Cowboy Clay turned 1!

Cowboy Clay is turning One!
So come on over & have some fun...
We'll have some chow & cupcakes too,
Please come help us celebrate our little buckaroo!

Well...I'm sorry that most of the people reading this are all of the way in Texas (and one very special reader is all of the way in Iraq!)...and so you weren't able to celebrate our Cowboy Clay's first birthday with us! Even though we missed many of you, it was a special day & the guest of honor was the cutest cowboy I've ever seen. We celebrated with quite a crowd, if you're going to have a party...you might as well have a big one! We enjoyed hamburgers, beans & some super-good sweet tea (served in mason jars of course!). Our party was fun & Clay LOVED his cupcake. At first, he just took tiny nibbles, but after a few minutes he just smashed it into his face.
Although this was a happy day, it was also a day that made my heart sad, just a little bit. As I went to bed, I thought about my feelings one year ago & they were much the same as they are today. I am thankful for the beautiful child that God has placed in our home & given me the charge of being his mother, but the other half of me is thinking of my husband on the other side of the world. I am selfishly sad that I do not have the opportunity to share this day with him, but also I am sad for him that he missed this day. These feelings are so similar to those just one short (and long) year ago. I often think about the fact that when you live a life like ours, holidays just become regular days & and regular days become special days when they are spent together. Clay will have many more birthdays & hopefully we will be together as a complete family for all of those!
We don't know the specific stats on Clay yet...but he seems to be just exactly normal in size! (Although around here, everyone thinks he's small because they have HUGE Hawaiian children.) He's cruising around furniture, alternating between the low-crawl & regular crawl, and loves to dance. Clay also loves to be scared (I hide behind furniture and scare him & for some reason this is hilarious.). He seems to be quite verbal, although it takes a trained mother's ear to understand the things that he is saying ~ night-night = nigh-nigh, quack-quack = cack-cack, dat = light (this one is said about fifty-million times a day, the boy loves lights!), duck = duck, ball = ba, dog = dah, bye-bye, mama, dada, there have been attempts at the words grandad & boogity-boogity-boo! ~ but they are REALLY hard to understand & also quite funny. So, there's no walking, but he's a little linguist!
He fills the days with a lot of laughing (and getting into things that I wish that he would stay out of). Our year has had a lot of ups and downs, but my life changed so much one year ago this week. I am so grateful for this child who smiles at any stranger, but refuses to give his mother hugs. He is a joy to both of his parents in times when we need joy. He is a precious gift & we are so thankful for the responsibility of raising him.