Lincoln's First Birthday

I wish I could make time stand still.  I want to keep my kids little forever! I especially love the baby phase.  Why do they have to grow up so fast?  

Lincoln is such a light in our home and family.  He is so smiley and cheerful.  He's always exploring, making messes, climbing on things, and gets so excited when the kids get home from school so he can play with them.  He's very free with his laughter. He loves being outside and could play with his toys on the tennis court all day if I let him.  He and Jane are really cute together and play pretty well most of the time.  

He can stand on his own and took a step the day before his birthday, but is still pretty shy and cautious when we try to get him to walk to us.

He loves eating mac' n cheese, lasagna, and miso soup (go figure).  But he apparently doesn't like cake. None of my one year olds have touched their cake.  He's super picky about all other foods and even hates fruit baby food.  I have to have Jane bring a noisy toy over every time I'm going to feed him, so he'll be distracted and not try to push the spoon away.  It's always dinner and a show!

He's very vocal about his feelings, even though he can't talk.  If someone is trying to hug or kiss him and he doesn't want it, he pushes them away.  If he's got a toy and he can see it might be at risk of someone snatching it, he protects it and makes loud sounds to get my attention and make them go away. :)  He's got the survival skills of a fourth child, for sure.

He already thinks gas is pretty funny.  Whenever he farts, he laughs so hard and then we of course can't keep from laughing too. :)

He's still not sleeping through the night.  I thought I had him sleep trained there for a week, but he likes to show us who's boss. :)

He's had two hair cuts and is in need of a third right now.  He's our first to have hair!

This little boy has us wrapped around his little finger.  We adore and love him so much!

 He got the royal treatment all day.  He was super confused by it at first, but then he started really liking it and milking it for all it was worth.  :)

He woke up with a big smile on his face like usual and we came out and sang to him.  We let him have his morning nap so he'd be nice and rested and then we headed out to the Wildlife West Nature Park. It's basically a zoo for rescued animals.  We saw baby cougars, a baby coyote, a bear, lots of birds, an elk and more.

 We went to the gift shop and let Lincoln pick out a stuffed animal.  He squealed when he saw this snow leopard, so it became his pet on the spot.

 After the nature park we went and got him this cute singing dinosaur toy that you can feed little discs.  He was sleeping, so we chose it for him, but he loves it.

 Then we gave him mac'n cheese for dinner and had a fishing brownie "cake".

 This is the look of, "so what do you want me to do about this?"  He ate a swedish fish off the top, but that was it.

I snapped some pics that morning on the tennis court.  He was all smiles!  I don't think the other kids were this cooperative on their first birthday photo shoot, but I let him play on his toy, so he couldn't complain. :)