FYI Alert

Since James recently turned one, Natasha decided that it was time to take some family pictures. She found a great photographer who has posted some of the pictures on her blog. The Lubbock wind added a certain flair to Natasha's beautiful hair, and James, as always, is lookin' good. If you are interested you can check them out here. (It's the May 19, 2009 post entitled "Mr. James.")

Happy Happy Birthday Birthday!

Our Sweet Baby James is 1! He turned 1 on March 24th (this post is a teensy bit belated). He really enjoyed wearing the crown I made for him at each meal of the day. It's hard to see in the pictures, but the crown has pictures of the last year of his life all the way around it. I'm going to make that a birthday tradition. It will of course be displayed post birthday in a scrapbook (what is left of it anyway). James quite enjoyed playing with his crown. I managed to keep it in pretty good condition. In the future I might make two--one for playing and one for saving.

Lovin' the crown at breakfast.

King James sampling some Little Ceaser's pizza for the first time. He loved the pizza! He also enjoyed the Little Ceaser graham cookies they gave him (his first taste of cookie).

James and Daddy after James finished his yummy chili dinner which he loved.

Mmmm...Texas Sheet Cake! It says "Happy B-day James" in pecans. He woke up from his afternoon nap before I started decorating, so it's not much, but it sure tasted good. James is tipping his crown to the cake. Quite the compliment if I do say so myself.

I wanted some pictures of James with his birthday sign. I was feeling a little frustrated that I couldn't get a closer picture since the sign was so high on the wall. It eventually dawned on me that I could move the sign...What a bright idea!

James again admiring his crown. He was more interested in playing with his crown than partaking of the cake. I think he was quite stuffed from his dinner.

James quickly discovered that the cake was fun to squish between his fingers.

He also quickly discovered that the cake was sitting upon a plate. He never eats off plates since they end up on the floor, so he took advantage of the opportunity to play with his plate (or bowl lid as the case may be).

Here Jordan is trying to persuade James to eat some of his birthday cake, since thus far he had only squished it and played with the plate. He doesn't look too excited in this picture...the boy must have been quite stuffed! (He now loves to partake of sweets when they are presented).

This picture reminds me of Green Eggs and Ham. Page after page the main character refuses green eggs and ham and then when he finally tastes them, he realizes that they are quite good and that he likes them. James finally discovered that cake is good thanks to Dad's help.

Do you see the cake remnant below his lip? He finally took his first bite!

The plate and crown were still fun to play with in between bites.

Eventually, James began to shovel the cake into his mouth.

What sheer cake squishing glee!
(Notice the pointed toes...his whole body was involved in the squishing.)

After eating and squishing, he was left with mountains of crumbs.

DANCE...Boogie Wonderland...yeah, yeah, yeah...
I thought it would be fun to get James a card with music. So I got him this card with a hologram of the Happy Feet Penguins on the front and the chorus (shown above) to Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was pretty jammin'. He got a kick out of it for days, even weeks. It was his companion on the changing table. Opening and closing it to start and stop the music kept him quite entertained until it of course broke after all the opening and closing. I, however, don't think I will be getting a card like that again. There was no price on it. I figured it would be $3 to $5. Oh no...it was $8! I should have just bought him a book. I wish I would have told the cashier that I no longer wanted it. But, it was fun while it lasted.

Opening his present from Mom and Dad.
(Jordan wrapped it...do you like the Santa Claus themed paper?)

Mega Bloks!!! I think Jordan may have been even more excited than James.

He sure loved that crown!

James did not want to pause for photo-ops after opening his present. Jordan was teasing me that it looked like I was using James as a prop. I'd grab him and turn to the camera and smile before he'd squirm loose to go play. I just really wanted to have a picture with him on his first birthday. This is the best not-so-propish shot that we got.

Jordan's creation...he used all 80 pieces!

Spoons Are Fun

James loves to play with spoons. At the end of every meal, he asks for the spoons used during the meal (in his one-year old babble and point language). On this particular day, he was trying to get all four spoons in one hand. He succeeded over and over again, but when I got the camera out to take a video, he upped the entertainment factor.

(Pardon the image and sound in in this video. The file had to be edited to upload it here and the quality suffered in doing so. I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker. Does anyone know of any other free programs or websites where you can edit video files that might have higher quality results?)