When you turned 1

You don't sleep often, but I could stare at your sweet face for hours when you do.

The night before you turned one

You are a dare devil (favorite places to play in our new house?  The stairs and brick fireplace...of course!).

Your big brother loves you like crazy...even if sometimes he has an  not very nice  interesting way of showing it (we're working on it).

He was so excited to help with your cupcakes!

You and Jake have really started to play together.  I love listening to you growl at him as you play dinosaurs and "vroom" and "rooooom" as you play with the cars (it never ceases to amaze me how early you boys perfect your sound effects).

Yep, that is Daddy.  He is just one of the boys whenever possible

You have really started walking.  Although you spent your birthday walking around like a mummy, within a few days you looked like a pro.  

Note: Your first steps were months ago, so we are pretty sure that the only reason you finally committed to walking was that you realized you couldn't run with a football or kick a soccer ball doing your skateboard crawl.

You are silly about your feet.  Shoes and socks?  No thank you, that would be so restrictive.  When we are crazy enough (or we just don't want people to think we are neglectful parents who let our baby run around in the middle of winter barefoot ) to try put them on, you will have the first one off before we have started on the second.  So My Love, before your first birthday, you had already triumphed over us once.  You spend most of the time barefoot and we let people stare at us in horror.

It's okay, Mommy is pretty obsessed with those toes too!

You love chocolate!  I will say though, that I find it very interesting that you can gag on tiny pieces of carrot, egg, or even rice, but hand you an entire chocolate cup cake (with homemade chocolate butter cream frosting) and you are good to go.  

Well, Bubba we feel pretty much the same way about you as you felt about that cupcake...  

We just can't get enough of you!

Here is to another year of grins, giggles, and lots and lots of kisses! I love you my birthday boy, more than I could ever express. 

Full of Thanks

While we were home my amazingly talented friend Fiona, took some beautiful family photos for us.  She is an incredible photographer and was able capture what I was thankful for most this past Thanksgiving (and every other day) perfectly.

Note: I did the editing on the photos.  So in order to see more of her work, check out her website ...like I said before...she is A-mazing!

We recently got them printed out for our mantel, and each time I walk by them I love theme even more!

While on the subject of Thanksgiving...we were able to spend the day at Arthur's Aunt Bertha's house.  It was a day full of amazing food...

Tio Frankie made an incredible turkey and mash potatoes that were so yummy they quickly disappeared (and made his aunt a little jealous)

and lots of family: Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins (Uncle Ethan was even came with us!) and a Chinchilla

Can you guess where Jake spent most of his night?

I didn't get too many pictures.  I was too busy spending time with everyone.  As Arthur sometimes has to remind me, "It isn't all about the pictures."  But I couldn't help getting some of James spending his first Thanksgiving very much the same way Jake spent his.