Our little man turned one last week. And I seriously cannot believe how fast a whole year went by.

He started crawling just shy of 8 months.

Then, after becoming mobile, learned how to sit up at about 9 months.

Took his first official step just a couple of days before 10 months.

And started full on walking just a few days shy of his first birthday.

To say the last few months have been full of milestones and excitement for our family would be a huge understatement.

I sort of fell off the blogging bandwagon with my monthly letters to our little sweetheart because I've been mildly busy chasing him around the house these last 4 months!

He is the sweetest, funniest, cutest little dude I have ever met. He fills my life with smiles and belly laughs just about every single day. And that's in between the crying from the constant teeth cutting and falling down he does as of late. Let's just say that we should have bought stock in Motrin. And should write thank you letters to the company that makes it for helping all of us sleep better at night!

We celebrated Will's first birthday in South Carolina on Sunday, October 6 with our family down there and then again on Sunday, October 27 with family and some friends. We are humbled by the love and generosity of our family and friends and want to say thank you so much for sharing in this special time with us.

And now for some pictures!!

Dinosaur cupcakes in Rock Hill, SC. I had the best helper for frosting and putting on the dinosaurs. Miss Ella (Will's big girl cousin!)

Our little dinosaur in his special birthday onesie.

Family picture time! And it just happened to be Packer Sunday.

He didn't really understand why we were singing to him. And apparently thought I was weird for being so happy.

That didn't stop him from digging right in to his birthday cupcake. Banana muffin with cream cheese frosting. Home made of course. From a box and a can of frosting.

We opened presents. Enjoyed time with family. Watched the Packers game. And flew home the next day. All in all an awesome weekend.

Then, we celebrated Monster style at our house a few weeks later.

I found a picture on Pinterest and my mom made it happen by ordering these adorable cakes from a local cake maker. Holy frosting, batman!

We had to have a smash cake for the occasion. You will see why in a few pictures. Oh, and I wrapped plastic ware with cute napkins and little monster tags. Just call me Crafty Kristin.

I also made some monster door decorations out of card stock and string. We had one here and one on the front door to greet our guests.

A last minute idea that came together with some more of those cute little monster tags, a can, some string and some flowers from the grocery store. Thanks to my nephew for putting them together about 2 minutes before guests arrived!

I hung a wall of balloons and streamers the night before as a backdrop for the birthday boy. Again, thank you Pinterest! One word of advice if you do this? Painter's tape holds up the streamers, but not the balloons. Luckily I learned that and was able to use some clear packing tape after some of my balloons fell of the wall. Such a cute and simple idea that looked nice in the pictures of Will demolishing his cake.

Here he was getting ready to dig in. This kid has no problem with food. And it was cute watching him eat it because he was very slow and systematic about it and wanted to make sure he enjoyed every last bite of frosting and cake.

His cousins had to help him get dirty. He was much more focused on actually eating it. But I'd say he did a pretty darn good job!

These next 2 pictures make me smile. It may have been the sugar. Or it may have been that he just really loves his grandparents. Or it may be because he is such a little ham bone when he has his picture taken. Regardless, his smile in these 2 pictures absolutely melts my heart. I just love this kid so darn much.

After monster cake eating it was bath time and our guests started to make their way home. We didn't open presents at his birthday party in WI and decided to wait until his actual birthday.

But, on his birthday we took him to the pumpkin patch and had pancakes for dinner and before we knew it, it was time for our little birthday boy to go to bed. So then he opened his presents the next night. Luckily he is one and didn't know the difference!

We bought him a radio flyer scooter and let's just say he was a little excited about it. It didn't take him long to get the hang of it. He now pretty much runs around the house with it. And we've only had a few scooter related injuries. I guess we should have gotten him a helmet to go with it! I'm sure we will need one once the weather gets nice and he takes it outside.

Well, that's that! Our monster is one. And he is just the cutest little man in the whole world if you ask me.

Since Will was turning one and we had only done professional photos in the hospital just days after he was born, we thought it was time to schedule a photo shoot for our little one year old and took the opportunity to have some family portraits done as well.

Our family friends (who happened to do our engagement photos, family photos and maternity photos) were kind enough to go out on a breezy and beautiful day to help us capture some great memories with our little man.

I would add more commentary to these but I think the photos speak for themselves. And we could not be happier with how they turned out.