Cold Decembers Bring...

...September birthdays. Seriously. I have seen more birthdays being celebrated in the blogosphere this month than any other. Maybe I'm more aware because it's the month I celebrate my birthday, but I really think it's true. Is it cold winters? or Christmas romance? or what?

Grady Face turned the big ONE on Saturday. Hip, Hip, Hooray! With the exception of a big birthday breakfast on Saturday, we did the real celebrating on Sunday. It was just a busy Saturday and we hadn't even had a chance to shop for presents yet and I had somewhere to be on Saturday night. So Sunday it was. We would have had the breakfast on Sunday, too but with church at 9:00am and it being fast Sunday...we had our breakfast on Saturday.


I made orange rolls and sausage (a first birthday favorite at our house) and all he wanted was my fruit smoothie and un-buttered whole wheat toast. (Healthy Competition) So I had to salivate over those orange rolls that I didn't get to eat for nothing. He would have been fine with my breakfast. And he wouldn't let anyone touch his smoothie. He drank two of them. I've never thought to give him one before and he loved it.

I dressed him in my favorite church outfit...since it was his birthday afterall.

We have a first birthday tradition of decorating the birthday crazy's high chair and making homemade party hats. Grady was no exception. We had a caterpillar party.

Complete with a creepy caterpillar cake and all. Though it's green frosting and bug eyes may look less than appetizing, it was the best birthday cake I've ever eaten. Spencer is a great baker. That nasty bug has been staring me in the eyes all day today and it's driving me crazy trying to resist it.

Gray was his usual happy self all day.

And his new trick is pretending to sneeze (as seen in the picture above). He cracks himself up.

He had a couple presents to open...literally just a couple. All his presents (besides a check from Grandma Smith) are seen here. I'm not a huge fan of toys and by the time crazy #3 rolls around, you really don't need anything. Less toys keeps a kid happier. One year olds are easily overstimulated by too many presents.

This is a favorite picture. The crazies always pick their own clothes on Sunday afternoon. So for Parker, that consists of a pair of batman boxer brief's (not pictured) and for Reid it's some mix-matched winter jammies. Whatever. I love that I captured a moment on camera where all three of them are focused on one thing and they're all getting along. A very rare and treasured moment.

They presents were a hit (literally). He loves peek-a-boo and that's him saying "boo" as he's throwing the sleeping bag off his head.

Despite the face, we enjoyed our dinner.

...then on to party hats.

The caterpillar cake scared him a bit, too.

And like most one year olds, he know how to enjoy a cake.

We rounded off the night with a Smith family pajama party. Take note of the chubs on my one year old.

I'm Grayden Smith
and I approve this message.