Goals: Dreams with Deadlines: Lucas Turns One!

My baby is not a baby anymore. He's a toddler. A spunky, walking, screaming toddler. He's so cute though. It's fun to watch, over again, the new things that babies learn. He can use a fork and spoon, brush his hair, talk on the phone, and he says "Mama, Dada, ba-ba, and baby". And he uses them in context. If there is such a thing as context with a 12 month old.

We drove down to MS to visit with family and have a party for Lucas. A lot of my family had not met Lucas yet so it was nice.

We got to go to the Children's Museum in Jackson and it was and awesome one! The children's museum here is ok... But that one was surprisingly nice for Jackson.

Ryan liked milking the cow.

And even gave her a kiss.

One of the coolest things was the gigantic Scrabble board.

Lucas wasn't having it. Let me go woman!

Lucas liked fishing even though he couldn't see over the edge.

Time for some spin art.

The music room was one of Lucas' favorites.

The kids climbed to the top of the Capitol building.

We visited my grandparents and Lucas took right to my PawPaw. He doesn't normally like strangers.

We picked up slushies at Sonic before we went. This was the first time Ryan had one to himself and he WOULD NOT put it down until it was gone.

Ryan LOVED PawPaw. He hasn't seen him since he was 3 months old.

My grandma gave him "Three Billy Goats Gruff" that she found at a thrift store. It was a really old copy! 1982. She used to tell me this story at bedtime when we visited for the summer so of course there's sentiment there. Ryan loves this book. I do voices...

He asked her to read it to him.

Then we saw a lizard going across the rail of the porch and Ryan grabbed PawPaw's hand and took him down into the yard so he could find it for him.

Time for a ride on the golf cart. Guess who loved that?

Ryan was loving on PawPaw. He was tracing his forehead, cheek and nose. It was so sweet. It was like he was trying to remember him by feel. Just thinking about their little 15 second connection makes me tear up.

Well, we tried to get a group picture but one little stinker didn't want to sit still!

My adorable nephew

My gorgeous niece.

Gigi (my mom) playing frisbee with the kids. It involved her tossing the frisbee to them and the kids staring at it as it landed on the ground then running to get it. Or it just hitting them in the stomach/arm and falling to the ground. It was pretty funny.

So now on to the party. It was hot but breezy. We had it at a park and all the kids loved playing on the playground. We had about 30 friends and family attend. Most of whom hadn't met Lucas yet so it was really special.

The theme was sock monkeys. I was so happy with how the decorations turned out.

There was a small candy buffet that was also the party favors. I got small gourmet food bags and stamped a sock monkey on the front. I put all of Lucas' monthly pictures around the table. I made that table runner and the bunting that was on the high chair (below). Also, there was a picture frame mat for everyone to sign that turned out really nice.

We had Newk's cater and it was delicious!

I had Kroger make the cake but the image came from HERE.

The monkey's throne!

Another view of the candy buffet. Milk duds and Kit Kats in 90 degree weather was a bad idea. I didn't think about the heat when I planned this because, of course, it's still cool in Chicago.

Lucas had a not so good time getting ALL of the attention. He was doing this fake cry that was saying "Please stop singing and looking at me!" All he really wanted was his bottle of milk. Thank you very much!

This serenity and contemplation only lasted 3 seconds.

Most of this frosting made it to him by accident. He was not into the cupcake AT ALL.

This was before we even left the parking lot of the park. Poor baby was pooped!

Later that day we rode the four wheeler. Both my boys loved it and Lucas cried when he was taken off.

Ryan rode with Jimmy most of the time and let me tell you, Jimmy scared me. Ryan is fearless. Me, not so much. Jimmy was only going 7 mph with me on there. HA! Steep hills scare me. Wow, I was looking pretty raggedy!