Ben's First Birthday

Benjamin turned 1 today!!! So exciting!!! It has been quite a journey this past year! We have had so much fun watching Ben achieve so many milestones like rolling over, giggling, babbling, sitting up, crawling, pulling up, cruising, walking, and talking. Now our little man is running everywhere and throwing tantrums with the best of them! We have had a lot of sleepless nights and crying due to collick. And we have had fun watching Ben try new foods and assert his independence. We have been sad with him when he gets hurt or doesn't feel well. We have watched him play with Leo and other babies at daycare. It is hard to believe that our baby is 1 now! Really, he is a toddler now and no longer a baby. I love watching him grow and change! He is continually developing his personality. He loves to play outside, go on walks at the park, walk and run wherever he can, eat, drink water, play in the bathtub and pool and people watch, especially "big kids". His favorite foods are string cheese and bananas and he loves to eat Mexican food. He loves to mimic his daddy all the time! He likes to mimic sounds I make including singing, which is so cool! He still only says a few words: dada, mama, kitty, ba (ball-he says it while holding a ball or pointing at one) and most recently he said ducky. He waves "bye bye" and points at things. He is very good (usually) at telling me what he wants even though he can't actually say what he wants. I am constantly amazed by him and I am so glad that he is our son!!! We love him more than anything in the world!!!

For Ben's birthday, we had planned to go to the Louisville Zoo and then go to Build-A-Bear Workshop at the mall. Unfortunately, Ben has had a stomach bug for a few days and was not feeling the best and the temperature was in the upper 80s and the humidity was sickening. So, we changed our plans and went to a winery and then to Build-A-Bear and then back home to open presents and have supper. We will go to the zoo on a weekend when it is cooler and everyone is feeling well.

Below are a couple of pictures from Build-A-Bear. Nathan and I showed Ben all of the stuffed animals and let Ben choose which one he wanted. He picked the monkey, which was super cute! The machine that you fill the stuff animals with scared Ben and he cried a lot but it was still a fun and memorable experience. I forgot to take pictures until we were in line to check out so I only took a couple of Ben and Nate. We really need to get a new point and shoot camera because I think I will be more likely to remember to take pictures if I have a smaller camera! This is not good photography folks but at least I remembered to take a picture! At this point in the afternoon, Ben was tired and getting kind of crabby, so a photo op would not have gone so well anyway. In the second picture, I finally got him to smile, but for some reason, the angle is weird.