Not a baby any more!

Tomorrow will be my little boys first birthday! What a huge milestone this is, not only for him but for us too. We had his party this weekend and it was so much fun. My sweet mother and father came up to help us clean house and watch the boys. Then on Sunday we all got up had breakfast and got to work decorating and doing lots of last minute details for the party. We had all of my family, Wesley's family, Marak's daycare family, and my best buddy Amber over for the party. We had so many people over, but luckily it was so nice outside that we were able to open up the French doors and let everyone go back and forth. Marak had so much fun, he really wasn't into open the presents, but as you can see from the picture below that he enjoyed the cake! It wasn't until after the party was over that I realized that all day long Brody was thinking that the party was for him and so was all of the presents. Up until this weekend he has never had to experience Marak having a party.

Although I was excited for Marak that he was older and able to do so much more, I was at the same time a little sad. My little baby will never be a little baby again. All of the sudden he looks like a little boy (must be something in the birthday cake?) This morning he just looked older. Looking back over the past year I realize how far we have come. We had a 1 yr. old and an infant, now we have a 2 year old and a 1 year old. I remember wondering if we would ever make it to today, or if we would just end up crazy and in a mental institution. I remember the great advise from my mother to just take it a day at a time. As much as this past year has been wonderful and so joyful and excited to watch the boys grow together. It also has been so challenging. Many nights with little to no sleep, almost in tears because the kids just wouldn't sleep. Marak for sure test my every patients, but then he can be just so loving and sweet. And I must admit that he is my payback, he acts exactly like I did as a baby (which from the many stories I've heard I too was very VERY needy) I remember coming home from the hospital thinking we just had a baby and they are letting us come home with another one??? Are they nuts?? Do they really think we can handle this? But like my mother said, we just took it one day at a time and the year went by so fast. Now my so sweet (and sometimes evil)little boy is 1. And now I never thought I would say this, but I have no more babies. (I must admit, the way things were looking like this time last year...I thought I was going to end up like the Dugger gal with all of those babies...Many prayers were answered to have another years from these two boys)I have really enjoyed watching the boys grow up this year we have had so many milestones go by. I love watching them play together, if you watch closely they can have the sweetest little moments with each other, but don't blink cause you will miss them being mean to each other the very next second. It must be a brother thing or a common understanding between the two of them.

This is one of our milestones. The first time both boys are in their big boy car seats!

This is Marak eating his birthday cake.

This is Marak eating his birthday dinner.
I am so glad that we survived our kids, and all in all I think we did a pretty good job!