Miles: 1 Year!

Height: 29.3 in. (25%)

Weight: 19.1 lbs. (15%)

Head Circ: 19 in. (95%)

Teeth: 5 (#6 is trying to break through now)

Diapers: Size 3

Clothing: 12 months

Favorite Foods: Bananas! Cheerios, Blueberries, Tortillas

He's a really good eater now. He doesn't love cold stuff but he's learned to tolerate it. If you get a banana out, he starts squealing and giggling in anticipation. :)  He eats just about everything we're eating unless it's so messy that I don't want to deal with it. He would prefer to feed himself at all times but will let me spoon-feed him yogurt with no complaint. He can bite off almost all foods but I still need to cut/tear it up because he will throw big pieces of food.

He took his first steps a couple weeks ago. He is still not really motivated to walk, but he will do it if you stand him up and encourage him to walk to you. Crawling is much faster for him, so that's still his preferred method of getting around. He loves to cruise around the furniture and is quite proud of himself when he does take steps. 

Miles is definitely a mess-maker right now. His brothers are happy to yell at me when he's destroying something. Miles' favorite things to tear up are Kleenex and toilet paper but he'll make do with any paper product he can get his hands on.

He doesn't really say any words yet. He can say "Mama" and Kory says he heard him say "Dada" a couple times, but I've never heard it. He says "ba-ba" and "ga-ga" a lot. He likes to scream, especially when you're eating food and he isn't. 

An average day at home looks something like this:

8:00 wake up, drink a bottle, eat breakfast

8:30 play with his brothers or run errands 

10:30 bottle and nap in crib or car seat      

1:00 wake up, bottle, lunch                        

1:30 play with Peter while Luke naps        

3:00 bottle and nap                                     

                  5:00 wake up, bottle, dinner                                         

5:30 play with toys, take a bath, watch Sky

7:30 bottle, bedtime routine, in bed by 8:00

Since he's eating a lot more solids, he won't drink as much formula anymore. He will only drink about 5 oz. each time, so we've started giving them a little more frequently to make sure he still gets enough. He thankfully sleeps all night long! Neither of my older two slept as well as him, so I am very grateful for that. He's got a tooth trying to come in right now, so he's woken up a couple times around 10:30 p.m., but will go back to sleep with his pacifier replaced or sometimes me rocking him. I really think his good sleeping habits are partly just his nature but are helped by the sleep course I took and by him being bottle-fed instead of nursing.

We have a tradition of waking up the 1-year-old on their birthday with a crib full of balloons. Miles was the least impressed of our 3 boys but he was also a bit overwhelmed by his screaming brothers and balloons being thrown at his face. 

His birthday was sunny (which is rare this time of year) so we went to the park after getting Chinese food for lunch. He wasn't very impressed by the swing but always smiles for pictures. He actually almost fell asleep in the swing since we were there at nap time. 

We had a small party for him on his birthday. The Chappells and Pedersens came over and we had nachos for dinner and then had brownies and ice cream for dessert. Miles had our traditional birthday dessert: Boston Cream Pie.

The first year of a baby's life is always hard, but Miles was exceptionally hard. You'd never know now that he struggled so much with eating and gaining weight for so many months. God answered our prayers and went above and beyond in making him healthy and chunky. :) I'm so glad you're ours, baby Miles!