My baby turns one!

This past weekend we celebrated Jaxon's first birthday with many friends and family. We prepared for days by grocery shopping, cake baking, cake decorating, more cake baking, jello making, cup cake baking, more grocery shopping, cup cake decorating, more grocery shopping, Nemo shaped pasta making, house cleaning, ham baking, etc...

Since Easter was the next day, we started the party with an Easter celebration dinner followed by a mad dash of over 20 kids trying to find more than 350 plastic eggs filled with candy and coins. Jaxon was not too interested in egg hunting since it required he walk through the grass, touch the grass and then walk through the grass some more. He was however, very interested in the eggs once all of the hunting was over. With each egg that was opened his eyes grew wide and he would let out a "hoh" sound. He was all too happy to give his findings away to a late comer that missed the egg hunt...just as long as he could play with the eggs. Ohh what simple times....

We sang happy birthday and Jaxon got to eat his mini Nemo cake. Unlike his big sister, Adriana, who cried when we sang Happy Birthday to her for the first time...he didn't seem to care much or pay attention to our singing. He just wanted the cake. Imagine that...my 24 pound baby boy only being interested in the cake??? He got right to it at first. Both hands in the cake, eating icing as fast as he could, but he didn't last too long. He wanted to feed it to everyone else instead.

Jaxon (mommy) later opened his many presents brought by his admiring family and friends. I don't think that I've ever seen a baby so disinterested in opening gifts. I opened the presents and Marlin would attempt to show him. This happened with nearly each gift. I think he may have sat still for one of them. If I had to pick what he liked the most...it would be the bunch of balloons that we had filled during one of our many trips to the grocery store. When he woke the next morning to find them lying on the kitchen floor he didn't even seem to mind. Then Daddy decided he was going to pop them all so that when they started to deflate Jaxon couldn't eat them and choke. Jaxon enjoyed the popping of the balloons, but when they were all popped something clicked in his mind and he realized they were all gone. He wasn't quite so happy anymore. He began crying and held his head in his hands. I think it was the first time I saw him get upset about something (other than not being fed fast enough).

Jaxon's First Birthday

This week has been very difficult for me. The realization that my little fat man will be turning 1 tomorrow is hard to accept. I look at him every day how he is growing, discovering and learning. He makes me laugh like no one else can...and the best part is he isn't even trying.

Just the other day he came around the corner of the sofa with a small plastic teddy bear that belongs to one of Adriana's baby dolls. As he rounded the corner with this 4" bear in hand he had the biggest smile on his face as if he had struck gold. Marlin looked up at him and said "hello". Jaxon then held the bear up to his ear as if he was talking on the phone. We thus named this devise non other than the "teddyphone". Jaxon didn't think he was doing anything spectacular, but we were laughing.

He is mastering the art of walking more and more every day. He has learned that he can switch directions, fall down in the middle of a room and get back up. Some days he even thinks that he can run. He is obsessed with closing doors. This is ok until he closes himself in a room and then sits behind the door. Thus he starts crying and you can't open the door to get him. :-)

We are planning a celebration of the first year of this little man's life this coming weekend and with a name like Jaxon Nemo what would we be planning other than a Nemo party??? I just took Jaxon on Saturday for his one year pictures and for a few shots he wore his Nemo swim shorts. They are so stinking cute...I can't wait to share them with everyone.

I'm very grateful and feel extremely blessed to have these days. I know that all too soon they will fade away...and when the time comes I will be left with the wonderful memories of days gone by. Childhood is a wonderful time, but nothing can compare to motherhood. It's simply amazing.