Hank's 1st Birthday

The day has come and passed - Hank had his first birthday!  I was racking my mind with how to make Hank's big day special, but I settled on lots of food-based activities.  Hank LOVES food (well, unless it's a vegetable!), so we had a day packed with great meals.  For breakfast, Hank enjoyed his favorite, pancakes.  That kid can put away more than I can!  For lunch, we went out to Boston Market for some mac and cheese, cinnamon apples, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole, followed by a quick trip past Jamba Juice for some smoothies.  Hank takes his smoothies very seriously, and he does NOT want you to mess with him during drinking time!  In the afternoon, we went past See's so Hank could have his first bites of chocolate.  I always feel bad when he gives me pitiful looks as we go past See's and have samples here and there.  Today was finally his day, and he was excited.  When I reached down with the chocolate so it was close enough he knew it was meant for him, he smiled so big and kicked his legs like crazy.  The chocolate did not disappoint!  After our chocolatey snack, we met up with Dad and Paga for pizza and games at Chuck E. Cheese.  Lyla may have had more fun than Hank, but Hank was pretty excited too.  He loves watching the mechanized band perform - he was quite mesmerized for a while.  After lots of pizza, games, prizes, and music, we called it a night. I really think Hank had a great birthday (as great as I could make it for a 1 year old!), and I'm pretty sure Lyla thought it was an awesome day too.

At Hank's 12 month check-up, he weighed 24 lbs. 10 oz. (89th percentile) and was 33 inches long (over 100th percentile) - and he's healthy, the most important part!  He is "quite active" according to the pediatrician, and he's doing great and right on track.  He had to get THREE shots (the worst part of the visit for both mother and child), but he took them like a champ and forgot all about them once I treated him to a delicious smoothie. He is running now, and I think is quite exhausting himself.  He's barely making it from one nap to the second one to bedtime.  It must be a hard workout trying to keep his balance all the time!  He's off of bottles and fully onto sippy cups of whole milk - a much easier transition than I thought it would be!  He eats a TON, but is quite a bit pickier than Lyla about what he wants to eat.  We'll just keep trying and trying until he likes more foods!  We do know now that Hank is capable of throwing quite the crazy temper tantrum.  It can be quite loud and quite excessive.  Ah, the things we have to look forward to!  Thank goodness, those appear to be few and far between.  Hank can wave and say "bye-bye" and folds his arms during prayers.  He's saying a handful of words, but we need to do quite a bit of work to have him say the words correctly.  He loves playing ball and being a boy, although he also quite often gets roped in to playing dress-up or marrying Lyla. Being a little brother can be tough!

Sunday night we had Hank's official birthday party at Maga and Paga's house.  Lyla picked the theme of "Toy Story", so we tried to plan cakes and plates, and decorations to fit accordingly.  For his birthday dinner, Hank had Chinese food. What one year old doesn't love Chinese food?  He ate seconds AND thirds and I think still would have eaten more if I hadn't cut him off.  For presents, he got a V-Tech garage and cars from Maga and Paga, a basketball hoop and basketball from Grammy and Pa, a Mike the Knight playset and Little People figure from Aunt Emma, an electric dog guitar from Lyla, and bath toys, Little People action heroes, and the Cars 2 DVD from Mom and Dad.  As excepted, Hank was more excited about the paper and boxes than the gifts, but Lyla was excited enough about all the new toys for the both of them!  Hank loved birthday cake.  Although he didn't tear into it like a crazy man (like I thought), he very slowly and methodically continued to dig into the cake and lick his hands over and over (and over) again.  He slowed down, so I took advantage and took the cake away (with no fuss!).  He was stuffed and happy and very overwhelmed.  

Happy birthday to Hank - here's to many more!