My Baby Lucas Walter,

I guess you’re technically not a baby anymore!  You’re a toddler now.  We have a toddler?!? You’ve gone from a tiny, helpless little creature that laid on my chest all day long, to a tough little boy who loves to walk around, head butt people, and give kisses and hugs.   First off, you are seriously the most handsome baby I’ve ever seen, yes I know I’m biased, but even strangers stop to tell us!   That’s not all you’ve got going, you are smart as a whip and funny too.    Your girlfriend, Rylie Grace, makes sure to plant many kisses on you so that all the other girls know you’re taken.  You even got your very first hickey this month!  Ha! Speaking of kissing, you love kissing!  And you give very sweet hugs.  However, both of those may be followed up with a quick head-butt, slap upside the head, or a good ole fashion hair-pulling.    You are very rough, so we’ve started a type of timeout where we put you on the floor and hold you there a minute so you can’t run away.  You hate it!  How dare we try to keep you in one spot for a whole minute!!   I’m not sure if it’s doing any good yet, but hopefully you will learn to be more gentle.

You are walking all over the place now!  Almost running even.  You will crawl over to something, pull up on it, then just take off.   You love, love, love to walk.  You’ve also gotten better at falling.  Instead of planking backwards and hitting your head, you now know how to plop onto your butt or knees.    You’ve starting mimicking noises and laughs now, and when we say something (mama, dada, bubba mostly) you’ll mimic it back.   You also understand a lot!  You know what tv, laptop, ball, ceiling fan, light, drums, Dada, Mama, milk, and lots more mean.   If we tell you to get us something, you will get it then hold it up for us to see.   You love to dance when any kind of music comes on, and you love to play drums.   You also are still obsessed with my hair! Arrrrrrg!  I don’t know how I have any hair left because you pull on it all day!

In June, I turned 32, and then in July, Daddy turned 33.   That sounds so old to me, but we still feel young!  You had your first 4th of July, and celebrated America by wearing red, white and blue and going to a cookout with friends.  You also met your first horse (you kept wanting to grab his nostril!).  On your birthday we went to the Barber shop and had your very first hair cut.  It was really more of a trim to get the hair out of your face.  Of course I saved a piece of your hair     Also this month your Poppy accepted a job in Australia so he is going to be gone for 5 months at least.  He came to visit before he left and we got lots of good photos, and videos of you two together.  He sent you a cute little koala bear from Australia for your birthday, and we have been sending him lots of pics and videos of you so he doesn’t miss anything.

This first year has been truly awesome, you are more than I ever hoped you could be.  Every day we marvel how cute, how smart, how funny, how amazing you are.  And we can’t believe you’re ours.  Our boy, our son, our baby.  Forever.