Dear Alex,

YOU ARE ONE! I have a toddler! What a crazy feeling. This year has gone by so fast. Your birthday party was so much fun! All the photos can be found here: http://s1358.photobucket.com/user/laurapacheco6609/library/Alex%201st%20Birthday%201-19-13 , but I’ll post a few of my faves:

Blowing out your first birthday candle!

NOM NOM NOM. You were so polite with your cake, we had to really encourage you to get messy with it. And by “encourage” I mean that we shoved your hands into the cake. 😉

Cruising with your friends! Papa & Grandma got you this cool truck for your birthday. 🙂

Your party was “Where the Wild Things Are” themed (a popular children’s book about a boy’s imaginary journey to a land of monsters), and Dad made this cool “wild things” photo booth! Top to bottom: Me + Dad, Solly + You, Aubree + Ella (friends from our working mom’s group).

Anyway, there were probably about 20-30 friends & family at the party. I think everyone had a really nice time! You were spoiled with lots of awesome gifts! Between Christmas & your birthday, we are SET on toys for the rest of the year. 😛

Other than your birthday, not much has been going on around here. You’ve just been practicing your walking skills….

And we’ve been working on moving you into a toddler diet… no more formula or bottles! You’ve always been a great eater so that hasn’t really been a problem, but getting you to drink enough fluilds (milk, water, juice) exclusively from sippy cups is slow-going. I found today that putting a little Ovaltine in your milk helped quite a bit. 😉 Shocker!

Other than that it’s been business as usual around here. We’ve had a lot of crappy, cold, sometimes even snowy weather which has forced us to spend most of our time inside. That’s about it for now! I will post again soon with more pictures & videos of the lovely little life that is yours Alex, but for now I wanted to share one final birthday gift with you…. a look back on the first year of your life, and the best year of ours.

All my love,
Mom