Happy Birthday Rowen!

Rowen enjoying his new fire truck :)

Yummy Cupcake!

Soo BIG!!

Showing where his new teeth are!

I cannot believe that my sweet little 7 lb 4 oz baby boy is now a 23 lb one year old! There are no words to express the absolute adoration I have for this precious boy. Just thinking about how much I love him brings tears to my eyes every time. I am so grateful to watch Rowen's sweet personality come to light alittle more each day. He has the brightest smile and a contagious laugh that gets me every time. Lately I have been calling him sunshine (partly due to the fact that he enjoys to wake up when the sun wakes up!) but mostly because that is the best way to describe him. He truly lights up my life. Each day seems to bring new milestones, some of the most recent is waving and saying 'bye bye' in the softest, sweetest voice. One of my favorites is if you ask where Elmo's nose is, he squeezes Elmo's nose...if only everyone had big orange noses he would have that one down!

For his actual birthday, Chad and I gave him his firetruck Cozy Coupe which he LOVES!! He could go for rides in it for hours I am sure. He is so cute that he isn't quite big enough to get in and out himself, so he just climbs right on through the windows. After playing for a bit, he took his nap and then it was off to swim lessons. Poor little guy just started his lessons, so they are still pretty tramatic. I know he will get it though and be a little fishy in no time. His swim was soon forgetten though as he got to go to lunch with Grammie and Papa at Liberty Market; our favorite spot! He took down his pizza, probably the most I have seen this kid eat, which is saying a lot. My personal favorite part of the day was after dinner I gave Rowen a cupcake and sang him happy birthday. He must have remembered the joys of eating a cupcake from his birthday party because he wasted no time and went face first into the frosting. He giggled his way through the cake and was even nice enough to share with me. He was so precious with how he wanted to give me bites that how could I refuse?!? All in all we had such a fun day together and I feel so amazingly blessed to have such a precious boy to spend my days with. Being Rowen's mommy is beyond anything I could have ever hoped or dreamed. I love this little boy and know God will do great things in his life. My prayer for this year is that as he starts to learn how to talk, the stories about Jesus and God's Word will be continually on his lips. I cannot wait to see what this next year holds in store for my Rowen.

What a difference a year makes!

For mother's day last year Michael gave Rowen a soccer jersey he got on his visit to Turkey. I found this picture of us holding the jersey up on Rowen when he was just 5 days hold. Fast forward 11 months, and here is that same little baby rockin his soccer jersey! What a big boy!