We were talking about genetics and had to whip out an Excel spreadsheet to figure this one out. I'm sure if we go a little further back then more stuff will show up. Based upon his hair, Viking has gotta be in there somewhere.

This sounds odd, but for his 1st birthday Daniel was still too young to be mashing food into his face so he was actually clean when it was all said and done.


NOTE: never hand over a camera to your idiot brother or else you'll get about a hundred pictures of the inside of his nose and the floor, instead of that baptism thing. Otherwise, I don't have much of the baptism and party on my camera. Mike took a zillion pictures, but I haven't sifted through those yet.

Alright, so it's not a real car. Actually, we still have the footplate in so he can't even Flintstone it around yet, but so far he seems pretty content with his first push around the block.

Just about every toy he has is covered with buttons that blink and sing to him when he mashes them. This means he's hell on keyboards. It's impossible to hold him while sitting at a computer without him constantly reaching to "help" out.

Answer? Decoy.

Daniel has had a very big week!

First off, he turned a year old on Friday! It's hard to believe how the time has flown (especially when the first 3 months in the NICU seemed to go so slowly)!

On Sunday, we had a ceremony at our church for him. He was baptized in the hospital when he was about a week old, but it was of course pretty basic. Paul and I weren't even there - we had requested that it be done and didn't realize that the priest would do it when he next came in, without letting us know a time. We were a little disappointed, but of course given the circumstances at the time, we were glad that it had been done. Anyway, on Sunday we got to have the actual ceremony part with our family there. Daniel wore the christening gown that has been in Paul's family for literally 100 years. Afterward, we had a little party for him at our house to celebrate his baptism and birthday. He is getting completely spoiled, especially by his grandparents. ;) He was up way past his bedtime and got a little cranky towards the end of the day, but overall he did really well considering what a long day it was and that he kept getting woken up every time he tried to nap in the car.

There's also been a couple new milestones. He's been able to sit up on his own for a while now, but not for very long. In about the past week, his balance has greatly improved. He's able to sit and play with toys for a good long while, and if he starts to tip over, he can usually catch himself. He does of course still get tired, or too enthusiastic in reaching for a toy that's a little too far away, and then he does fall over, but there's a really big difference all of a sudden, which is really cool to see.

He's also just decided that solid food is pretty good. A couple weeks ago, he was tolerating it if I could get it in his mouth, but he really wasn't all that interested in getting it in there in the first place. About a week ago, it got easier to convince him to open his mouth, and on Saturday he started opening his mouth on his own and leaning forward to take a bite. He also did it for a couple bites of cake at his party, which was surprising. Of course cake is very sweet, but I wasn't sure he'd go for it at first since it's a completely new texture and preemies often have texture issues. He opened right up though and had several bites. Obviously he won't be getting cake all the time, but I do think it's a good sign that he didn't seem to mind the new texture. :)

We haven't had a chance to take the 12 month pics yet....hopefully that will happen in the next couple days, and then they should be posted shortly afterward. :)

--Amy