The little monkey is ONE!

 It's SO hard to believe my little guy is already a year old! 

Thank you Jeannie for the ADORABLE birthday shirt and the darling little party hat! We tried absolutely everything to get a piccy of him in the hat. They *all* looked exactly like this:

So he's not into hats, obviously. 

At one point he yanked it off his head and crammed it onto the monkey's head and then gave us a "take that" kind of look.

He has definitely developed some rather strong opinions in his first year. 

 I think this age is my favorite! He's so much fun. Yes, he's into *everything* and you can't leave him alone for even a split second... but it's still my favorite. It's so fun to watch him learn new things, try to do things for himself, hearing all those first words, and watching that little personalty shine through. He's no longer a little helpless newborn, but a miniature little person with his own personality. He provides a huge amount of entertainment around the old parsonage!

 On the day of his party, the weather decided to climb up to a scorching 101 degrees. Let me just tell ya, that's not exactly good for cakes. Before very long it starting to lean toward the left, so we had to hurry up and eat it!

  It *would* have been a very fun cake to make, had my heating element not decided to conk out right in the middle of it! Out of desperation, I ended up cooking the smaller round layers in my toaster oven, and I don't recommend it. It actually tasted just fine, in spite of it all. 

 He had a hay day with that smash cake. I think he liked the smashing more than the eating! 

We ended up hosing him down with the water hose when he was all done and putting him in his swimming pool. ;)

Happy Birthday little monkey, Mommy loves you!