Henry's 1st Birthday!!!

On May 16, 2012, Henry turned 1 year old! That year went by so incredibly fast. He went from a teeny-tiny 6 lb baby at birth to a 31.5 pound walking, running, jumping, ball-kicking, ball-throwing, talking (and screaming) whirling dervish.

I knew Henry was smart from the day he was born. When he was one hour old, he reached up and grabbed Tim's finger. He also looked around A LOT from the beginning and was even trying to hold his head up (not very successfully) from one day old. Seriously. He hasn't stopped since. He has done everything early (walking at 8 months for instance). He is a happy, cuddly little boy. He loves cars, trucks and motorcycles. He LOVES to be outside and cries if we bring him in the house. He plays hard until he gets tired, and then he brings me his giraffe blankie and wants to be held. Henry is very much a "mama's boy" but adores his daddy too. He loves his siblings and is so happy when they get home from school every day.

He loves basketball. Whenever he sees Daddy and his brothers turn on the basketball game, he says, "baa ball" over and over and gets so excited. He likes to get in the pantry to bring us whatever snack he wants to eat. He loves to eat things like lint, dirt, rocks, wood and paper no matter how much we try to stop him! ;-) He enjoys looking at books and recently just started to like being read to. He will bring us a book and reach out his arms so that we can hold him on our lap and read books. It's so cute. This little man is just full of spunk and personality. He is very smart and sweet and handsome and wonderful. We all adore him! We feel like the luckiest people on earth simply because he is ours.

On his birthday we invited over all of the grandparents. We had spaghetti and garlic bread, because Henry loves that meal. He had so much fun opening presents and fell head over heels in love with his new lawn mower (I have some cute photos of him mowing the lawn that I need to download and share here). He did not like eating the cake with his hands. In fact, he was upset about it. It's not terribly obvious in the photos, but he hated having the frosting on his hands and kept trying to get it off. He would not take a bite. We put one up to his mouth with a spoon and he wouldn't even open his lips. We eventually gave up and cleaned him off. He was much happier playing with his birthday toys instead.

We love you Henry!!!

Bethlehem always does the birthday balloons. She loves to draw on them things that represent the birthday child.