West's First Birthday!

West turned one back on Friday, September 7th, but in Kayla-fashion I'm just getting around to blogging about it.  ;)  We didn't do anything monumental but just wanted to be able to look back someday on how we celebrated his first birthday.

But first, let's start with Thursday night.  We actually started his birth day celebration by remembering how we spent the evening I went into labor with him exactly a year ago.  On September 6, 2011, 6 whole days past my due date no less(!!), I had worked half a day at work and then Brad and I went to my NST and prenatal appt.  The dr said he didn't look close and we needed to go ahead and schedule an induction, so we scheduled it for Thursday morning at 5 am (this was Tuesday).  On our way home we realized this was likely the last chance we could go out to eat at a nice place (since we didn't think we'd want to the night before getting induced) so we went to Texas Roadhouse and completely stuffed ourselves!!!  Well, wouldn't you know, a few short hours later I was in labor and majorly wishing I hadn't eaten so many chicken strips and rolls because I wanted to throw it all back up.  :)  We hadn't eaten there since (it lost all it's appeal after that long night) but thought it'd be fun to go back every year on Sept 6 as a fun little tradition.  Who knows if we'll remember or be able to do it every year, but we were able to do it this year.  Here's a pic of West and Brad sitting at the booth (forgive the quality, it was taken on my phone).  I will admit the food was good but nothing NEAR what I used to think it was.  I sadly believe I'm scarred for life from eating there (or at least a little longer...).

Now for his actual birthday... the best part of the day was that Brad took off work!!  We started our day in the best possible way - hanging out in bed together once West woke up.  And because I'm sentimental and because West loves it, we watched his first year slideshow to start the day off right note.

Then we had his final monthly photo shoot (see all 12 of them here).  Brad started celebrating when we wrapped the shoot, because they are neither easy nor all that fun, while I of course almost started crying because it was the last one.  :)

Then we had breakfast.  Instead of just regular ol' cheerios we gave him some Cocoa Puffs, but he didn't seem to care for them, so we also made him some toast with a little bit of cinnamon and sugar.  I think he liked it!

After breakfast we headed outside to play.  He played with his new truck and some balls, and then decided he should stop slacking and instead start helping dad clean up the weeds he was pulling.  :)

By that time he was ready for his morning nap, so in we went.  After he woke up, we played some more.  At one point he was playing by himself in his room and I found him sitting in his chair by himself when I checked on him.  What a big boy!

Here he is imitating Brad... when we walked in and saw him Brad covered his mouth and mumbled something like, "oh my goodness... West!"  He cracks us up when he imitates us like that!

Right when the clock turned to 11:46 we started singing him happy birthday.  It was probably a hilarious sight - he and Brad were playing the ottoman and all of a sudden we start singing happy birthday like crazy, excited parents and then kiss him and clap and hoot and holler.  I think he thought we were crazy!

After that we played some more and then for lunch had his favorite meal: goulash (or what we call goulash - basically just pasta with cheese, ground beef, and red sauce).  Then it was straight to the bath for him, followed by lots more playing.  So much playing, in fact, that he refused to take a nap even though we tried for over an hour.  Oh well, I guess birthday boy gets what he wants (for the most part...).  His punishment for not napping, though, was that he had to help dad vacuum.  ;)

Here he is chilling in what is currently his favorite spot in the house. Lately he loves sitting here and looking out the window.

We went out to dinner for another friend's birthday and then he opened his presents when we got home.  Have you heard of the gift-giving little ditty that is all over pinterest?  "Something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read"?  Well we probably won't do every birthday/holiday like that, but it just so happened that we wanted to get something from each of those categories.  We thought he would want a mega-blocks wagon, need some bowls that suction to his high chair so he can slowly start to learn how eat off plates/bowls, wear some non-skid socks so his little toesies will stay warm this winter, and read a little set of 12 board books.

All in all, we hope he had as fun of a birthday as we did celebrating him.  :)

A post from this birthday party is in the works... stay tuned!

12 months!

What he's learned:
It's so awesome to see him understand things we say.  For instance, when we say "Let's go downstairs/outside" - he'll go stand in front of the steps; "Let's go brush your teeth" - he'll head towards the bathroom, "Do you want to read a book?" - he'll go pick one out.

He says "ubba" for "up," "meh meh" when he wants something (and he's usually pointing emphatically at whatever it is, too).  We really think he said the word "book" the other day - he was pointing to something in his room when we were in the living room and said something just like "book" and then grabbed a book and brought it to us!

He can now run, dance, blow kisses, and he loves throwing balls.  He's not so good at playing actual "catch" yet, as he often just walks it up to us and hands it to us when we ask him to throw it to us, but we're working on it.

He is such a climber!  He can scale the ottoman, couch, and chair in his room, to name a few.  And he's figured out how to use pillows and what not to give himself a little boost.  Oh, and he can officially climb into the tub all by himself.  He likes to keep us on our toes, that's for sure.  ;)

In addition to climbing, he has the strangest fascination with sitting in odd places.  He's always emptying out various baskets/drawers around the house and sitting in them, as you can see here.

He has loved watching his first year slideshow as I've been working on it.  Whenever he hears the music he comes and sits in my lap and watches so intently.  He usually laughs or looks at us and smiles at the video clips.

I covered a lot of his other favorites in this post here.

How he's grown:
His 7th tooth made its first appearance a few days before his first birthday.

At his 1 yr check-up he weighed in at 19 lbs 9 oz, which put him at the 25th percentile, and he was just shy of 30" long, putting him at about the 50th percentile.  He's moving up on the charts which is SUCH a relief!!!  Developmentally, he screened at the level of a 16 mo old.  He received 4 shots (3 scheduled vaccinations and also his first flu shot) - one in each arm and leg.  He didn't cry at all for the first 3 but he let us have it when he got the 4th one (we had to wait a few mins because of a mix up).

A couple things that concerned the doctor were that he still has a heart murmur (she first discovered it at his 9 mo appt) and he's more bow-legged than what would be considered normal.  She wants us to see a pediatric cardiologist and orthopedic specialist just to make sure everything is ok with both.  We'll keep you posted.

West's First Year Slideshow

See the video below for pictures and video clips from our little man's first year.  It's a little long at 9 mins, but  considering it covers his whole first year I'm proud that I was able to make it that short! ;)