Peter is ONE!

We had the big party before Peter’s birthday, but we still had a little family fun on his actual birthday.  We have a tradition that we start celebrating first thing in the morning, and I usually put a single birthday candle in the birthday honoree’s bowl of cereal/oatmeal.  I lit the candle and turned away for half a second to get the camera (bad mom!) and the poor little guy grabbed the flame. Hence the big tears:

Things looked up from there.  He had a good day of playing, eating, napping, playing, napping again, and eating birthday dinner with the family.  Sounds like my kind of day!  He wasn’t quite over the trauma from the morning’s candle incident, as documented here:

1.  Happy and full from dinner.

2.  Oh, what is that, Dad?

3.  OK, now I remember.  Get it away!

4.  Alright, hurry up with the song before I lose it!

5.  Mmmm…chocolate.

6.  Whew, all better and happy again.

We went outside to open presents, and he was loving his new drum.

Who doesn’t love a huge pile of packing peanuts for their birthday??

And here’s one of many attempts at a sibling photo.  Peter is so loved by all of us.  Happy birthday, sweet little one!

Party Time!

The 13th of July was the Saturday between my 40th birthday (10th) and Peter’s 1st birthday (19th), so we combined a party for the both of us and threw in “housewarming” just to get all the celebrating in.  We made the hotdogs and burgers, and everyone else brought yummy stuff to go with it.  It was a perfect evening in our backyard, and afterward Matt and I were just talking about how thankful we are for such wonderful friends that are like our family.  As close as we could guess, there were around 70 friends from church and past & present neighborhoods.

Here’s the party in full swing:

Love this one:

The kids came up with an orderly line all by themselves to take turns on the rope swing.  If they weren’t doing that, they were playing in the little bouncy house some neighbors gave us, playing with bubbles, or stuffing their cute little faces with food and drinks.  I love this shot!

The rest of the photos are thanks to my photographer friend Lori.  She got some good ones.

 

The treat table had rainbow a rainbow cake for Peter and a fresh raspberry cake for me.  Yum!

Happy birthday, dear Peter….happy birthday to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Here’s a collage of the birthday smash cake progression.  He wasn’t so sure at first, but after one little taste, he was all in!

Awwww…

Finally, I snapped this last one.  After a big, fun, busy party, we were saying goodbye to the last of our guests, and I turned around and found the man of hour the lone man standing.  He’s such an easy going little kid that he was really content to watch the party from his high chair.  Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us!