Birthday Celebration Part 1

How on earth is it already time to celebrate James’ first birthday???  The past twelve months have flown by but in some ways it seems like he has been a part of our family for much longer than a year.   I debated what to do about celebrating his birthday but I knew we needed to do something to commemorate all that has occurred over the past year.  In a perfect, simple world we would have had one big birthday party with all of our friends and family and Ryan would have been able to take off work to be there.  Actually, in that perfect, simple world we also would not have had to travel so far to celebrate! :)  Of course nothing is ever “simple” so we decided to go with it and extend the celebrations into three occasions.  After all, you only turn 1 once!   JT and I flew to NC for the week and that Saturday my parents hosted a cookout for our friends there.  It looked like we were going to be rained out but at the last minute the sun appeared.  The temperature was in the upper 80’s which felt AWESOME!!!!  It was great to get to visit with so many people who love and care about James and to celebrate his first year of life.  

Wearing his new pjs the morning of the party

Opening his first present from David and Greer

My mom made three types of cupcakes and they were soooo yummy...especially the caramel ones!

The birthday boy's cake

James loved hearing everyone sing to him.   He wasn't so sure about his cake at first but once he got started he dug right in! 

What better way to clean off then a dip in the pool? :)

I was so excited to see Meredith!

Morning after the party

What a fun weekend!