One Year Old!! And a Trip Home!

I know this is half a month late...but here it is anyway:

Our baby boy is one year old! It's amazing how much he has changed...this photo collage is a year in the making!! (Click on it to make it bigger in your browser.)

(I might just have to continue doing this for the rest of his childhood. it's kind of ridiculous how a year's worth of growth is made so obvious when you do a comparison like this!)

Little Buddy had a great trip to Illinois! I'll be honest, I was really  nervous about the trip itself. We left at 3:30 a.m. each time, and each time, Lukas slept until about Cincinnati, stopped for half an hour to eat breakfast at about 8:00 a.m., watched a movie for an hour or two, fell asleep for another hour or two, and then watched the rest of his movie and played with Mommy in the backseat. There were (almost) zero tears each way! What a trooper!
In central Illinois, we went to a family reunion and spent lots of time with my mom and dad. Then we went north to Hinckley, Illinois, where Pete is from, and spent a few days with his family! It was a crazy week, and truly, Lukie had HAD it with traveling, being in new places, meeting new people, and being closely tailed the entire time. We were glad to go, but also glad to be home in a baby-proofed place where Lukie could run around like a crazy man! Here are some pictures from the trip.

Lukie had a fun time playing with his cousin Eleanor, who is just a few weeks older than him. True to form, I didn't take any pictures of them playing...but thank goodness my sister-in-law Lynessa is better about that stuff than I am. I'll have to get her to give me some of the files.

The last three photos were taken on a particularly fussy evening when Lukie wanted to ride the tractor. We've noticed he is OBSESSED with lawn mowers (the second-from the bottom is a photo of Daddy trying to remove Lukie from the lawn mower...it wasn't going so well), so he got a new birthday present from Mommy and Daddy when he got home...

Things are pretty much back to normal. It's been great to be home again...we miss Illinois so much, but it's a lot less stressful to be in our own house with our own stuff. And Lukie, who was a picky eater on vacation, is back to eating like a hog...

That's a sippy cup full of whole milk. Let the transition to cow's milk (and off bottles) begin!

In Honor of Throwback Thursday...

The First and Second of Four Birthday Parties!

Lukie is a lucky guy. He has all these people who want to celebrate his first birthday with him! That's the thing about living a long way from home and the people you love and who love you...you have to celebrate everything 3-4 times to get everybody in on the fun!

We first celebrated in Kentucky with our friends from grad school with some breakfast birthday cake on Sunday. We established that Lukas prefers frosting over actual cake, and at least in the morning, he's not into using his hands. He just licked the frosting off the cake...

He had fun the whole weekend, too.

We came home on Sunday and had a nice, relaxed afternoon, and then my friends Suzi and Jamie came over for for dinner and cupcakes from Little Cake in Kingsport, TN.

Lukie had a Dreamsicle cupcake with orange icing...again, he kind of went for the icing and not the cake. He got some books and a Kermit puppet from Suzi and Jamie (they already gave us an Animal puppet, so we're working on a full set...can you tell we like the Muppets in this house??).

He didn't quite know what to do with the cupcake at first...

So Suzy shoved some icing in his mouth...and things took off from there...

There was frosting everywhere. On the high chair. In his hair. In Pete's beard...

What a lucky guy. We'll have another birthday party with my family at the reunion in Illinois on Saturday, and another later next with Pete's family. Can't wait!!