Birthday Boy

On March 6th Judson celebrated his 1st birthday.  His birthday happened to fall in the midst of a rather crazy family schedule.  On his birthday we had to travel to another city to get Jacob a new passport, then a couple days later, when we had a party planned, Emma had a stomach sickness and we had to cancel it all.  Oh, now that I look back, I laugh.  Not only that.  I had spent the day cleaning up horrible messes, Emma was so sick.  In the middle of cleaning up messes, I went to make the cake and my mixer went up in smoke, lots of black smoke, literally.   No mixer?  I finished the cake but couldn't figure out how to make frosting without a mixer or powdered sugar.  Oh well, Judson didn't know that it was strange to have a cake with only sprinkles on top.  He devoured it just the same.

What a fun little man God has given us.  Judson is playful, happy, and content just being in the midst of people.  Oh, and it doesn't really matter who it is, although he does especially love his brothers and sister.  He crawls so fast it sometimes seems like he is gliding across the floor.  He is not walking yet but is often caught standing on his own, playing with a toy.  He loves the phrases 'bath', 'brush teeth', and 'daddy's home', and responds to them immediately.  So far his most clearly spoken words are 'mama', 'dada', 'all done', and 'bye bye'.  I have been surprised at how consistent he has been with following directions.  He knows the boundaries in the house and hardly ever crosses them, like going into the bathrooms or kitchen, and staying away from the plants.  Because of this, he is able to roam the house pretty freely.  Judson is definitely loved and loved on by our family, but he can hold his own.  He has strong and powerful fingers and nails and will use them to claw anything that is attacking, like a three year old with too many wet kisses.  Every night, as we are praying, there is at least one person in our family who gives thanks for Judson.  How thankful we are that he gets to be a part of our family!

Judson's birthday morning.

 Everyone worked together to blow out the candle.

 Our cute birthday boy.

 We ate dinner that night at Ikea, in the city we traveled to to get Jacob's passport.

 For his party, a few days later, I attempted to create a cake.

 He devoured it, even though it was devoid of frosting.

 We continued with our first birthday tradition of pulling out the big bag of ping pong balls.  The kids had a 'war' with daddy.  Judson crawled all over the house trying to catch them all.