1st Birthday to Remember!

Ethan's birthday got off to a great start from the beginning, when our plan to keep him up a bit later on Friday (so he'd sleep in a bit later Saturday) worked! The party started at 3 and we were trying for one long nap after lunch, so he'd wake up happy for the guests.

He woke up around 6:45a.m. and Dave and I greeted him to several Happy Birthday wishes and kisses! He had a birthday morning banana muffin and we played around the house for a bit. Instead of going to My Gym in the morning, we decided to take him to a local park to swing. We hung out at the park for a half an hour or so and then headed to Costco to pick up his birthday cake and a few munchies for the party. When we got home, we had some lunch and played a bit and he was down by 12:15 and slept until 2:45!! I was glad he woke up before the whole party gang was there, so he could wake up a bit and not be bombarded with people in the house. :) He was just in a great mood all day and warmed up to everyone and everything went great for the whole party. Special thanks to the grandparents for helping pick up food, bring tables/chairs, take pictures, and many, many more tasks!!

Before I get to the pictures of the party...a few random things to mention about Ethan these days:

*He got his 6th tooth last week (top left lateral incisor they call it).
*This kid likes pickles!!! Specifically bread and butter flavor, but when I was eating one, he kept pointing, so I gave some to him and he loves them!!

*He's now starting to attempt to crawl up the stairs on his own

*He'll have his official 1 year appointment this Wednesday, so we'll see his stats. And, poor little boy will have to get shots this time...

Our playground adventure:
Good practice for my car driving later

Down the slide with Mom

Call me silly, but I hid all of Ethan's presents and decorations until he was napping. I wanted the day to be special and for him to wake up and notice "there's something different here". :) So, here's all the setup while he was catching some Z's.

All the Uncles were there to celebrate (thank you Uncle Adam for coming home from U of I to celebrate with us). Uncle Breck wasn't in a pic...sorry! Here are Uncle Patrick and Uncle Adam with the birthday boy.

Sporting his birthday hat (which didn't last long). Note the mountain of gifts...everyone was too generous!

A gift from Mommy and Daddy

Ethan with his BIG cake

His own personalized cake

He was very curious about his cake at first, but once Mommy showed him how "that stuff" on his finger tasted, he was all about the cake!
Finally, a nice family shot!