Matthew's first birthday!

a shirt of frosting


seeing Claire's and wanting more...

It has taken me weeks to get these pics because they were on Ashley's (newest wife of a BIL, Greg) camera. She was going to email them and then it was too hard to send the file. Then I was going to upload the video of my adorable baby going after his cake with abandon, but it was too big and I'm not capable of cutting the footage. Besides, I think the only people who would watch it would be my family! And maybe only for the first 30 seconds. I digress...sigh.

This is from Matthew's birthday party a few weeks ago. We mostly just had a cake with some family around and let him make a mess. Claire kept trying to put her fingers in it and was finally put in time out because she couldn't leave it alone. Poor girl. I bet I would have had a hard time with a cake sitting in front of me and seeing Matthew making a mess (very little eating went on here) and not have tried some for myself. But you know me, I'm a particular mom. It wasn't her turn, so she had to sit in time out.

STATS:

Matthew is a rolling 23 lbs, putting him in the 45th percentile for weight. He is 29 inches tall (5th percentile), which makes him the squat little boy that he is. His head is a circumfrence that I never remember other than it was in the 45 percentile, like his weight.

Claire is 60% for height AND weight (a shock for her mother).

Matthew:

cutest, sweetest boy. He loves his momma. Likes his daddy, but amazingly, the kid prefers his momma (I guess that's cool because Claire prefers her Daddy). Nick thinks it has something to do with the fact that I'm his walking milk jug, and will often call out to me "Ahn na! Ahn na!" when he's wanting for milk. While this is true, I hope that it's really because of my sparkling personality.

Matthew is not interested in sign language at all. AH! We're still working on it because I do not want a kid to whine to get what he wants.

He LOVES:

-balls

-water

-ropes (foreshadowing here, I'm sure)

-trucks, wheels

-HAIR (my hair is preferred, but he if he can reach Claires, it's a good substitute) to put in his mouth or pull really hard on

-SINGING! (can a mom be proud of this?!?) whether he's doing it or I am doing it matters very little to him.

He doesn't love:

-real food

-being told 'no' (too bad, kid. You cannot play with electrical cords!)

-holding still

Accomplishments:

-He can hold Claire down

-walk holding furniture or me

-crawl

-has 4 teeth

-communicate with specific word babbles for specific needs (ahn na! for milk, doo doo doo for ball are the 2 that come to mind)

I love this kid. He's the best 'mistake' we made.