Happy 1st Birthday, Aren!

Our little guy has turned 1 year old.  How fast time flies. 

He went from this:

To this:

...in no time flat, it seems.

This last month has been a pretty big one.  He went from scooting everywhere to crawling.  He got his first tooth (the same day I posted that he didn't have any, in fact).  He waves and says "Bye-Bye,"  he's cruising along the furniture at a faster rate, he signs "all done," and turns pages of his board books when we read.  He's figured out how to climb stairs and go down them safely (we only have a couple in the house).  When asked "Arennn....what's in your mouth?" he opens his mouth for you so you don't have to dig around for whatever he's put in there.  Oh, and my favorite - he gives kisses when asked (usually). 

He has his one year well-check coming up on Tuesday but when we took him in last week (that cough just won't go away!) he had finally reached 15lbs!!  The scale kept trying to dip down to 14lb 15.5oz but it did lock in at 15lb - he's really growing fast, now! 
We love watching this little fella grow into his personality.  He likes to try to wrestle with his big brothers, he'll eat just about anything you put in front of him (no peas, please!), he enjoys pushing cars around, shaking rattle toys (or squeezing a plastic water bottle so it makes a lot of noise), he gets excited whenever he sees the cat enter the room.  And he still loves a good cuddle.  Awww. 
To mark his first birthday, we had a small celebration here at home.  We ordered pizza for dinner and he enjoyed the bites we gave him.  He didn't seem particularly fond of the green pepper but he liked the rest. 

We also went to our favorite local bakery to pick out a cake.  We chose the family favorite - Black Forrest. 

While we were choosing, Ajay and Alex announced they wanted a cookie.  This bakery usually gives the boys free cookies and today was no exception.  The girl behind the counter was happy to hand them both their requested butterfly cookies.  Then Biju and I decided we wanted a couple for ourselves.  (When we looked at our receipt later, we noticed she didn't charge us for ours, either!)

Thinking that Aren shouldn't have too much chocolate we decided to get him his own little smash cake - it was a Lemon Curd Cake Roll. 

He seemed a little confused by the singing and lit candle in front of him. 

But Aren wasted no time eating his cake!!

He was taken straight to the tub :)

Happy Birthday, Aren Kutto (coo-toe) (Aren Baby)

And for those of you new to my blog, or for anyone who wants to go down memory lane with us, here is the post about his birth story.