The Celebration

Here is our sweet son on the morning of his 1st Birthday. We started the day off with some homemade buttermilk pancakes...one of Sawyer's favorite breakfasts. We started a family tradition of blasting The Beatles Birthday song during breakfast and dancing around the living room. Sawyer probably thought we were a little crazy (you all knew that already, didn't you?), but we sure got some big smiles from our little dance party. It's hard to understand birthdays when you're this little, but we wanted to make the day feel extra special for Sawyer by doing a lot of his favorite things. I dropped any list of chores or "to dos" for the day and just enjoyed the day with our little guy! It was relaxed and fun, instead of stressful, and we had a blast!

First thing, Sawyer noticed the birthday banner and balloons in the living room. He kept sitting and pointing at it, and we kept saying "Happy Happy Birthday!" We decided to let him open his presents periodically throughout the day so that he could enjoy each one instead of feel overwhelmed. The first one he opened was his "dog". He pants when he sees dogs - he just adores them. So he had fun with that one!

After morning nap, we packed a picnic and headed to Gas Works Park, near our home. First, we stopped to fill up a couple of special birthday balloons with helium. I took a few pictures of him with his HUGE red #1 balloon, before tragedy struck and it went floating up to the heavens.

We spent the rest of our time at the park riding Sawyer's new "bike" (thanks Grammy & Grandpa Kemp!) Sawyer loves riding his little bike around. We ate our picnic, which included two of Sawyer's new favorite foods: blueberries and pbj sandwich. Rode some more. Enjoyed the weather and just hanging out on the grassy hill. Because of the birthday balloons, Sawyer got many Happy Birthday Wishes from people at the park. One woman even stood there and sang him the whole Birthday Song. What a treat!

After our outing, we both took an afternoon nap, but opened a present from Great-Grandma Iris beforehand. After nap, we blew some bubbles and then Daddy got home a little early from work, and we finished opening the gifts. I'd say the Duplo Legos were the biggest hit! (And the little guy and car that came with them - anything with wheels, I'm telling ya...)

I made Sawyer the best homemade mac n cheese I've ever tasted (besides at the Kingfish Cafe on Capitol Hill). He LOVED it! He is funny in that he likes "spicy" food - I made the mac n cheese with 1/2 lb cheddar and 1/2 lb pepper jack cheese. He happily eats Thai, Indian, and Chinese food off our plates as well. I'm not complaining - he is not a picky eater. He just wants to eat everything we eat! He even likes baby spinach salad!

Here is the "big" cake.

And Sawyer's "little" personal cake. He picked out all the strawberries first. Dug in a bit to the cake but didn't seem that impressed with the homemade chocolate cake and creamcheese frosting. But what he absolutely loved was the vanilla ice cream. I think next year maybe he'll get strawberry shortcake with ice cream ;)

It was such a great day, just celebrating our little son's life, just the three of us. We have said "Happy Happy Birthday" so many times to Sawyer that he now walks around the house saying "happy" with a smile. In fact, he said it as he was chowing down on his birthday cake - we even got it on video. What a cute little guy we have!

The next day, we had the P-A-R-T-Y!