As I look through the photos, I realized I failed to take pictures of a lot of different things.  For the food, we had blue and yellow bread made by our local bakery.  We used a round cookie cutter to cut the bread into circles.  I wasn’t kidding when I said I went with the polka dot theme!  All of the food was round.  I don’t know if anyone noticed, but it was fun trying to come up with food ideas that fit!

The adults were sent home with mini loaves of banana bread.  One picture I didn’t take was of the kids goodie bags.  I used a white gift bag and glued blue and yellow polka dots along the bottom.  Each bag was filled with fun monkey items.

The kids had a blast playing the ball pit we made using a monkey kiddie pool that was complete with a banana slide!  It was perfect!

You can find the mod monkey shirt here. She does great work and is super fast!

To me, having a smash cake is the best part of 1st birthday party! Lucas has fun smashing the cake.  He didn’t eat much of it.  The cake was done by Ann. She has done several cakes for the family and always does an awesome job.

As I type this(between tears), it’s almost exactly 1 year to the second that my sweet baby Lucas was born.  Hard to believe a year has already passed.  As much as I love little Lucas, he has been quite the challenge.  He is definitely happier now that he can be more independent.  To fit his personality, we decided to go with the mod monkey theme for the party. Here is the invitation…

Here’s me and my baby (he will always be a baby in my eyes) at his party.

More pictures from the party will be up soon.

Hard to believe he turned 11 months today.  He really is a much happier baby than he was for a while. I think being able to move around on his own has really helped.  So, he’s up to about 4 steps!  I think I have my hands full now,just wait until he and Derek are running in opposite directions!

This year, I will be a good mom and get them Easter baskets! I was thrilled when I opened these last night. Aren’t they cute?! I want to order one for every kid I know!

I purchased them from Ceadar Hill Heirlooms. The workmanship is amazing! And the turn around time is very fast. You can see their store here.

Of course, nothing can make you feel better like McDonalds french fries, right??

Here’s the jail crib that he was supposed to sleep in.

Of course, he wanted nothing to do with sleeping in that thing. Although, they aren’t supposed to, the nurses let him sleep in the cot they had in the room for me.

It really was nice to be able to cuddle with him though.

We were finally able to come home Friday morning.

Lucas sure does look better than Dan and I do! I think he was just happy to not be hooked up to any machines anymore. They had taken the IV out right before this picture was taken.

We all were so happy to be home! Now, he is going through a phase where he doesn’t want to sleep in his crib. Between that and the teething that he and Derek are going through, we haven’t been getting much sleep. Oh well, such is life.

* Scribbled with black Sharpie and yellow highlighter all over Dan’s computer monitors. Luckily, it came off! It wasn’t fun calling Dan at work to let him know.

* He broke a glass candle in the bathroom. This candle had been there, untouched, for two years.

* Playing in the toilet. I heard laughing and water splashing and knew I better investigate. I thought I would find them playing in the tub with toys that still had leftover water in them. Nope, this is what I found.

Derek is trying to pretend that he had nothing do to with it. But, he is just as wet as Lucas. You can’t really tell in the picture, but they were both soaked!

* I was feeding Lucas his bottle on the couch. I kept hearing something hitting the floor…blackberries! He thought this was a ton of fun!

Add to the list, squeezing the tube of anything he can find, lotion, toothpaste, conditioner….the list goes on. While most of this may sound like normal child’s play….it isn’t normal for Derek.

Ugh…recounting all this just makes me tired!:)

Lucas has been equally difficult in his own way. Come back for that story!