Vocabulary Explosion

Beniam has been saying new words left and right...light, hi, duck, papa, hallelujah (almost, you can tell what he is trying to say), mato (for tomato - he LOVES tomatoes and we discovered that he is not allergic so we take him out to the garden to feast), car, outside, his cousin's names...it is SO fun to watch, or rather hear his little mind developing. God is truly amazing in how He engineered the human brain and planned out it's development.

1st Birthday Bash

We celebrated our dear little boy's first birthday on Saturday. His actual birthday is on the 28th but we will be out of town that weekend for a certain someone's wedding. We gathered with family and friends at a local beach, ate cupcakes, played in the sand, and enjoyed each other's company. Yes, Beniam tried his first cupcake, and no, he didn't dive right in, he took his sweet time. Chris says this is because our boy is an artist, tasting a little here, a little there. CTBR managed to make through present opening and balloon boxing before finally hitting that meltdown-it's time for a nap-get me to my crib as soon as possible point. He isn't the type of kid that will fall alseep anywhere. He wants his crib, his blanket, his music and then he is out. But I digress. The birthday party was great...we loved celebrating the gift that Beniam is to us. Notice the super cute crown that our Ethiopian prince is wearing...designed and sewn by our dear Hope B. with Ethipoian colors, the Lion of Judah and Beniam's initials. It is his official birthday crown. We love it! Thank you Hope! And thank you to everyone who celebrated with us! And thank you Grandma Kim for the pics!

I want to read this...

http://www.scaredthebook.com/

Almost 1!

The inevitable is happening and our Little Boy is is becoming a Little-Bit Bigger Boy. CTBR is officially mobile is more ways than one. He started crawling mid-August, has been pulling himself to standing since before that and has discovered the great fun of "the walker." He loves walking himself around pushing the walker (thanks Auntie Amy!). Our camera is broken, so alas no recent pics of these accomplishments yet.

Our little mover and shaker has started saying gogo (when pushing his walker), Mama (he has said this before but now it is very clearly intended for me), Dada, ball, duck, book, uh-oh, nana (for banana) and a host of other words that we can't quite decipher yet.

I am starting B's scrapbook and have been looking at his early, early pictures. Our love for him has grown more that we could have imagined. We can hardly believe that this little one:













has grown into this happy, healthy little treasure: