Our Baby Turned 1 (and Melinda didn't cry for long)

On January 30th our baby boy turned one. It was a hard day for Melinda but after all, this is the same woman who is still claiming to be 29 and prefers it when our daughter confuses her mother's age with the number 21. The last picture in this string is from his actual birthday - his older siblings picked this toy animal train out for him and then took turns playing with it while he watched (must be tough being the little guy).

In mid-February we went back to our home town to celebrate the big birthday with Grandpa Henry, Grandma Julie, Papa Gary, and Nana Sheila. The big kids got quite a kick out of decorating the house with balloons and streamers. As you can probably tell, our daughter made streamer party hats for everyone (but for some reason, only the adults seem to be wearing them for most of the party). They also made some sort of pinata game involving some streamer, a balloon, a streamer blindfold, and a toy bat. Looks to me that we have photographic proof of our middle child cheating - that blindfold isn't quite on straight.

Our baby boy loved the balloons, the presents (mainly the wrapping/tissue paper which he tried to eat), and especially his cake, which was decorated with candles that spelled out "The Big 1". It took him a few minutes to get going on the cake but then he started grabbing handfuls and crammed them in. We wrapped up the evening with a bath to clean off the chocolate frosting and then gathered around the television for some Pac-man (one of Nana's Christmas presents from the kids this year).