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You are now officially one-year-old and the time has surely flown by. If we ever doubted that we could be any happier than we were with one child, you have managed to quickly remove those doubts and have doubled that happiness and then some. We revel in watching our little baby boy claim his place in this world and grow each day and, with that growth, shed the title of ‘baby’ and simply become our little boy. Please don’t be mistaken, however; you will always be our baby.

The past few months (including the ones that  your mother didn’t properly document) you have done a wonderful job growing and learning. Sitting up quickly transitioned into crawling, crawling has quickly transitioned to standing, and currently you are one fearless climber. You verbalize quite a lot and have found ‘duh’ to be your favorite sound. You have said ‘da-da’ and ‘ball’ and are just now warming up to saying ‘ma-ma’. No matter the words, it is fun to hear you imitate and communicate with us.

You and your sister have a definite love for one another and it is so rewarding for Mommy and Daddy to watch. You like to follow her around the house and often end up giggling and wrestling with one another. You watch Eisley all the time to see what she is up to and she will frequently entertain you with singing and silliness.

There is an absolute budding interest in music that we have witnessed and you start to move and dance as soon as you hear a tune. You seem to be able to keep a good rhythm when clapping along and you gravitate towards the musical toys in the house. It is incredibly fun to see you derive so much enjoyment from one particular thing.

You are quite an eater and manage to put away a decent amount of food on a regular basis. Your jowls have remained intact and you have the cutest rolls on your thighs and wrists. After taking you to your one-year checkup today, you are weighing in at 20 lbs 14 oz and are consistently measuring in the 90% percentile for length. Your teeth are coming in on a regular basis and you now have a total of six. It appears that your molars may be breaking through before too long and hopefully that doesn’t prove to be too difficult.

We had a fun birthday party for you this past weekend and you really enjoyed eating your little cake (Granna made you a little beetle cake to go with the bug theme!). You played with the other children there and you were showered with love and attention. You were so happy and it was fun to watch you enjoy your birthday celebration.

If there was one word that we could use to sum up this first year of your life it would undoubtedly be ‘happiness’. You have obviously brought a great deal of happiness to the lives of your mommy, daddy and your sister too, and a great deal of that happiness is created just by observing the pure joy you seem to have. Your smile is constantly being worn and you let out the cutest giggles. Numerous people have commented on what a happy baby you are and we couldn’t be more in agreement. Our hearts are simply bursting at the seams with the love and happiness we have for you, little one.

It was just one year ago when you arrived safely in this world, so small and so, SO sleepy. Your birth day happened a little earlier than expected but we are forever grateful because it has meant that much more time we’ve had the opportunity to know you, to love you and to wrap our arms around you.

We love you sweet boy. Happy, happy first birthday!

Dear Everett,

There are only a few things in our crazy life that seem to remain consistent at this point: (1) the love that Mommy and Daddy have for both you and your sister and (2) the fact that we seem to be on an indefinite track of documenting your life in two-month spans. What can we say? We are trying to keep up.

The last couple of months have held some important milestones for you. You have learned how to sit up and fully ‘own’ the space around you by stretching and reaching for toys, and just in the last few weeks have even started moving about the room by scooting backwards on all fours. Crawling should happen any day really as soon as you figure out that forward motion is part of your mechanical abilities. Your first tooth pushed its way up above the gum line in the last couple of weeks and now we can actually see it, smack dab in the middle of your lower gum. Teething has proven to be a little difficult because we think of you as the sensitive type and the pain caused by your first tiny tooth has made you one unhappy little guy (it’s a far cry from your normally jolly demeanor which makes it hard for your parents to bear).

You have seen the doctor a few times in the past month due to a suspected ear infection (proved to be a false alarm THAT time) and then for a real deal diagnosed ear infection and partial rupture of your eardrum the next time. We felt horrible that you had to endure such a thing, but with some antibiotics and a little healing time all seems to be well. During those visits to the doctor you weighed in at right around 20 pounds. Those 20 pounds can be fully felt in the arms and backs of all those who hold you. You are 20 pounds of absolute, solid adorable in our book.

Other than the ear infection issues you are one healthy guy who has an extremely healthy appetite. Besides green beans you seem to have a very accepting palate. There hasn’t been much at all that you frown upon when it’s at the end of a spoon. We marvel at how you polish off a container of food in one sitting and then still squeal scream in frustration when we can’t prepare a bottle quickly enough. We are treading on new territory when it comes to you and eating because while your sister was not a picky eater either (thank you, thank you, thank you!), she didn’t manage to eat in quantity like you do. All we know is that your cheeks and thighs appear to be very happy customers of our kitchen cuisine.

Speaking of eating, Thanksgiving has passed and you turned 8 months on Christmas Eve so there was plenty of food to be had. You seemed to fully enjoy eating your turkey and vegetables from a jar alongside the holiday meals the rest of us enjoyed. Daddy let you sample some real food at Christmas, but we will save that for the next post (you know, the post that will cover months nine and ten). 

As always you are simply too delightful and too cute for words to convey. We marvel in each day watching you grow and become more of a little boy and less of a baby. Just don’t go growing up too quickly. We will gladly hold onto those 20 pounds of absolute, solid adorable for as long as we possibly can.

We love you,

Mommy and Daddy

I took Eisley to a UT volleyball game recently. Every time the band played she got up and danced. She also got quite good at putting up her horns and shouting “go Texas!”

We took Everett to Franklin BBQ recently. He loved the pork ribs!