Buster's First Birthday!

Warning: Picture Overload!

Recently, our little Buster turned 1!  This was a huge milestone and huge celebration for all of us.  On the day that Buster was born last year, we received a call in the hospital telling us that we had an offer on our house and on exactly one year from that day we were able to celebrate Buster's birthday in our newly *completed* home.  Buster's birthday was on a Thursday and that weekend we moved into the new house!

Betty Crocker is coming out with some really fun new cake mixes including this chocolate/vanilla swirl one!

Buster developed a love for basketball this year when we went to all of his brother and sister's basketball practices/ games.  He loves to hold the ball and pound on it like he is dribbling.  He also likes to pick up a basketball and throw it against the wall, retrieve it, and do it over and over again.

I love black licorice, so this particular design worked well for me :)

The kids each worked very hard helping with the new house and with the move and they earned money to buy their brother a present.  They loved picking out the presents, paying for them, and wrapping them all on their own.

Since we were still in the rental on Buster's birthday, we took advantage of Broulim's being practically next door to us and got everyone some birthday doughnuts.

And since we didn't think he would get enough sugar with just cake and ice cream, we let him go to town with his own chocolate frosted doughnut.

He made quick work of it.

I like this picture, because I like to think he is showing me one finger, like "Look, I'm one today!", but in actuality I think he is flipping the bird.

One of his favorite places to be on his birthday.

The kids loved giving him the gifts that they had picked.

I love the look on Ian's face.  He was by far more excited about the shirt he gave Bronson, than Bronson was.

Bronson thought ripping apart wrapping paper was pretty great!

For our family celebration that night, we boxed up everything we would need to make a pancake dinner (except apparently butter), and we took it all to the new house.  It was the first meal that we cooked in our kitchen and the first time we were able to sit at the bar together and enjoy a meal!

Daddy lit the birthday candle in style.

And Bronson was entranced by the flame.

He wanted to grab it and we had to stop him several times, but we never could get him to blow it out.  Fortunately, the kids were more than happy to help him.

Cake!

Dishing up for 7 people on our new ginormous bar.

Charlotte showed up in full uniform.

After he was done with his cake, he started pounding it into his tray and then throwing it.  The party was over when he rubbed it into his eyes.  And unfortunately, we didn't have hot water hooked up yet, so we couldn't give him a bath.  We had to wipe him off as best we could with cold, wet, towels.  I have the cutest video of me tucking him in on his birthday night.  He likes to tease me.  I will lay him down and tuck him in and then he sits up as fast as he can and giggles because he knows he is supposed to be going to sleep, so I have to wrestle him down and tuck him in over and over again, while he giggles hysterically.

Some of his new found one-year old hobbies include getting into every cupboard and throwing out the contents.

Grabbing the camera every time I want to take a picture of him.

And accumulating misc. wounds as he learns to cruise and walk, such as this nice shiner he accrued when he whacked his face on our coffee table.

I had to laugh a little because my mother-in-law babysat him the day before and he whacked the other side of this eye at her house and she felt so bad about it, and then the next day he made it 100x worse on my watch.

Oh the joys of a toddler!

Some of the things we love about Bronson:

-He LOVES music and whenever he hears it, he bounces up and down and dances, whether it be on the radio, on TV, or even the hymns at church.

-He can say "Mom", "Dad", "NANNER!" (his word for Tanner, Ashlyn, Ian, and Char... it is just easier to call all the kids by one name), and every now and then we can get him to say "Love You".  He also thinks he can talk and has lengthy conversations in gibberish with us.

-He has already learned to Houdini himself out of his car seat so that I have had to buy a new one to contain him.

-He HATES baby food and has been eating whatever we eat for some time.  Some of his favorite foods are fruit snacks, cheese and bread, oatmeal, and he loves yogurt.

-He loves to share!  Whatever he is eating he loves to give us all a taste, but then often times gets mad if you really do eat his bite.  He also loves to share his binky and will shove it in our mouths and has even tried to share it with neighbors at church.

-He has recently learned to climb the stairs and thinks this is a fun new game.

-He loves to play cars and knows to push them around and makes sounds for them.

-He is obsessed with closing doors and often gets himself stuck in a room because he immediately has to close a door whenever he crawls into a room.

-He is also very passionate about splashing in the toilet.  He seems to have a radar for when a bathroom door has been left open and has such a talent for getting there in the blink of an eye.

-His new bed is positioned a little too close to his light switch and he delights in turning the light on and off and on and off all night.

We all love this boy more than we can ever tell you and we are so glad to have him as part of our family.