Lamens Family: March 2017

The last year flew by WAY too fast! It feels sort of surreal knowing our "baby days" are now behind us. As much as we look forward to the new phases of toddlerhood and "big kid" status with the girls, I will miss having a snuggly baby around. I was more emotional about him turning one than I expected the weekend of Everett's birthday. He is the sweetest, happiest, most smiley baby and the perfect little boy to round out our family. I have really made an effort to soak in all his snuggles, naps on me, giggles, smiles, and every last "first" with him this past year. He made it easy to enjoy his baby days because he has always been the easiest going, mellow, content, patient, and sweetest baby. People comment all the time on how friendly, smiley, and of course, how handsome he is :). We love him so much!

Our big guy has been consistent with his height/weight ratio since he was born! His stats at his one year appointment:
Height: 32.76 in - 100th percentile (or 50th percentile for a 19 month old!)
Weight: 26 lbs, 8 oz - 98th percentile
Head circumference: 19 in - 95th percentile

At one, he is showing us his active side a ton more! He is no longer content just sitting in our arms observing or playing quietly on the floor. He is into EVERYTHING and is on the move! He's not yet walking on his own, but enjoys using his walker, cruising on furniture, and is a super fast crawler. We've had to baby proof the house, and even still, he finds ways to out maneuver us. He loves eating dog food, playing in toilets, knocking his high chair over, turning our roomba vacuum on, climbing up the stairs (even with a gate to prevent him from getting up the stairs!). He loves to crawl all over us on the floor and "tackle". He's now too heavy for me to hold for very long and wiggles and squirms to get out of my arms and be down on the ground playing or crawling away. Since he's not walking on his own, it gets a bit tricky when he wants to get down (especially when we're outside, as the ground is often wet or muddy).

Everett loves to point, clap, wave (my favorite! He loves waving at everyone!), high fives, signs for "please" and "more". He is a great eater, and loves most food at this point. He'll eat pretty much anything we give him and often will eat more than his sisters! He LOVES the bath pretty much more than anything. As soon as he hears the water running to fill the tub, he sprint crawls to the bathroom and tries to climb in. He recently (finally!) got teeth! He first got one bottom one, then his top two at the same time, then another bottom one - so four new teeth all within the last 2-3 weeks. He's had a couple of tough teething nights and we can tell he's uncomfortable at times, but he's handled it pretty well. He's started having a preference for mom - love that he wants and needs me, loathe that sometimes it's hard to get a second to myself! He has a few words he can say: "mama", "dada" and something that sounds like "dah dah" for dog. He's a great little sleeper, sleeping a solid 11 hours at night, going to bed around 7pm and waking up sometime in the 6 o'clock hour. When we're home and it works out, he takes 2 naps during the day. Thank goodness he's still really flexible and works his naps around his sisters' schedules when needed though ;).

While we celebrated our one year at his big birthday party, his actual birthday fell on a Monday, and we loved spending time as a little family just celebrating him. He woke up to birthday balloons in his room!

His favorite bagel with cream cheese for breakfast...

Opening his gifts with the help of his sweet sisters. I love how he looks at Ella in these! The girls were so excited to give him the presents they picked out...