Anders Turned One

I know I say this a lot, but I can't believe how fast my my boys grow up!  Anders just turned one and it seems like time went by way too fast.  I can't believe that at this time last year Drew was still deployed, Anders was still in the NICU and Alden had never met his brother.  Now, Anders is a healthy, strong, growing boy with tons of energy.  Alden loves playing with his brother and Drew is home and has been for 10 months.  I am so grateful for Anders and the joy that he is in our lives.  He is a happy and easy-going kid who was meant to be a part of our family.  I can not even imagine our family without him in it at this point.  I know I was the same way with Alden and I actually love the fact that once my kids are born I can not imagine life without them.

We had a great time celebrating Anders' birthday and I enjoyed making the cake and cupcakes for his little birthday celebration.  We just celebrated with our family and a couple missionaries from our ward who were having dinner with us that night.  It was a lot of fun and I loved watching Anders with his cake because he actually got into it and enjoyed eating and smashing it.  There are also some pictures of Anders from the week of his birthday with some of his favorite things to do.

Anders fell asleep cuddling with me one day and it reminded me of how much he has grown in the last year and how much I love these moments!

Anders is such a cutie pie and I love how cute he looks in this little chair!

Anders LOVES these rings!  He always grabs these three rings and then loves to crawl around while holding on to them.  I think it is funny that it is always these three.  They come from a stacking tower with 5 rings but he always takes the other two off and throws them away and then carries these three around.  It is always a scanveger hunt to see where they end up at the end of the day.

We decided to pull this little tricycle that we have out for Anders so that he could push around on the back deck and he really seemed to like it.  He could only push it backwards but it was fun to watch him.

Alden had fun blowing bubbles on the back deck for Anders as he sat on his trike.  It is so fun getting to see my boys play together!

I had a lot of fun making the cake and cupcakes for Anders' birthday.  I love any excuse to make a fancy cake so I am always excited for birthday cakes.  We did lemon cake with a buttercream frosting and a raspberry meringue filling.  The cake and frosting were both really good but Drew and I both decided that we are not big fans of the meringue filling.

It was fun making the bees on the cake and cupcakes because I thought they came out really cute.

We just gave Anders a cupcake rather than a whole cake.

He was not too sure about it when he first touched it...

But, once he tried it he was very happy!

It was so fun watching him eat his cake and I was just glad he was interested in it.  Alden was not interested in his cake at all at this age, so it was fun seeing a kid actually play with and eat their cake!

Anders had fun trying to rip the wrapping paper on his presents.  He was very excited to figure out what was inside!

I just included these pictures because it shows a little of Anders' personality.  He really is very happy and smiles a lot but he is also constantly moving and crawling around.  He doesn't walk on his own yet but he loves to cruise along furniture or crawl very quickly to wherever he wants to go.

Anders also loves pulling things out of boxes and putting them back in.  As long as there is a box to put things in and out of he is happy and can stay entertained for awhile.

I love Anders and I am so grateful that he came to our family a year ago.  He has taught me so much about myself and I have grown so much.  Parenthood is hard and challenging but my kids make it totally worth it and I am so glad that I have them to humble and teach me but also make me smile and give me a hug when I am having a hard day.  I am so excited to watch Anders grow and learn more over the next year!  He is an amzing one year old and it was so fun celebrating his birthday and reflecting on how much he has grown in that year!