jude plays.

jude had so much fun at his first birthday party! his cousin meguire turned a year old on feb 23, and his party was this past sunday. it was the first time i've ever seen him play with another kid. i mean really play. they baby-talked to each other, pulled on the others' clothes, and jude even tried to chase meguire a bit. the most fun they had, though, was definitely in meguire's ball pit.









he even learned to climb for the first time.


















so, of course i had to get him one the next day, haha. lucky for me, they had the baby pools on sale for $9! hooray! for something that we paid $25 for last summer (when he could barely hold his eyes open, mind you) it was quite the deal. and he...




...loved it? lol

he actually has played in it a lot for the past couple of days, and is using it as a tool to perfect his climbing. he can successfully climb out of it, and nearly climb into it. interestingly enough, he has now started trying to climb out of his crib (the few times he has actually been in it this week). tonight as i watched his eyes peep over the edge of the rail, i decided it is time to drop the mattress down. he actually slept in it sunday night, too. yay for little jude! the teething thing is getting easier on him, and although he does have his rough times during the day and night, he is adjusting the new sensations and pains. i've tried to stop giving him tylenol and only use the teething tablets and i think it is working pretty effectively. besides, he isn't liking the cherry flavor of tylenol as much as he liked the grape.

speaking of tastes, he had kiwi for the first time.







i didn't get a very accurate taste face photo though, because i mixed it with yogurt, but i think i will give it to him a la carte for lunch tomorrow. as far as i can tell, he seemed to be pretty indifferent. he still isn't a huge fan of yogurt.

in other news, i'm pretty sure we have an official favorite toy! they fell in love back in december on our roadtrip to gatlinburg...





but lately this love has been solidfied with a smile everytime they see one another. today, jude tried to have a conversation with pooh, and pooh's predictable responses of "hi there, little baby!" and "little bitty bugs, are in my pocket, snug" didn't even bother jude a bit. :)





cuties.