TWELVE MONTHS!!! - Part 1

I can't even bring myself to title the blog.... *gulp*.........ONE YEAR....
Where has the time gone?  SOOOOOO much has happened the last month.  It's like Jake is a whole new baby.  Of course I can no longer call him my baby.... though he will ALWAYS BE MY BABY... but technically he's now my toddler.  Yep, he's WALKING!!  He grows more and more confident every day.  He walked today more than I've ever seen him walk.  I think crawling is definitely on the way out.  I'm not really ready for that fact, but I guess I don't have much of a choice. 
J-Man is at such a fun age.  He brings me so much joy each and every day.  He has learned more signs and is VERY good at communicating his wants/needs.  He has signs for more, music, cereal, water, milk, eat, up, out, all done, cookie, work, outside, car, shoes, ball, bird, airplane, orange, please, and thank you. Of course my favorite thing he does is raise his hands to "Praise Jesus" when we turn on worship music.  If he doesn't have a sign for something he wants, he will come up with one or just start going through the ones he knows until I figure out what he's trying to say.  As far as verbal speech goes, he still just babbles.  He can say Momma, and Dada, but I still don't think he attaches meaning to it when he says it, but he does know who his Mommy and Daddy are.  He gets so excited when I tell him we're going to see Daddy at work, or we're going to meet Daddy for lunch.  He immediately starts saying, "Dada Dada Dada...."
He is starting to follow simple directions.  I can point and say, "Hand Mommy your shoe" and he can do it.  We're working on putting his toys away.  He's getting better at that.  He'll put a toy in his toy box and then clap for himself, SO CUTE!! 


So for his actual birthday we were in Charlotte, NC visiting family.  We got to  meet the newest addition to the family, Erin Rene Nuzum.  She was born Sep. 19th, weighing in at 8 1/2 lbs.  It was so much fun having all the cousins together to celebrate.  Jake had so much fun.  He mastered stairs in no time at all.  Of course when I say he mastered the stairs, he mastered going up... he needed LOTS of help going down. We had to blockade the stairs at times b/c that's all he wanted to do, was go up and down, up and down, up and down. He did really well with Erin, and didn't seem to mind when Mommy or Daddy were holding her.  Probably because he was so entertained by his other cousins, Josh-7 1/2, Caleb-4, and Ella-2.  I hate that we all live so far away.  The cousins have so much fun together!!  While there Jake had his first hair "cut", first taste of birthday cake, first Jr. ice cream cone, and enjoyed swinging outside with Ella.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.  I'll be posting again soon (hopefully) with pictures of his Lubbock birthday party, and pics from the last month.  Until then, enjoy the NC pics.