Benson's 1st Birthday!!!!

Our little Benson turned 1 Year Old on August 1st!!!
I really don't know where this year has gone.

It doesn't seem possible that this moment where we met our precious baby boy was a whole year ago.

Your birthday fell on a Sunday and we celebrated over at Grandma Kocherhans that evening with some cupcakes and presents.


Bence did eat the whole cupcake .... one little pinch at a time. :) He wasn't even too big of a mess.

1 Year Old

My Personality: You are a very sweet little guy......mostly. You're very tenderhearted and it doesn't take much to hurt your feelings. You're playful, curious, social, impatient, and loving.

My Latest: You've now been one for about 3 weeks and seems like as soon as you hit that one year mark you started learning all sorts of new things!!

• Walking: You took your first steps 2 days after you turned 1 while waiting for our food at a Denny's in Seatac Washington. At first you would fall because you wanted to take off running! It's been so fun to watch you learn how to walk because you've loved it so much!! You get the biggest, proudest smile on your face and squeal with delight! It's also funny because once you started you didn't want to go back to crawling and you've been very determined to get the walking down. You'd be taking some steps and laughing then you'd fall and grunt in disappointment, crawl back to where you pulled yourself up and try again. You've picked it up fairly quickly and now 3 weeks later you're walking around everywhere and are able to stand up without having to use something to pull yourself up.
• Clapping Hands
• Singing: Whenever someone is singing you want to be singing too. You start using this soft, pleasant little voice.
  
• You only have your 2 bottom teeth but you're working on cutting about 6 right now. All at once!! Poor guy!!!
• You got your first haircut last week after your Grandma Koch made a comment about how you look like Yoda. That's all it took and off it came. I gave you your haircut out on our deck and just trimmed up your little "Yoda whisps" that stuck out at your ears, and some of the really long stuff on top.
  

My Favorites:

• FOOD!!!!!
  
• Playing and rough housing with Jesse
• Finding the food you dropped on the floor
  
• Giving and getting hugs
• Cars or anything you can push around on the floor
• Soffy rhino and Binky
• Your carseat (surprisingly)
• Reading "peekaboo" books
  

Food: Food has to be it's own category with you. Most people who know you know that your number one concern in this life is where you're next mouthful is coming from. You are totally and completely obsessed with food!!! Like I mentioned you are usually very sweet, but when someone isn't feeding you enough or fast enough you get downright mean!! You scream, and yell, and whine very, VERY LOUDLY!! I don't really know if you have a favorite food. You'll eat just about everything. You definitely want whatever anyone else is eating and you'll let them know it. I think you are extra excited about anything with sugar in it though. Can't blame you. We've taught you the signs for "Please, eat, more, and milk" to help so that you don't have to scream, and you've gotten good at using them but it only does so much. It's too funny!

Sleeping Habits: You are a mother's dream!!! You still take 2 naps everyday and you like to take them. All I have to do to put you down is lie you in your bed, give you your binky, your "soffy rhino," and your soffee blue blankee, turn on your "soffy" songs and you'll relax and get to sleep. You usually will sit up before I leave the room and sometimes I've seen you dive back into your blankees head first and just rub your face in them. At night I put you down around 9 and you don't wake up in the morning until around 8. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Who do I look like?: You and Jesse are definitely brothers but you definitely have different looks. Jesse has a lot more hair than you do right now so that makes it hard to really compare. I think you look mostly like your me (your Mom) but you can still see a little bit of your Dad in you.

My words: Mama, Dada, Ya, Hi, uh-oh, all done. You've started to do some animal sounds and will copy us if we do a cow, or chicken or duck.

What did I get for my First Birthday?: Lots of cars, board books, sippy cups, a toy rainstick, and pudding cups.

At your Dr.'s appointment you were 20th percentile for you weight, 60th for your height, and 65th for you head.

We didn't think we could love anyone as much as we loved Jesse but you've proved that wrong from the moment you got here. You've made us all so happy and have given us millions of reasons to smile. We love you little Bence!