Birthdays: Lawrence

Lawrence had his first birthday on August 29. While we don't do huge birthday bashes for the kids, we try to do what we can to make it special. Personally, I love grilling out, chit-chatting on the deck and just being together. Which is what we did. We invited a family we met in Circus class over to celebrate with us. Their two boys and Archie get along famously.

Archie made Lawrence's very own birthday cake and decorated it. I made a cake that the rest of us would eat.

This first picture is Lawrence opening his gifts from Reemie & Bumpa when they were here visiting. It wasn't ON his birthday, but they wanted to see him open his gifts.


We had dinner first, then opened gifts. I figured the cake thing would need to be last, since it would be the messiest! Here is Lawrence opening his gifts at his birthday party.



Lawrence was so impressed with a refrigerator magnet toy that he played with at my Uncle Tom and Aunt Becky's house, that we got him a similar one for his birthday. It continues to be one of his favourite things to do while he gets under my feet during my dinner preparations.



He also received a bath toy, Baby Einstein videos, a jack-in-the-box (actually a sock-monkey-in-the-box) that still continues to make him giggle when it pops out, and a beautiful quilt from my Mom. He loves to point out all the animals on it when we lay it out on the floor! I dunno who was more excited about the gifts, Lawrence or Archie or Caleb!

We decided Lawrence could do his cake mooshing outside. In hindsight, I probably should've taken his clothes off first.

He was strangely polite at first, picking off small pieces and looking at me as if he might get in trouble. After he saw that no one was going to take the cake away, he began taking handfuls at a time.







Totally demolished!



I wiped the cake off, but he was pretty dirty. Too much birthday, I guess! The only thing left to do was to stick him in the bathtub. Archie could hardly wait to get in the tub too to try the new bath toy out!



Here is a short video of him smooshing his cake.



It was a successful first birthday! Even though we really (really, really, really) missed the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that make birthdays so enjoyable and fun, we enjoyed having Susie & Terry and their kids over.

Just think...one year ago on August 29 I was exhausted from childbirth and oh, so weepy! It's been quite a year...