Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

Remember this little guy?

Well, he's all grown up now!

I can't believe our tiny baby boy is one year old already!  The time has really flown by (which perhaps explains why some of my memories of the past year are a little fuzzy).

We are so lucky to have this little guy in our lives.  Parker seriously is the happiest baby I think I've ever seen.  He loves to be around people and to laugh and clap.  Parker loves to be around people to the point that I wonder if we've somehow birthed an extrovert, which would be quite a shock considering his genetic lineage.

Parker continues to be a super-duper eater.  Lately, some of his new favorites are bananas & cucumber spears. 

I wouldn't have thought he could eat either of those things, but he loves anything he can bite chunks off of.

Parker is crawling everywhere now, and pulling himself up to standing on anything and everything he can find.  This is creating an increasing number of bumps and boo boos on his forehead & knees as he seldom checks the structural integrity of an object before he pulls himself up on it.

Parker now has three teeth, two on the bottom and one on the top.  He also has three teeth on top that are so close to coming out you can see their outline through his gums, but they haven't popped out yet.  Hopefully they will come out soon since I believe they are responsible for his Mr. Cranky-pants attitude lately.

Today, Parker has started teaching himself how to drink out of a cup.  While I am totally grossed out by what is in that cup (we filled the pool on Sunday), I have to applaud his choice of learning in a contained environment that minimizes the mess & clean-up.

Yesterday, Parker taught himself how to drink out of Mama's water bottle.  It mostly involves gagging and then spitting a mouth-full of drooly water down his chest.

Our little guy is so curious, constantly checking things out, looking to see what's inside, or what happens when he throws, drops, or chews on everything.  He likes keeping his Mama on her toes.

One of his favorite things to do is to pull the cherry tomatoes off my plant on the back deck and eat them.  He prefers the red ones, but he's not opposed to the green, if that's all that are available.  Yes, yes, I know, cherry tomatoes (whether red or green) are huge choking hazards, we have to keep a close eye on this one.

Some more of Parker's favorite things:

Sleeping - I think that Parker's fussy time in the evening is really just him saying, "Just let me sleep already, won't you?"

Cuddling with Mama & Daddy

Pulling Mama's hair

Chasing Darcy

Throwing Darcy's toys for him - they don't go far, but Parker thinks it's hilarious

Playing with his train set

Being admired & coo-ed at by everyone we see (friends & strangers alike)

The other trick Parker learned today was to dunk his forehead in the water.  Which means he also learned the hard way that you probably don't want to try to drink the pool water straight from the pool.

He'd dunk, cry, come to Mama for a love, then climb back into the pool to try again.  He's a persistent little guy.

I'm a little saddened that he's growing up so fast; on more than one occasion, Keith & I have had the below conversation:

Julie: He's growing up so fast (sad face)

Keith: I know (grin nearly splitting his face open)

But, that said, we're both so excited to see who our little man grows up to be.  He's learning new things every day and we can't imagine life without him around.