Birthday Bash

On August 18, 2009 Zander celebrated his first birthday. Jason's family came down from Owosso to join us for a bbq and cake.

I think I have started a tradition for our little family. The birthday hat. It is made up of all Z's favorite things from the year.

- white for mama's milk
- blue water for bathtime with dada
- spirals for rotini, the first food he ate until he puked
- "pages" for books (he loves his books)
- the colors of the hat are the same as Puppy, his security toy
- an elephant's trunk on the front (he sleeps with a stuffed elephant)
- green blades of grass, which he loves to pull up and eat (unfortunately)
- three bells for out little family of 3.






I don't think he really liked wearing the hat, but he tolerated it so we could snap some pictures.

Next we sang "Happy Birthday" and ate a delicious cake that Vicki made. Zander did not so much blow out the candle as try to grab it, so I ended up helping him with that.





Next it was time for presents!

Zander was thrilled by the tissue paper.


Yum - envelopes!


Delicious - a puzzle piece!


Oh boy - books!



By the way, this is what the garden looks like now. It is producing some nice veggies and abundant potatoes. I think we are going to end up with a ridiculous number of squash, as the vines are taking over everything.

The Knight Learns to Crawl

Zander's means of locomotion has earned him the nickname "the knight" because, like the knight on the chess board, he cannot go in a straight line. He goes sideways, backwards, rotates and scoots, but does not crawl in the conventional way.

Until today!

This morning he took two tentative crawls forward. Then later today, at a going-away/summer-baby-first-birthday-bash, he took five crawls. This evening he went halfway across the room.

Congratulations, Z!

As I mentioned above, today was Z's first birthday celebration. Some dear friends are moving back to England (boo!) so they were having a going away party. Their son just turned 1, so they made it into his birthday too. Then we realized that our whole group of mommy-friends all have first birthdays this summer, so we made it into a big birthday bash. It was super fun, and incredibly hot outside! Unfortunately, my camera punked out on me (perhaps because the air was dripping with humidity), so I have only one picture.



As you can see, we let him party in just his diaper because of the intense heat. If only adults could get away with that!