Asher's First Birthday!!!

My sweet precious little honey!  You are ONE YEAR OLD!!!  OH. MY. GOODNESS!!!!  I am just in awe of how incredibly fast this past year has gone with you!  I really do feel like I was just holding you in my arms for the first time!  You have grown so much, and truly are SUCH a joy!!!  You belly laugh like me, and are starting to talk back to us when we say your name.  You even talk to toys and you love to have a nice little chit chat with your food!  It's priceless!  

You have taken your first steps in the past few weeks, but don't really have any interest in trying to learn to walk on your own, however, when we lend you a helping hand, you practically run all over the house!  You are consistently sleeping through the night, going to bed anytime between 6:30 and 7:30pm, and not waking up until between 7:30 and 8:30am which is wonderful!  You are a rock start sleeper, I think it just took you longer to figure out how much you actually like it!  You also nap at least 2 1/2 hours, sometimes up to 3 1/2 hours during the day, which is much needed for as much as you do during your waking hours!

You are absolutely in heaven having a big brother!  And Caleb us THE BEST at it, hands down!  He loves on you and puts up with you stealing his pacy, toys and snacks.  I'm shocked that he's only taken a small swing at you a handful of times!  He truly loves you so much, and every morning when I come in to get you up, he runs in after me screaming "baby asher, baby asher!"  and comes right up to your crib!  It's so cute!

You are eating like a champ, but I'm convinced that you have some sensitivites/allergies because your Excema has been HORRIBLE since moving you to all regular solid foods (meaning you are eating what we are eating for the most part).  You have your 1 year check up Monday morning with Dr. C and I definitely have PLENTY of questions to ask him about you!  I will post your stats after your appointment.

You have completely dropped your bottle!  We cut you off dry for two reasons, 1) you have been drinking at least 2-3 sippy cups of whole milk everyday for the past few weeks and you love it, and 2) we used up the last tub of formula we had and I frankly didn't want to go and buy another one because they are so stinkin' expensive!  You didn't make too big of a deal about it and definitely haven't complained since!

You love it when we're sitting on the floor and you can crawl over, practically barrel us down, and snuggle right in to our shoulder/neck!  And of course, we love it too!  You are so snuggly, I just can't get enough of it!!  You have also started "nibbling" (the nice way of putting that you have started play biting when snuggling us), and boy oh boy does it hurt!!  We've got to nip this in the bud and fast!

You have a full head of long gorgeous hair, that falls perfectly in to place, which is why I call you my little Senator!  Seriously!  You look like you could run for office one day with that hair!  My favorite part though, is right when you get out of the bath and daddy dries your hair with the towel, and all these precious little curls show up!!  I wish your hair would actually dry curly one day, but it won't, I've tried!

Since this is your first party, and since you are a second child and I haven't totally celebrated all of your "firsts" this past year, I wanted to try and make up for it by throwing you a fun birthday party!  We headed over to a local park bright and early, and enjoyed some AHHHH-MAZING 70 and 80 degree weather!!  It was perfectly sunny with a slight breeze and truly was the most perfect weather day for your party!!  We invited some close friends and Tio Omar, Tia Vicki, Corbin and Josiah even came up from Ft. Worth, what fun we had!!  It truly was a blast and a party I know I will never forget!  Here are some pictures from your party, and a video at the end that will have you rolling laughing for sure!!

Your Party Table!  it was supposed to be a train themed party, but it ended up just being a red, white and blue party after all!  Oh well, at least the invites had trains on them!

I stayed up really late making this awesome month by month picture banner!  I had such a hard time picking out which photos to use, there were so many fun ones, and what joy it brought to my heart to see how you've grown so much in the first year of your life!!

Your **AWESOME** cake and cupcakes, which I'm very proud of since it was only my second time working with cake decorating tools (*thanks to Amy for letting me borrow everything!)

You can't have a morning party without donuts, from our favorite donut lady!!

I had decorated the highchair the day before for you actual birthday, and it ended up not getting too messed up from you pulling on and eating the streamers!

Oh Asher, you were swinging for about 30-45 minutes and you finally just dozed off!  It was precious!

Not only did you fall asleep in the swing, but you stayed asleep as we transferred you to your chair for cake, and you continued to stay alseep through close to 20 people singing Happy Birthday to you!  (see video below for the full effect)

You finally woke up right at the end of the song, and you were very confused as to what all was taking place

Tio Omar, oh how you love him!  You kept looking at your cake, and then to him, and then to your cake, and back to him.  It was so cute!!

PRICELESS!

Josiah, your cousin, an absolute HONEY!!!

Almost all the kiddos enjoying some cupcakes, donuts and capri sun!!  So sorry Corbin, Eli and Kyler for not making it in the pic!!

Noah, you do SUCH a great job of making Asher laugh, ALL THE TIME!  I love it!!

It's kind of hard to see, but the hair sticking directly out by his ear was crusted and dried icing!  He had grabbed a handful of cake, and just decided to grab his hair right after it!  So funny!

Oh my little honey!  Goodness, I can't believe you are ONE!!  You are a priceless treasure and bring so much joy to mommy and daddy!  We are absolutely IN LOVE with you!  Each moment we have with you is a gift and one that I thank the Lord for every single day!!!  Happy Birthday my little senator!!!

The only family pic we got all day!  I'm always so bad at getting these, and then so mad at myself afterwards when I realize how bad I am at it!!

And finally, the hilarious video of Asher sleeping through his Happy Birthday song!