Happy Birthday Gavin!

After much anticipation, we celebrated Gavin's first birthday on August 13th. It was a lot of fun (at least for me and Tony) and the beginning of great birthday traditions for our family.

THE BIG DAY
On the morning of Gavin's birthday we decided to institute our first family birthday tradition-- wake the birthday person up with a gift and the happy birthday song.

Of course, Gavin was the one to wake us up this year. And probably right about the time of his birth (6:46 am). So, Tony and I went in together to greet him. He was a bit distraught wondering what was in his crib and why wasn't he being picked up to get his milk.

We made him suffer through our singing and then finally let him have his morning milk. After that he was a much happier camper (notice the thumbs up).

We had to do a lot of coaxing to get him to open up his gift bag. And although he still wasn't quite sure what was going on, he was very willing to ham it up for the camera.

This is Gavin finally enjoying and discovering his first birthday gift-- ever. Well, not quite. You see, we gave Gavin his "big" birthday gift a week and a half before his birthday. We couldn't wait, and we figured he was ready, so we gave him his train. It didn't take long for him to figure it out and for it to become a favorite.

We spent Gavin's birthday at the beach with our middle school group. Note the sweathshirt and jeans-- an August birthday in Washington brings no guarantees.

After dinner Gavin enjoyed his first cookie (cake was reserved for the next day's party) and we opened the rest of his gifts from us and family and friends.

He got into the paper tearing a little bit, but definitely needed lots of modeling and encouragement. I'm sure that next year will be a different story.









THE BIG PARTY

The next day, Friday, we went to the pediatrician for Gavin's one year check up, took one year and family portraits and then geared up for Gavin's first birthday party.

We tried to keep the party small and invited just a couple of friends and their kids. It was a fun time.

Gavin and his friend Will. Gavin is about a month older than Will. I think they are destined to be great friends.

Here's the party crew.

The official cakes-- Gavin's very own cake on the right. Don't worry, I won't quite my day job to be a cake decorator. I found out it's not very easy.

Presenting the cake... Gavin was probably more attracted to the number 1 on top than the cake itself.

"This cake stuff is great. Tastes really good and is nice and squishy in my hands." -- Gavin

Gavin LOVED his carrot cake. We had to distract him with his sippy cup in order to wrestle it away from him (before he ate the whole thing).

Yummmm... Cake everywhere!

We ended up having great weather for our party and the wind even died down enough so that you could see the birthday sign I had made.

Family photo. I promise this toe-head really does belong to us. Note: Gavin stripped down after the cake episode while we are bundled in sweatshirts.

Gavin and Will again. Gavin's sugar high was a little bit much for Will as we were pushing baby bedtime.

Got most of the kids together: Gavin, Jeremiah, Joshua, (flying) Hannah, and Will. We remembered to take a photo after Lauren and Laila had gone home.

At the end of the day, our birthday boy was very satisfied.