It's cliche, but utterly true - the time really does fly when you have a brand new, little person in your family.  It seems like just a couple eye blinks ago that I was packing Ruth Ann off to go to school with a sore back, obviously because she had been cooped up in an office chair all day the day before working on grad school work.  SURELY not because she was in labor and before we'd all come home again, we'd have this little thing with us:
Zoinks!

Yep.  And ever since, there's been no looking back.  Ruth Ann has since completed grad school (woot, woot!), we've had a ton of milestones, and endless hours staring at this guy and doing weird stuff in hopes of a little bit of this action:

At the beginning, you sweat every.single.thing.  Yes, we had an app to track feedings and the color and texture details of all diapers.  And then once you start to get a handle on those things and start sleeping again a little bit, you get handed another set of challenges.  Sleeping (through the night, preferrably)!  New food!  How much?  When?  Naps!  And if anyone has found the owner's manual for one of these things, can you please let me know?  I have more concrete documentation on how to operate my remote control than this TINY HUMAN BEING.  I say it a lot, but I know that we're supremely lucky to have such an easy-going kid that makes things a lot easier than they could be for us.  But you take a couple blinks, a few naps, catch your breath, and then wham! a one year old:

Dear lord, child, that is a swiveling rocking chair.  I am in a full sweat waiting to intercept any mishaps, just out of frame.

Last weekend, we had Avett's official one year celebration, which gives me a quick chance to thank Pinterest for raising the bar and one-upsmanship for kid's birthdays to unreasonably high and stress-inducing levels.  That's probably a different blog post.  For now, enjoy a few pics from the pre-party and official party (of which Pinterest can suck it because Ruth Ann did a great job), then wander over to Facebook to see some more.

The Robinsons hooked up the Bentley of wagons

Ruth Ann was also a fan

The Pre-party/actual birthday.  This is why there was no candle or singing during the big party



 

Sizing up the situation (and thinking of how to ditch the hat)

Gettin' to the bidness

Talk to the hand, Carter!

Fun in the photobooth