The Birthday Boy!

All right, its official-James is 1 year old!  Bells, whistles, fireworks, cheers-lets have it!

  Oh, how I love this little boy.  I wondered how I would write James' birthday posts because I just don't think anything I can type will do my feelings justice.  James has just had such a ________ first year. See what I mean? I can't even think of an adjective that appropriately describes it.  This sentiment will just have so suffice:  we love James.  Life would not be the same without him and our family has been blessed beyond words by him and because of him. Happy 1st birthday James!

We had James' birthday party on Saturday.  With his big day being so close to holidays, I wanted to avoid stress at all costs, thus we had a very laid back party with both my family and Jared's family.  We all met up at our favorite park for some playtime, presents, and cupcakes-we had a blast!  The only hitch in the plan was the fact that we had tithing settlement an hour before the party.  I had all the party things completely ready just in case we got close to party time of 10:30.  Unfortunately, tithing settlement was not only long, it was way long-we didn't get done until 10:35!  We quickly texted/called our family and reset the party time to 11:00ish.  I was actually pretty proud of us, we got home, changed, grabbed everything and everyone, and made it to the park by 10:55 or so. Remember, the goal was no stress :)  So I didn't!  That's not normal for me, so I was proud of myself.

Despite that slight hitch, we had such a blast (did I say that already?) celebrating James.  Out of all my kids, he was probably the best 1st birthday boy/girl in that he rippd his presents open, didn't get fussy, and absolutely adored his cupcake.  Now if he would have said thank you to everyone in attendance, he would have gotten the perfect kid award, but we'll take what we can get!  A few pics.....

Opening some presents.....

Please ignore my ill-prepared face...I just think James looked cute!

Baby Heaven!

James tried to touch the flame, or course-wouldn't expect anything less!  When we all sang happy birthday, he looked around, so surprised that the singers were all staring at him--you could read his thoughts:  "Um.  what's going on?"

My favorite pic.  :)  Looks like James is blowing with Mommy holding his hand.

 

And Go!  Eat that cupcake....upside down!

It was gone in a matter of minutes-he wasted no time!

 I forget who gave him his celebratory blue dot....

 And the post-cupcake shot....he looks drunk from the sugar rush.

 My second favorite shot-me and the birthday boy!

 We love James so much and we were so tickled to celebrate his birthday!  He loved his presents and is seriously in baby heaven-I wanted to just make his gifts fun for him this year, and that certainly happened!  Thanks to everyone who was able to attend, it meant a lot to me (and I'm sure to the rest of the family as well) to have you there.  It wasn't about the cupcakes, or the presents this year....it was about celebrating James and the simple fact that he is here.  Happy birthday James!