Happy First Birthday Jackson!

We celebrated Jackson's first birthday this last Saturday.  MeMaw Harris was able to come in the weekend before and spend the whole week with Jackson before his party. 

Our house was packed with people that wanted to come spend time celebrating our little man- we are so blessed!  I think Jackson had a good time...he was a little overwhelmed initially with all of the people that were sitting around in "his" play area.

 

 One of his favorite people came to his party- Ms Beth from daycare!  Unfortunately she and her husband are moving very soon for a new job.  Jackson absolutely adores her!

The theme was Winter Onederland.  I tried to decorate in a very wintery but not Christmasy kinda way.  I ordered printable signs, cupcake toppers and cupcake wrappers from Etsy (Shindig Parties was awesome!)

 Jackson was a little timid about his cupcake.  But once he tasted the icing and, especially, the cake, he became a little more interested.  He very methodically ate the whole thing!

Jackson got lots of presents!  Del and I gave him a tractor, wagon and animals to play with which he really seems to like :)  Aunt Rachael got him a corn popper, which may have been his favorite present of the day as he kept playing with it and, when not, kept an eye on it so the other kids wouldn't play with it.  He got a toy "laptop" from Memaw that he enjoyed throughout the week, a swing and books from Queenie, a cute interactive book from Hadley, Jason and Briana and many other lovely presents that I am not going to keep listing...   ;)

He also had his 12 month visit this last Thursday.  Here are the stats:

• Length- 30 inches (50th percentile)
• Weight- 22 lbs 1 oz (65th percentile)
• Head circumference- 49.7 cm (>97th percentile)
• 4 shots at this visit- MMR, Varicella, Hepatitis A, 2nd Influenza

Jackson's favorite things of the moment:

• Books! This boy would be happy if that's all we had I think ;) His favorites are:
• The Little Blue Truck
• The Monster at the End of this Book
• Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?
• Goodnight Moon- before bed every night
• Books with flaps and things to touch like his "Baby Animals" book and "Where's Spot?"
• Things that make noise!  He loves his drum/drumsticks, maracas, ring stacker (lights up and plays music), corn popper
• 
• Balls!  Loves his ball popper, train, t balls....he plays with the toys a little but mainly likes to carry a ball around in each hand
• Things that match! Along the lines of above....I believe Jackson is a little compulsive (no idea where he gets that...) He likes to have two things that match and hold one in each hand- balls, shapes from his shape sorter, drumsticks, maracas....
• Playing in cabinets and drawers- particularly the bathroom cabinets and the pantry

Things Jackson can do:

• Walk!  He loves to walk and would love it if we would let him walk all over the house :)
• Trying to use his spoon to eat, after dumping his bowl of food out of course :)  Along these lines, also, he likes to throw food off his tray, which is not a highlight.
• Turning lights on and off.  He loves to be the one to flip the switch when we walk into, or out of a room
• Turning the pages of the books when we read
• Understands what "No" means but, at times, disagrees with it :)
• Saying "Dada" to Dada all the time, "Mama" when he's sad or mad or happy to see me after I've been gone awhile (on call, etc), "Bye Bye" when he's going to sleep at night, "Hey/Hi", new today- something that sounds like, "What's that?" and pointing to things for me to say their name :)

Other pictures from the last couple of months including just after Christmas and our visit to Tennessee.

 

We are so lucky to have our little boy.  He is such a blessing to us and makes us smile and laugh every day.  He does something new all the time and it is fascinating to watch him grow.