A Life Makeover: the birthday blog

After what felt like weeks of preparation Eric's 1st birthday finally arrived. I am sad that the year went by so quick but excited to see what the next year brings. We decided to have a big party. It has been a crazy year between layoffs, surgeries, illnesses, etc so we wanted to celebrate in a big way. We rented out the Knights of Columbus hall and had a great turn out of over 30 people! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves at the party. Of course the baby didn't nap that morning so I had to drop him off at my parent's house to take a nap while we set up the hall. He was so exhausted at the end of his party but he had a good time anyway.
It seems like ever since he's turned one he has gained all of these skills. He can now climb on and off of his little car successful. He can also climb on and off the dishwasher door but that's a whole other bunch of silliness. He is mimicking a lot of sounds that we make. He figured out how to take his pants off (oh boy!) as I discovered one day when he was in his crib and supposed to be napping. He's just soaring developmentally. Oh and about a week before his birthday he got two more teeth so now he has two on top and two on the bottom. It makes it easy for him to bite into food now so he doesn't like me wasting time cutting things up. He loves pizza so much that the other day he just pulled the slice off the plate and ate it from the bottom to the crust. What a piggy!
Ok so to tell the story of his birthday it has to be done with pictures. There are so many pictures I could add but I had to just put the main ones on here.

I had a vision to make a guitar cake. I gathered up some pans from my parent's house and from our house and I went to town. I froze the cake after it was baked. This made it really easy to carve and shape. Here it is before I frosted it:

And here's the finished product. I was so proud of this cake!

For his birthday we got Eric a sand and water table to have on our deck so he can play in it in the summer. Since we don't have a backyard it at least gives him a chance to get fresh air and play. I bought wrapping paper to wrap it with and quickly discovered why it was on sale when I bought it... there was barely any wrapping paper on the roll so it didn't even cover the box! Oh well, he didn't seem to mind.

He wasn't sure what to do with the present when he saw the box so the best thing to do was to obviously climb right on top of the box.

Here it is set up minus the sand and water and the umbrella that goes on it because it turns out that Daddy is superstitious about opening umbrellas in the house!

Ok it's party time! Guests start arriving...

walking around kicking balloons and playing with the kids

mmm ice cream. I thin Pepe has been sneaking him ice cream because he sure seems to love it. He ate half of mine and Eric's cups of ice cream.

Everyone gathered as we opened presents

Everyone watching him dive into the cake with Uncle Mike recording it on our camera.

He sleeps with this really cute pillow and blanket that Auntie Linda and Uncle Mike got for him. His head generally never stays on the pillow but he snuggles all up in the blanket!

He received so many nice and thoughtful gifts

It wouldn't be a day without a daddy piggy back ride

His new hat that Auntie Rissa got him

At the end of the party people just started cleaning up before the party was even over. Here is the line of tables!

These are all the babies that attended the party... From left to right: My sister holding Eric, Bonnie and Kallie, my mom with Ryan, Melissa and Thomas, and Marissa and Savannah.