We have a one year old.

So, I realize this is almost 2 weeks late, but such is life.

My baby turned 1 while we were in Texas. It's such a bittersweet experience. I love every time he learns something new and gets older, but I'll sure miss my roly-poly baby.

We celebrated by having a small party at my mom's house. My sister Jess rocked the decorations with help from her handy assistants, Cody & Callie. (Thank goodness Jess is involved! Member that song?)

He did pretty well with the whole cake business. It wasn't exactly his first sweet treat... He just ate it though, no digging in and getting it everywhere. Since we were travelling, we couldn't do much gift giving. My mom got him a Dr. Seuss shirt and book, Aunt Jess got him some new pjs, & Grandpa got him a Freight Train book. Overall, it was fun and relaxing. Oh! We also watched a little video of different pics & clips from his first year and that's probably why it was so bittersweet. He was such a pretty newborn. 

(I'm not exactly sure what this face is, but I like it.)

A couple days later, we took both Jacks & his cousin, Wy, to go on a train ride at the mall. Jackson loves watching the train go around our mall here, so I wanted to let him have a ride. Cody & Callie went with them and I think they liked it. 

Here's a few pics of them on there. 

Some fun new things about Jackson are:

He's started walking a teensy bit. He'll stand for awhile on his own until he realizes he's doing it and then squats down. He'll take a few steps between me and Leo but I'm sure we're still a month away from him walking completely on his own.

His personality is really starting to show. He makes funny faces and repeats them when I laugh at him. His dancing is pretty cute. He just drops his bum low and slow.

He's super chatty. He can say mama, dada, no, & for awhile he was saying bye-bye. Today, I swear he was saying woof-woof for a dog. We make animal noises all the time, but we heard a dog in the parking lot today and it totally sounded like he said "woof". Sometimes, I think he says moo for cow but it could be my imagination.

He likes to empty things right now. By that, I mean like empty the toy box, my suitcase, the kitchen drawers, all the toys in his tub and then eventually he likes to put everything back.

He also looooves playing in his crib or the pack-n-play. He'll stand up to them and pat them until I come put him in and then he likes to roll around with his soccer ball or blankie. He loves throwing everything out and then I put it back in and we repeat.

That's another thing, he's become attached to a blankie and it's so cute. With the TX trip, he became super snuggly and clingy. I don't know if it was just the new environment thing, but it's pretty sweet. Unless I'm trying to cook dinner or something. But he loves to sit on my lap with his blankie and just lay his head on my chest. Makes me melt.

I'm working on weaning him. We'll see how it goes. So far, he isn't a fan of whole milk. I think he just gets mad when there's something other than water in his sippy cup. I'm for sure taking the weaning slow. Just whatever works best for him.

It's been an amazing year and I can't wait to see what he learns next.

Tomorrow is his Utah family party. Should be fun!