ONE year!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Elliot!

Our baby boy is ONE! A year ago today we were getting ready to leave the hospital with a new addition to our family. So tiny and precious. First time parents, rookies, scared and excited about the months to come. Several friends told us "congratulations" and said that the first birthday party is really a celebration for the parents for how hard they've worked in the past year. Though it's been a trying year, it's truly been the best and fastest year of my life! The first six months seem like a blur. I don't remember last fall. I can't believe it's been a whole year!

To celebrate E's birthday we had a party at a local park with lots of friends and family. The weather was beautiful, the food was good and being able to share it with loved ones was awesome. E played with his many friends, dug into his cake and opened presents! It was the perfect way to celebrate an amazing child and our first year of parenthood.

E is simply an amazing boy. Though he's not walking yet, he will take several tentative steps between Dr. M and I. His vocabulary is growing all the time. He now waves and says hi and byebye. His favorite word is still ball but has added black bean, baby, bucket, mom and will repeat (or attempt to repeat) anything we say. He's cruising around furniture with ease, but still stands on his tip toes most of the time. He'll walk if holding onto his walking toy or our fingers, but crawling is still his preferred mode of transportation. He's now in a "big boy" booster car seat, no longer the pumpkin seat (which he's outgrown). He's completely self-feeding now. He eats table foods, chicken, watermelon, corn, peas, carrots, broccoli, hamburger, apples, banana and noodles - all his current favorites. I'm still nursing, but we've been supplementing rice milk twice a day (which he loves!). I'm also happy to report that we're still using (and loving) cloth diapers! Over the past year we've saved roughly 2,788 diapers from being added to our landfills. We see the pediatrician, tomorrow for a full one-year assessment and shots.

Here's to our first year of parenthood and many more to come!!!!