One year on

So, on the 5th January my little baby was one year old. I felt so proud to have sprouted a little darling such as Leon that has grown so much in a year. It felt odd looking back to when he was just a vulnerable little being new to the world knowing that he's now so independent (well... to an extent!) and no longer seems like a little baby.

And so here is his journey from little sprout to little boy:

Newborn

3 months

6 months

9 months

1 year

How we celebrated
My family have a tradition of seranading the lucky birthday girl/boy with Las Mañanitas in the morning en masse mariachi-style with a guitar. Today was no exception and hubby and I belted it out  much to Leon's amusement. I even donned my sombrero for the occasion.

Estas son las mañanitas, que canto el Rei David,
A los muchachos bonitos se las cantamos asi,
Despierta, Leon, despierta, mira que ya amaneció,
Ya los pajaritos cantan, la luna ya se metió. 

*This is the morning song that King David sang
We sing it like this to the cuties
Wake up, Leon, wake up, look it is already dawn
The birds are already singing and the moon has gone 

This was soon followed by a kingly breakfast then lots of playtime. We celebrated his birthday with family and friends young and old at a local pub where we cut his amazing jungle cake (if I say so myself ;) and sang Happy Birthday FOUR times (English, French, Spanish and Italian.... it got tiring).

Jungle cake in the making!

After enjoying a lot of the cake he was spinning on the table round and round like a breakdancer laughing a lot - perhaps was a sugar rush?? Maybe he was just really happy and lavished the attention.

Birthday Boy

Proud parents

Present from Abuelita and Grumpa (Note the dirty belly from post-cake spinning and commando crawling)

At 1 year

• He's made the transition from commando crawling to all-fours crawling and can go VERY fast
• Starting to cruise around the furniture but not walking yet. 
• Big Boy: Weighs almost 12kg and is bigger than 98% of babies his age and at 81cm is taller than 91% He sleeps well :D Yay! 
  
• Has 9 teeth and molars coming through but still a bit of a tongue-tie
• Eats on his own - LOVES food especially lasagnes, stews, meat, lentil soups, spinach, grapes, petits filous, clementines
• Gives the warmest cuddles, is rather sensitive but still a little brute. Rather chilled but very curious. 
• Communicative, and plenty of vocalising. Seems to respond well to my mum and respond "Sssssssss" when she encourages him to say "Si". He used to say "Abue" (granny in spanish) but hasn't for ages. 

And myself? Well - keep trying to stay on top of everything but it is tough to find time for myself. I find it very rewarding whenever he does something new, or copies what I've shown him - be it putting money into his piggy-bank, or getting down from the bed. And I love his hugs so very much. I'm happy we've found some really nice mum and baby friends and that he's happy at his childminders where he goes one day a week.

So excited to see what's in store for this year!