.one year.

.twelve months.

My baby is one and I am in denial about it! I remember the first year for the girls taking forever!!! But it has gone way too fast with Axel! We celebrated with a dinosaur themed smash cake and it took him a minute to figure out what he was supposed to do with his cake, but once Dad helped him smash it he thought it was pretty great!

Axel has been rolling his tongue again! He did it for a while when he was younger but he stopped for a minute and I was pretty bummed, but he started doing it again and I love it! Everyone comments on how awesome it is!

This boy loves to be on the move. He loves that he knows how to walk and he practically runs everywhere he goes!

He is a talker! He loves to jabber all the time, and I have no idea what he is saying but it's so cute to listen to!

He says "UH-OH!" "Mama" "Da" "Y-a" "Ee-a" "MoMo" "WOW!" and "Whoah!"

When we are looking at pictures and books I can ask him things like, "where's the puppy?" and he will point to it!  

He is an organizer! He walks around the house gathering up toys and things and piling them all in one place...on top of the bookcase or in his monkey chair, or wherever he feels like they should be!

He is really good about trying to put things away or at least not throwing it on the floor. He usually asks for help by trying to hand it to me but if I'm not fast enough he gives up and just drops it so he can get on with what he's doing.

He likes to play with his toys for a minute and then give it to me to play with until he wants it back-usually just a couple seconds later.

He is so good at going down the stairs, we don't worry about locking our baby gate anymore. It's really cute because if his sisters head downstairs to play he is usually right behind him! And the girls are so good to just let him come explore their room while they are playing. Probably because they have a better chance of blaming their mess on their brother! Haha!

He waves "hi" and says "Bu" when he's waving goodbye!

He likes to clap his hands and he LOVES to yell. I don't always love it so much, but he thinks it's great!

His favorite things are playing outside (heaven forbid we shut a door without letting him go outside first!), he loves to play with anything with wheels...cars, trucks, trains, etc. He likes the TV remote and he LOVES shoes. When he is upset he will bring me a pair of his shoes and I used to think it was his way of asking to go outside so sometimes I wouldn't put them on him, because I just couldn't take him outside right then. Well, one day I was cooking dinner and he brought me some shoes and even though I knew I couldn't take him outside I put his shoes on him anyway. He stopped fussing and being ornery and just wandered around the house with his shoes on. They don't even have to be his own shoes, either! He's happy in his shoes, my shoes, dad's shoes, and his sister's shoes. 

He likes water, but for a minute he did not like the bathtub! I think he gets nervous in it because he can tell how slippery it is...he also doesn't like to get his ears wet, I think. 

Axel is a climber! He loves to climb on boxes and benches and couches. One day I even caught him up on the table our TV is on and he had climbed behind the TV and was trying to reach his picture hanging on the wall above the TV.

He loves fruit. His favorite fruits are strawberries and oranges! He also loves waffles and pancakes!

He likes to feel and hear different textures. He was walking on the driveway one day and his foot met with some dirt and kind of slid...well he thought that was pretty cool, so he kept trying to make his foot slide in the dirt. He likes to go from carpet to tile and hear the different sound it makes. He will stand and stomp on the tile just to hear it. 

He has 8 teeth and is 20 lbs (15%) and 31" (85%). When he got his vaccinations he didn't even cry for the first two - he just gave the nurses a really dirty look! Haha!

This tall, skinny mama's boy is my favorite little boy! I am struggling with the fact that he is already one, but boy do I love him and I am so grateful to be his mom and watch him grow! He is going to keep me on my toes, but I am looking forward to his future!

Happy Birthday Little Man!