Joe is ONE!

I can't believe my baby boy turned one this week. Since Ben has so much going on with school, we didn't have a big birthday celebration. We'll postpone that for a while till Ben is done taking his Boards. I didn't want Georgia to think we weren't doing anything for Joe's birthday so she and I made cupcakes and we got out her old baby toys and she picked out some things that she gave him for his birthday. He loved the musical piggy bank with the big plastic coins. We also gave him the Little People Carnival. Joe thouroughly enjoyed his cupcake and ate every bit of it. Ben's brother was in town so Joe got have to have one guest at his party. :)

Big sis helping the birthday boy take a bite of cupcake.

finger-lickin' good!



Joe LOVES to sit this basket...he just has to empty first to make room.

At one year old, these are Joe's favorites:

favorite place to play: on the fireplace
favorite foods: bananas, oyster crackers, blueberries, cheerios
favorite toy: a homemade baton that Ben made
favorite music: a christian CD that I have
favorite game: peekaboo
favorite activity: climbing on or in to things, especially boxes and stairs

playing with his new Little People Carnival

Too cool. Sunglasses and a homemade baton.

He's getting better at walking. It's still slow and wobbly but he can walk most of the way across a room. He doesn't talk much but we didn't expect that our 2nd child would since Georgia talks non-stop. This week he said "doggie" when looking at Maximus. He can say, "buhbye", "hi", "dada", "Georgia" and "thank you", but it's not often. He waves byebye when someone walks through a door and when he knows he's going night-night. He plays with cars and makes the car sounds which I assume he's learned by watching the boys at daycare. He also likes looking at books and being read to.

He still doesn't sleep through the night, has only slept through the night less than 10 times. I know it's just a bad habit and this past week I've been letting him cry it out. I'm now only getting up with him once and he has to cry it out if he wakes up more than that one time. He was late in getting teeth and now they all seem to be coming at once so that hasn't helped the sleeping issue. Right now he has 5, almost 6 teeth.

Joe is a super sweet, friendly baby, just like Georgia was. He likes people but he's also good about playing on his own. He's recently started giving kisses anytime we ask for a kiss. Georgia loves getting kisses from him.

Georgia and Ben went to CVS and she found a doll that she thought was an American Girl Doll like her older cousin has. She wanted it and Ben saw that it was on clearance from it's original price of $10 so he bought her the $2.50 American Girl Doll. :)  Joe wasn't quite sure what to think of her...just his size and kind of cute.

looking a little bashfull

Ben's grandma came to visit for a couple days. It was so nice for her and Georgia to get time alone with each other. Georgia was absolutely precious with her great grandma. She helped her on the stairs, had long talks, and colored in coloring books. I walked in on Georgia and Ruth in the livingroom and Georgia had her hand on Ruth's and said, "I'm really going to miss you when you leave. Maybe you can come back to visit me again." Watching them together reminded me so much of my relationship with my grandma.