Russell's First Birthday

Make sure you enjoy this video, courtesy of Emalyn's budding filmography skills.  At the end, the shaking is due to her vigorous clapping, while holding the camera.  We have very multi-talented children.

This is Russell enjoying his pseudo-birthday cake, soy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  We recently discovered he cannot eat dairy, thus the SOY cookies.  I just LOVE his contagious laugh here.

Giving Russell presents is as much fun for you as it is for him. ha ha. Enjoy.

Aaahhh Russell, can it really already be a year since you were born?  Time has flown so fast.  You bring so much joy to everyone around you.  With your easy smile and adorable laugh, and your intense joy that you find in everything around you, you are loved by everyone.  You also keep me running to you...running to close the dishwasher so you don't break it by sitting on the open door, running to close the bathroom door so you don't play in the toilet, fall in the bathtub, and eat the toilet paper, running to close the gate to the stairs so you don't fall down them, running to keep you away from the organ foot pedals so you don't get stuck again, running to find a new seat belt for your highchair so you don't climb out and sit on the tray, running to close the cupboard doors so you stop making copies with the printer (seriously, how did you figure that out so fast!?), running to take the aluminum foil away (again), and just running when I hear you exclaiming "whoa, whoa" in that deep voice when you find something absolutely amazing that will probably cause you more trouble.  I hope this stage lasts forever though, because you are absolutely adorable.  We love you, our now 1 year old Russell!