Happy 1st Birthday!

See this guy? He turned 1 on Saturday! Man, oh Man, has time flown by. It seems like yesterday that I was waddling around trying to find my toes wondering if this was going to be Aubrey Paige or a boy with a name we hadn't figured out yet.
Mason LOVED getting into the cake! He had no reservations about picking up the entire piece and shoving it in his mouth. It was awesome...and messy!
Then he got thirsty, and decided he was done, but ohhh he was a MESS!
This was taken on Saturday before his party, just on our day at home.
Since Mason is 1 year old, 12 months, I wanted to take time to write down 12 things (pretty random things) that I think/love/pray for about this sweet boy. Remember, I'm his mom, so I'm quite biased...but it's MY blog, so I can be!

1. His first smile...I can see it so clearly, I was rocking him and nursing him in the morning and Chris came over to say good bye before work. As soon as Mason heard Chris he pulled off, looked up right into Chris' eyes and smiled. It was the coolest moment. There's something about the first on-purpose smile...and I didn't mind at all that it was for Chris!!
2. He loves to eat!! He is mommma's boy all the way on that one. This kid gets crabby if he's not in his highchair around breakfast time, lunchtime and dinner time. Yesterday I was at Panera bread with a friend and Mason reached right over to my try grabbed the 1/2 french baguette and started gnawing on it. This is after he ate 1/2 a grilled cheese; 1/2 a fruit cup; grahm crackers and bites of my soup!!!
3. He has a great personality at this age. This weekend we sang Happy Birthday to him 100 times, and every time we would start singing it he would stop whatever he was doing, smile a big smile and start clapping. He really has a great temperment and a fun outlook to his little world.
4. His eyes. They are truly the windows to his soul. They shine when he's happy, darken when he's angry and open really wide when something frightens him. Plus they are about the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen on a kid!
5. The fact that he's 1 and still has no teeth! I don't think much of it until I see our little friend Maya, who is 4 months younger and has quite a few teeth.
6. He loves cars. He will crawl around the house with a car in his hand for an hour at a time if nothing else distracts him. He pushes them on the carpet, carries them in his mouth, whatever it takes to have a car near him, he'll do it...any guesses where that comes from?
7. His pacifiers. If it's not a car, he's got a paci in his mouth and one in his hand, I've seen him have 2 in his mouth at one time, and now his favorite thing is to hide them around the house, which is no fun at all when he needs one for nap or to go in public, but it is funny to see all the strange places he hides them!
8. The way he mimicks things Levi does. Yesterday Levi was on the floor playing his little drum, Mason was watching him from a distance, then crawled over as soon as Levi walked away, sat down just like Levi was sitting and played the drum. Of course Levi flipped out, but Mason was cute just the same!
9. When he was 3-7 months he had the best hair. I called it a "baby-hawk" because it looked like a puffy mohawk right in the middle of his head. Now he just has a big boy haircut..
10. He was such a bad sleeper in the beginning. I remember thinking I'd be sleeping with this one until he was 10...
11. He's a GREAT sleeper now. 12 hours, in his crib, 2 naps, in his crib...PHEW!
12. We got off to such a bad start with him. The not-sleeping, the post-partum depression that led to me saying so many bad things about having him and ending up being away from him (and Levi) for a week..it was rough, but we survived, and I think I always look at him and think..."we conqured it!!! We're fine and it's all behind us!!"
I can't wait to see the life this little boy leads...he's such a treasure!