This was one of the first baths that Cyprus took by himself in the big tub. He really enjoyed it.

Just a little video of Cyprus playing and smiling at 5 months old.

I managed to video the tail end of Cyprus falling asleep!

Cyprus cracks up while riding on daddy’s back like a monkey.

Cyprus has discovered the amazing world of meat, and he’s not going to give it up anytime soon.

Words cannot express the excitement that I feel about the fact that Cyprus is now officially 1!  He survived his first trip around the sun, but most importantly, we have had an incredibly heartfelt, exciting and lovely time together.  Though all of the things I might say here also apply to my lovely daughter, Daphne, I am not reminiscing about her first birthday after all, lets focus on Cyprus.

Cyprus has been an incredibly grounding and healing force in my life.  Our adventure started two days before he was born when my water broke.  I spent those two days wondering if and when I was going to have a baby.  Though the traditional medical model would have asked me to com in for a c-section after the first 12 hours, my midwife was paitent and gave me the time and the space that I needed.  I went into active labor at 3am on June 30th.  After waking Jared up at 5, we rushed to the birth center in Portland where my VBAC baby was born in the water at 9:40am (full birth story here).

This year has been an awesome adventure.  I greatly admire Cyprus for his sweet ability to enjoy anything and everything.  He is a very calm person.  He almost never gets upset and he is always interested in whatever his sister and I are doing.  Daphne is a very excited, active young lady, and it is nice to have a laid-back little lad to enjoy when we are not running around exploring the world.

Cyprus has accomplished a lot in the last year.  He has now doubled his birth weight, weighing in (at last check) at exactly 16 pounds 4 ounces (he as 8 pounds 2 ounces at birth).  He can roll over, crawl and take steps on his own.  I asked him to kindly take his time and start officially walking after he turns one, which he kindly obeyed.  Cyprus has been working a lot on using the potty, and when I ask him to, he will potty in the potty around 80% of the time.  I enjoy spending time with him at home where he can use the potty, and I think that he likes the attention from his sister and I when we ask him to potty.

Cyprus is starting to get his communications down.  His first word was “clap” sounding more like a “cla” but it came along with his ability to clap when asked.  He also says, “dad”, “hi”, “dog”, “Daphne”, “mama” and “light”.  Cyprus knows the signs for eat, drink, potty, nurse and up.  I have been doing flash cards with Cyprus for a long while now.  He can recognize and sign, dog, cat, clap, wave, gorilla and tiger when he is shown the word.  It is actually kind of amazing.  He says, “rarr” for tiger and “ohah ohah” for gorilla.  The list of his accomplishments in the language department grows daily.  He will soon be out talking his sister.

Cyprus loves animals.  He gets very excited when he sees a rabbit or a dog.  His current favorite is a dog.  He likes to look at pictures of dogs.  In fact, any living thing that is not a human, a tiger or a gorilla is a dog.  Cyprus got a little plastic dog on top of his cupcake at his birthday party last night and he didn’t really put it down until he was ready to go to bed.  I think I will be getting some help from him in the near future with our animals.

I love spending time with Cyprus.  I don’t think he has ever been in a stroller.  When we go somewhere, he goes into the Ergo on my front or my back and he just simply hangs on for the ride.  He loves going for walks and looking around.  When he is in the Ergo on the front, it makes me happy because I get to hold on to him and snuggle him wherever we go.

Cyprus is fun to put to bed.  I nurse him and then sit down on the ground with him.  I give him a toy and he just hold, looks at, plays with and talks to the toy until his eyes get heavy and he falls asleep.  I then put him in our bed where he sleeps through the night about 70% of the time.  I was considering the other day that we have never spent a night apart which means that he has slept next to me for the past 365 days.  What a pleasure!

Cyprus loves when I sing the song, Baby Beluga to him.  I can’t count the number of times I have sang it, but I would estimate a number exceeding 1000 renditions since birth.

When Cyprus was 4 months old, I started a 365 project taking photos of him each day.  Taking the photos documenting his life has been my great pleasure.  Looking over the photos I have taken so far on the project makes me realize what an incredible gift I have given myself!

I was doing a much different thing last year, the day that Cyprus was born.  I am so happy to be celebrating this day with him as the day the he is 1 year old.  Happy birthday my handsome little man!

The point of my 365 project is to tell a story very concisely in one photograph so that that one photograph tells a story and makes an impact.  For most days, that works really well for me, but sometimes I take a long series of photos, and I’d like to share more than one of them.  I thought I would put some additional Tulip Festival photos up for your enjoyment.

Audrey and Copper and Rouge came with us, and we had a great time.  The girls spent some time pretending to be flowers.  What gorgeous flowers they are.

Daphne and Copper couldn’t get enough of the flowers, and even though there were 40 acres of them to look at, the same tulips appealed to both of them.

Daphne definitely took the time to stop and smell the flowers.


Oh so cute!

Mr. Cyprus thought that the flowers were incredibly interesting.

Curiosity comes in all forms. “I wonder what this tastes like.”

Cyprus had a BLAST. He loved crawling around in the muddy field trying to explore all the flowers around. True to his nature, he was sweet and gentle with them, and only one of them was sacrificed. However, his pants got so dirty that I had to wash them over 10 times to get all the mud out, and the water wasn’t even running clean before I decided to give up.

Daphne did a GREAT job being cute.

Rouge got to explore as well while I attempted to take some photos of her for her mama.

Have I ever mentioned that my daughter is beautiful?

Cyprus wonders, “What on earth is my mother thinking?”

Jared took this lovely photos of the kids and I messing around this weekend.

The moment he took it, I felt like it perfectly captured my excitement at what I do every day–being a mom!

While I was out visiting family in Eastern Oregon, I was able to convince my grandmother to make a batch of cookies with the kids and I.  I have been making cookies at the side of my grandmother for as long as I can remember, and I enjoyed doing it as an adult while the kids helped.  She is still using the same mixing bowl, which makes me smile.

Daphne got to help measure out the ingredients.

Once the cookies made it into the oven, there was no haulting the excitement of the cousins waiting for the treats to be done.

And yes, I even got excited about the baking cookies, and I sat in front of the oven with Cyprus watching them cook to perfection.

I know you see photos of my kids all the time, but I have these two extras to share.  Aren’t they just amazingly cute?

I finally decided that this hat is too small for Cyprus.  I have since passed it on to Beckett to use.   I will miss the hat for sure, but it is just a sign that I need to make another one, pronto.