1st Birthday!

My baby is a year old!! I feel like I should write a long post using beautiful words to describe how touched I am that my baby is a year old today. But I can't put into words how I feel right now. I'm so HAPPY. I thought I might be sad or a little weepy that my baby is growing up, but I just feel so proud of him and I'm glad that we had such a wonderful year.

Evan is such a good little boy. I know I've written about it before and it might make some people (including other mothers!) want to gag, but he really is such a great child. I've been so blessed for multiple reasons this past year. 2009 and 2010 have been the best years of my life. I was thinking the other day about the years leading up to Evan's birth. Wondering which was the worst year. Thinking 2006 was pretty bad...but 2008 was worse. And 2007 wasn't so hot either. But then as soon as 2009 came around I found out I was pregnant...and my life changed for the better. Check out the announcement, pictures of the day he was born, and my birth story. Awww, I just want to thank Joy again...just thinking of how sweet she was makes me tear up!

We had a dinosaur birthday party for Evan on Saturday. We invited his playgroup friends, my family, and a couple of our friends (Evan's adopted aunt and uncle). My grandma flew out from Arkansas just for Evan's birthday! And my great aunt, great uncle, and their daughter decided to come at the last minute from SC. Like, about 2 hours before the party started my mom called me to "warn" me that they were coming. I was glad they were able to share the day though.

It was a lot of fun! Not many of his playgroup friends could come since 2 were on vacation and 3 were sick. But 3 of them did come and it was nice to have other kids his age there. We grilled out on the patio and everyone ate under the trees in our backyard. It was the first day in months that the weather wasn't super humid and hot. Evan opened his presents and boy did he receive a lot!! One of my favorites was a monogrammed towel with his name and a dinosaur on it. I don't really know what his favorite is yet. My parents gave him a walking dinosaur toy that plays music and he likes to dance to it, but isn't doing too well walking with it. He also liked a poppy up toy that also plays music. And of course he loves the books he received.

He inhaled his cake!!! As soon as it was put in front of him he grabbed a fistful of icing and shoved it into his mouth. You'd think he knew what a cake was even though we've only given him a couple of sweets before and in VERY small portions. Matt cut him a really big piece of cake. After a few minutes I went over to take it away since I didn't want him to actually eat it all....and it was GONE. He ate every bite of it! I wouldn't even eat a piece of cake that big!! Everyone was quite amazed by it. He actually resorted to 2 hands so he could eat it faster. Thankfully I got a video of it. ;-)

Today on his actual birthday we sang "Happy Birthday" to him first thing in the morning (and I sang it to him after he woke up from both of his naps). Unfortunately the middle of the day wasn't so happy. Evan had his first real injury. He was in the bathroom and toppled over and hit his mouth on the corner of the cabinet. It was bleeding A LOT. And he was crying A LOT. I was trying to call Matt who wasn't answering. Then I called the nurse and talked to her in between Evan's screams. She told me to get him to stop crying and let him suck on a popsicle. So he did, but the bleeding continued and he kept crying even on his 3rd popsicle. But Matt came home and we were able to locate the source of the bleeding. He cut his gum and the inside of his lip between his 2 front teeth. The bleeding stopped after awhile. The nurse called me back twice to check on him and give me instructions. Basically I gave him ice water a lot. He took a long afternoon nap and his lip was a little swollen when he woke up, but he was acting fine.

So nothing really serious, but it was scary (I was afraid he'd knocked out a tooth at first!) and stressful. I was by myself when it happened and trying to clean up the blood and give him an ice pop (good thing my sister had left some in the fridge after she stayed here last month!) and locate the source of the bleeding. Then after about 15 minutes my sister and grandma came in (and were no help whatsoever) and then Matt came in a couple of minutes after that. Then I felt like there were TOO many people in the house and it was just making Evan more upset. But Matt was great and helped comfort Evan and clean him up (we were both covered in blood and grape popsicle).

We went out to dinner with my family to Cracker Barrel for Evan's birthday dinner. That's his favorite restaurant. :-) And now he's back in his crib, talking and cooing even though he should be sleeping. Such a little sweetie!!