AND...he is ONE!

For over week I have been wierded out when people ask me how old my kids are. It is so odd to say 3 and 1. One. It has not sunk in yet! But my oh my the big boy he has become. I guess the parties proved it. These are some of my favs from the day ( and SPECIAL thanks to Alysa for her fotog eye and spin on her photos. I fell in love with the photos SHE took so much that I used hers for his thank you cards!)

The amazing cake! It was as scrumptious as it looked. I was hesitant to spend more than $20 on a cake but that motherly guilt kicked in. G has gotten the hand-me-downs of almost everything and I convinced myself he deserved something different and unique for his big day. Not that T's cakes weren't wonderful, Uncle Tommy made his Elmo and Nemo cakes from scratch and he was so creative. But, seriously look at this cake!! And the cookies were out of this world. I have this lady's card on hand for the next event, that's for sure.
Here we are doing our little tradition of icing on all of us and then Bryley got in on it...a first, surprisingly!

Such a cute photo of Alysa's daughter, Maddie and G. She adores him! So sweet.

I was so excited for T to have his own school friends to play with along with his neighborhood friends.Even though it tenses me out to see him running around like a wild animal following the craziness of kids and what they REALLY do at bday parties, I stepped back. There were plenty of people watching out for them all. And I could tell he was having a blast. He doesn't get to rough house, jump on kids, perform wrestling moves, Star Wars and whatever else they were doing on a daily basis. He was FREE! Free from mommy's wicked control and loved every minute of it. And slept awesome and late the next morning. I am just relieved no one was hurt in the chaos (These are the moments I prob sound like Kate from Jon n Kate plus 8, right? Yeah, thought so. And now you can see why I don't think she is a crazy lunatic!).

Although G did not get some huge hurrah of a party it was just perfect enough. The weather held out for us and kids had a chance to play in the yard with toys, animal stamps and playdoh. I decided on a zoo animal theme bc that is truly what G seemed to enjoy everytime we visited the zoo this summer. And he is often found cruising around with an animal puzzle piece or animal figurine in his hands. He is just starting to imitate animal sounds, too. We even did animal crackers and little animal figures as party favors. It was perfect and easy.

Yes, the house seemed cramped (we just cant seem to crank out them summer babies) but the company was great. It was low key and just enough for me to handle with the beginning of the school year. MamaC and TitaMel pulled through with all the filipino food and I made mostaccioli (the cheapo kind my mother would NOT have been proud of me to serve... these are the kinds of things I can pull off in her absence). I had fun and everyone left early. It was nice to look at the clock at 5pm and know we still had the evening to ourselves.

A nice day with great family and friends. And to think we get to do it all again in December for T with pirate pride!