Talmage's First Birthday

Here are some more details from Talmage's birthday! We celebrated it the day before his actual birthday so that Sam could be part of it.

Excited to open his presents!

A ball! He loves balls, so several from the dollar store made great gifts that fit our graduate school budget. :)

Following the tradition of giving a new "big boy" towel for the first birthday. It's the only birthday you can get away with giving something so boring as a gift...look at his excitement!

He kept spreading it out on the floor and diving down into it to cuddle it. So sweet!

The birthday boy with most of his gifts...just missing a couple we received in the mail. Thanks, everyone!

I made monkey cakes for our little monkey. :) A bigger one for us:

...and a little one all for Talmage.

When I put it in front of him, I'm not sure he quite realized what he was supposed to do with it. He slowly, slowly leaned forward, his mouth partly open, until he stuck his nose right in the frosting! I guess at that point he realized it was food, because he dug in. See the little frosting mark on his nose?

Very smug about things

He started getting really into it...

Smiling at Daddy

He kept "sharing" with us. He likes to grab a piece and holds it high in the air for us to come eat! So cute! He also likes teasing us and will hold it up for us until we are about to eat it, at which point he will quickly shove it in his own mouth and give us a huge grin! We filmed the whole thing, so we caught some of both on camera.

Clapping

All done!

A Year in Pictures

Our little munchkin is one! It's hard to believe, but his birthday was on Monday. Here are a few treasures from the past year.

Random Fun

I know it has been a while since I have posted. I'll try to get caught up! Here are a few scattered pictures from the last month or so.

Talmage loves canned peas! He will even eat them cold from the refrigerator. Odd, in my opinion, but I am certainly not complaining!

Cheeser

It is so cute to see a little person squatting, bending, balancing their head on the floor, or plopping down on their stomach to play with a toy. As Sam said this morning, it seems that everything is cuter when it is on a little person!

Oh boy. He loves cell phones. Maybe one of these days I'll post a video that demonstrates his love of them. Anyway, I got him this toy phone (it was free at a garage sale), not sure whether giving it to him would teach him that playing with cell phones was acceptable or whether it would teach him that he can't play with others' cell phones, but his own is fine. Turns out I didn't need to be concerned, because he quickly discovered it was fake and wants nothing to do with it. These two pictures were on the first day he had it...he was still figuring it out.

Again, this has a video to go along with it, but he loves helping me unload the dishwasher! He hands me pieces of silverware one at a time for me to put in the drawer. Every time I open the dishwasher he gets so excited and runs over to help unload it. Too bad most of the time I'm putting dishes into it, rather than taking them out.

Baisically, he just loves anything "grown-up," I guess. He loves trying to help me clean, too!

Carrying around the {empty} Febreze bottle. (Don't worry, I made sure he didn't chew on it.)

He is obsessed with plugs! We're finally getting through to him that he must not play with plugs, but it is still a challenge. Plug covers are great, it's true, but sometimes I need to use something (the sewing machine, in this picture), that needs to be plugged into an exposed plug.

He thinks it's funny, too, to see how close he can get before I stop him. See his little smile??

Taunting me. He has gotten into arguing, too! If he starts reaching for it, I sometimes say, "Talmage...no..." He looks at me with a smile and says, "Yeah." He will go back and forth like this for a long time if I play his little game, whether it is about pinching, pulling hair, playing with plugs, or any other thing. Lately before I even start to stop him he will look at me and say, "Yeah!" What a silly boy. It should be interesting trying to discipline him as he grows. Nothing seems to faze him!

Picture of innocence...just playing with a pan.

Strep throat has been going around our family this week. This was two days ago, when Talmage was still in the midst of his bout with it. See his poor tired eyes? He was such a trooper though, and still enjoyed playing in the cupboards.

Why do we ever even get him toys? We should just get him a set of bread or cake pans for his birthday!

Anyway, I can't believe how big our little man is getting. Life is so busy with him around, but in such a beautiful way.