Damon's 1st Birthday!

 Yesterday was Damon's first birthday.  I can't believe he's been part of our family for a whole year now.  It's amazing how fast time seems to go when you are looking backward at it.  We didn't get to do anything real exciting for Damon's birthday.  Wednesdays are my most crazy day of the week.  We went to storytime and then to a friend's house for lunch, piano lessons in the afternoon--same old stuff.

We all went in to sing Happy Birthday to Damon while he was still in his crib this morning.  Then we brought him out so he could open his presents.  (Thanks to everyone for the ideas...some of you will see that I did indeed use/steal them.)  Natalie and Kelton were of course very happy to make up for Damon's lack of unwrapping abilities.  We gave Damon a set of books called Amazing Machines, a box set of the Eric Carle books Polar Bear..., Panda Bear..., and Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See (we already have this book, but after three children it has been literally loved to death.  It is the favorite).  Grandma and Grandpa Webb got Damon a the giant 100 Animals board book and a Sing-a-ma-jig.  That's the little purple guy in the picture.  I must say, it is a bit freaky looking, but it's oddly entertaining. Once you start, you can't stop pushing on that thing's tummy.  If you've played with one before, maybe you will understand what I mean.  Grandma and Grandpa Burgess got Damon a Baby Laptop toy and a little firetruck (on the far right side of the pictures.)

After opening presents, Kelton quickly hijacked the laptop and firetruck and Natalie hijacked the Sing-a-ma-jig.  It's a good thing Damon is so good-natured.  He didn't even care.

My three cute kiddos all ready to sing and eat cake.

I must admit that I was not in birthday-cake-making mode. I always really enjoy this part of my kids' birthdays, but it just wasn't coming together. I wanted to make a car cake. Then later debated switching to a puppy cake but after looking at about 80 pictures online of puppy/dog cakes people had made and thinking that all of them looked like they were made by 10 year olds...well, it scared me off. Then looking back at the car cake images...none of those were quite right either. So, when it came to be cake making time, I opened up my cupboards and looked at all of my pans, got an idea, and this is what I came up with.

I seriously ran out of time to make this cake.  I did it in little bits and pieces throughout the whole day.  The car didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned.  It ended up looking like something out of a Japanese cartoon instead.  But seeing as I really didn't have time to add any more details, and my FBC transfers were not in the cooperating mood, it could have been a lot worse.

This picture made me laugh the instant I saw it after I took it.  Nate gave the go-ahead for Natalie and Kelton to blow out the candle for Damon.  So here they are blowing away.  And Damon is just looking around like nothing's going on, wondering why I have a camera pointed his way.

I was going to give the whole car to Damon so he could have his own "smash cake" but the cake lover in me just couldn't see that much cake go to waste.  The car got split between the three kids.

Damon loved eating the cake!  This surprised me.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a one year old actually eat his birthday cake.  Play with it? Yes.  Smash it all over?  Yes.  Make a disgusting mess that is really hard to clean up?  Of course.  But eat it?  My other two kids sure didn't.  Damon did.  There was no smashing, squishing or playing.  Just eating.

He actually ate quite a bit of it too.  He methodically picked up all the frosting in that middle section and ate it.  Then he ate a lot of the cake underneath too.  Oh, he's laughing at his brother and sister in this picture.  He does that a lot.

Cute baby.  Done with cake, and headed for the bath and bed.

Here's some info on one-year-old Damon: (its a long list...)

*He is so good natured and easy going.  He doesn't seem to get upset or frustrated by things.  (This is a change from my other two).  He usually only cries if there is actually something wrong.

*He is super active.  He never stops moving.  Those who watch me chase him all over at church can validate this.  This might explain why he never went through the chubby baby phase at around 6 months.

*His ultimate favorite thing to do right now is push toys around on the floor.  He loves to do it with cars but has discovered that other things work too--like plastic baseball bats.  If it will slide on the floor, he will push it.

*He has 8 teeth--four on the top and four on the bottom...less than his brother and sister had at his age.

*He is on the verge of walking.  He will take 1-2 steps when prompted or if he wants to get from one thing to another and they are only a foot or two apart.  He will walk if he is holding onto something or pushing something around, like our big Tonka dump truck.

*He will sometimes walk on his hands and feet if he is unsure of a new type of floor or if he determines that it is too hard to crawl on. This has been happening more since I've started putting shorts on him.

*He doesn't say actual words a whole lot, but he loves to make noise and babble.  I only count sounds as being actual words if the baby can associate the sound/word with the actual thing.  So while Damon can say "dada" I don't think he really knows that it refers to his dad.  Same for "mama."  But the few words he does know are bye-bye ("buh, buh"), pop-pop ("puh, puh") from the Popcorn Popping song, and Brown Bear (also sounds like "buh, buh").  I'm sure there are probably more, but that's all that's coming to me right now.

*If you mention food or drink in any way, he will open and close his mouth while smacking his tongue--like you do when you are tasting something.  That's what he does when you ask him if he wants a bottle or lunch.  He also does it when he actually sees food he wants to eat.

*He is incredibly ticklish.  All my kids are, but Damon wins overall.

*He has a cheesy grin he sometimes does.  He tilts his head up, squints his eyes shut, scrunches up his nose, and smiles.

*He goes to bed around 7:00 and wakes up between 6:00-6:30.  He takes a morning and afternoon nap that total 3-4 hours.

*He doesn't really fall asleep in the car.  It's going to be fun driving with him (and Kelton who also doesn't sleep in the car) all the way to Salt Lake City this summer.

*When I'm holding him and people talk to him, a lot of times he will tilt his head way over to the side and smile real big.  I think he knows he's adorable.

*His subconscious sits around waiting for us to slip up and leave the bathroom door open so he can splash around in the toilet.  And leaving the lid closed is no longer a deterrent.

I absolutely love this little boy.