Hard to believe that Holden will be a year old in a little over a week from now.  We have managed to take Holden’s picture every single day of his life thus far (except for once, where we regretfully forgot after a particularly stressful day).  I wanted to do a month-by-month representation of our year with Holden…so here goes!

June 21, 2008.  Approximately 17 hours before Holden was born.  I was overdue and extremely uncomfortable, and 4 cm dilated, but somehow not in labor at all.  I was doing a mile and a half walk around town with Rob, hoping that real actual labor would start.  Eleven hours after this picture was snapped, I got my wish.  

June 22, 2008:  First picture of Holden, at about 12 minutes old.  Weighed in at 8 lbs. 10 oz!  

It felt like we were in the hospital forever, although I was glad to get extra help from the wonderful nurses and lactation consultant.  When we weren’t nursing, we were being lazy:

Although you’d never guess it now, one of the first thoughts I had when I first saw Holden was “How did he get such DARK hair??!”  Just look at that hair…

Eventually, we were ready to leave the hospital:

And once we got home, Holden nursed and nursed and nursed.  He didn’t cry very often.  As long as he was nursing, he was a happy boy!  He wanted to be held at all times, although swaddling was sort of a useless technique because our little Houdini could get himself unswaddled in about 5 seconds flat.

So I held him (here he is at 5 days old):

And read to him (this is where I set the stage for his current book obsession, I am convinced).  And yes, I am always wearing that red shirt.  It was one of the few things that fit me, at the time.

One month old:

Two months old:

Three months old:

Four months old:

Five months old (he was a seriously fat infant!):

Six months old:

Seven months old:

Eight months old:

Nine months old:

Ten months old:

Eleven months old:

And most recently uploaded:

What will the next 12 months bring??