Blake

This was right after he was born

This was the day my mom left so I think he was about two weeks old.

This was his four month picture.

And this is our latest picture of us together! I love having Blake and I love that today is his BIRTHDAY!!

Now I'm not going to sugar-coat this...longest year of my life! It didn't help that as soon as 2010 hit I said "One more year" meaning school would be done in one more year when in reality we still have 18 months left. And it didn't help that I felt like once 2010 came I was going to have my baby when really it was going to be three months later. So that was my fault. But Blake did not make it easy either. Neither did Ben's work schedule.

One year ago today Ben had just finished his boards, come home for the night and we prepared to go to the hospital the next day and have Blakers. Since then Ben has found out that he passed the first part of boards, killed the second part of boards and is now stressing out for the third part of boards which is in like two weeks. And he also got a residency (YEA!!) so we are packing up and selling everything for our big move to Oregon! And I also threw a marathon in there so this has been one crazy year for all of us.

Even though Blake looks super cute and lovable in his pictures that was not how he behaved. For about six months he was just difficult. Cried a lot, screamed a lot, wanted to be held and all of it was difficult because Ben was gone all the time with work, came home exhausted and stressed and I had to hold down the fort with the other three girls. He's had a tough childhood as the fourth but he's also made me work at being a mom. This was just the other day...

BUt he has really improved lately and is just fun now. He plays in the cupboards, broke my blender, bangs the pots, slam the cupboards, climb on the kid table, walk with the wagon and drink his bottle. He LOVES his bottle and I love the instant happiness and silence it provides.

He looks really good in dark blue. I think it is just his color so I was really happy that his birthday outfits from the grandparents were dark blue. However he goes through his outfits pretty quick especially now that we play outside.

And these pictures below were all of Blake today, on his birthday, officially one year old! Look close to the first one and there is Daisy behind him. He's a pretty big kid. I like these pictures of Blake except that he looks more like Ben than me and I really loved having a kid that looked like me for a change. I get more comments about how he is starting to take after Ben than me and it makes me feel a little sad. Maybe it's because he started thinning out and if I chunk him back up he'll look like me again!

The girls made him a 'mud cake' for his birthday and sadly that just might be his only cake today. We've been super busy today and the cake is just not going to happen. Maybe on sunday we can have a little cake party for him. He loved his mud cake though. He loves to make a mess and that he did. I still haven't cleaned the mud up yet even though it's all over my porch.

Here are just a few close-ups as he played with his new toys he got today. Once again that dark blue just looks good on him.

This picture is from today and the other is when he was 4 months. He's so cute!

I like this last picture because I think he looks like my brother, Than. And if he looks like Than then he looks like me. (Yes!!) Unfortunately it's a little blurry but still cute and you can barely see his four teeth coming in on top.