give us every time to see where these numbers have come from since last year and where they're likely to go.

 We love you, Nathan! We loved watching you open presents and eating your cupcake (in preparation for his birthday party later that week...I'll write about that later!), and seeing your face when you realized that wrapping paper hides good stuff! You have put us through the wringer with nearly every ailment and sickness in the book, but you are way more fun than you are work! We love you and can't wait to see what you accomplish and learn this year!

Here are some pictures to those of you who made it this far!

His cupcake broke in half before we gave it to him, so he just ate the top.

Wait a minute...what is this yummy brown stuff?

Awesome!

He went straight to the tub after this. We even left his diaper in his high chair...it was just too disgusting to take with us!

Opening presents :o) We just gave him a few little things and saved the rest for the party. 

Little baby tools! Yay! We wanted him to get the idea that wrapping paper hides good stuff!

Woo hoo! Doing it by myself!

Using both arms is more effective.

Clapping for myself...

"woo hoo!" We love this trick!

My feet want to read too!