The Big Birthday Bash!

This has officially been the fastest year of my life. Tyler is one today! In fact, in exactly 40 minutes he will have been here for one year. At 3:49 pm. :-) I can't even believe it. Crazy!

I'll write more about him later. But this is about his Birthday Party! On Saturday our families and most of our Bible Study came to celebrate the big #1! My parents came all the way from Kansas and many others came from Wisconsin on Friday or Saturday. It was all very exciting.  :-)

We had a great time hanging out with my family Friday night. Some people played games. Emma and I tried to figure out how to draw dinosaurs. Saturday we woke up and made delicious waffles before we got in party set-up mode.

Tyler seemed to wake up knowing that it was his special day. He was in such a great mood. He's usually pretty happy, but he was really happy that day. He was smiling and laughing and giggling all morning. I'm fairly sure that he somehow knew everything was going to be about him that day.

Tyler really liked the decorations. Which is good, because I spent quite a bit of time on them and will probably use them every year for the rest of his life. I already told Carl I'm leaving them up for his entire birthday week so they get to be enjoyed longer.



It was a pretty simple party. We had pizza for lunch, which Tyler loved! We were very thankful for the gorgeous weather! With our basement under construction we couldn't use it, but people were able to eat outide, which was really nice.

Then he got open about a bajillion gifts. He did pretty well with it too! I wasn't sure if he would make it or not. I knew it could be pretty overwhelming for a 1 year old to sit in a room full of people and open things for a half hour. But he did great. We saved ours for last and that was right about his ending point. He crawled off Carl's lap and over it, trying to get away. :-) But he did finish everything. We are so grateful to everyone for their incredible generosity. Tyler is definitely a very loved little boy.

He tasted every toy and much of the paper. It was pretty entertaining - at least I thought so. :-)

And of course, there was cake.

Tyler loves spinach, and doesn't even mind lemons and pickels, but apparently he hates cake. It was the first time I've ever wondered if I'm actually related to him. He licked some of the frosting off the dinosaur, and picked off a couple polka dots. But he wiped a lot of it back out of his mouth and made a lot of faces. And if we tried to put a piece of the actual cake in his mouth, he spit it right back out! I don't understand it, but I guess he got his Dad's weird taste buds.

For not liking it, he still managed to make a pretty good mess. I'm still finding frosting in random places on my floor and walls today.












We feel so blessed to have such amazing family and friends who love our little boy so much. Thanks for helping us to make his first birthday special!