Saturday, May 5, 2012

A First Birthday Party


Andrew's birthday started off more like Christmas - a pile of presents awaiting him when he woke up.


Among a few other things, he got this device, which allows him to walk behind it (and it saves mommy's back) or ride on it.  We are wondering how this is less likely to roll down the stairs than the "death-trap" walkers that we grew up with, but shhh... nevermind.

The walking position

The riding position
He also got his own barbeque grill, which we are hoping will allow him to "help" us grill without changing the heat settings on daddy's big boy grill.  *Ahem.*  He thrilled us by being really excited to play on it, and he made us some burgers and hot dogs.


Very soon it was time to put out the sign for the party at the bottom of our driveway and welcome our guests.

Andrew enjoyed playing with the paper lantern decorations on the porch.

 We had an awesome spread of food, about half of which represented some of Andrew's favorite things to eat, and the other half were things that mommy splurged on for having a bunch of people over.  I made two cakes - a vanilla-vanilla classic two-layer birthday cake, and a healthy, whole-grain, fruit-sweetened cake for the birthday boy (the Blueberry-Banana Cake found here).  In hindsight, about the cake, though it was enjoyed and complimented by many guests, I wish I hadn't tried to be quite so health-conscious of a mom.  The texture of the cake came out to be pretty dense like banana bread, and it didn't lend itself well to a spectacular "cake smash."  What's so bad about a sugar-and-butter-laden birthday cake, anyway?  You're only one once!!  Lessons for next time... which of course is coming sooner rather than later.


"Andrew recommends"

Cake table


A decoration I made out of monthly Andrew pictures.

Photo garland close-up

 Before we knew it, we had a houseful of 18 adults and kids, having lots of fun and filling our house with love.  We chatted, played with toys, and ate lots of food.




Then came the big moment:

Blowing out the candle, with help

Brick o' cake

Here are a couple videos of all the action:


It was an awesome party, made wonderful by the awesome people who came over to help us celebrate our big boy!

In other one-year-old news, the stats are in, and they are looking good:

Weight - 23 lb, 8 oz; 65%ile
Height - 29 3/4"; 50%ile
Head circumerence - 19 cm; 90%ile (braaaaaaaaiiiins....)

We are so relieved and amazed that he has basically recovered all of his weight from our low-milk-supply time.  At his 9 month appointment, he was in the 35%ile.  It is as we have suspected - he does indeed eat like a horse.

Also, he walks!

6 comments:

  1. That little walk/ride toy is what got Colin to walk - we/he LOVED it! He also made it easy for us... he started walking solo on his 1st birthday (at least I can remember that date!) :) Happy birthday Andrew!! xo

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  2. Oh my goodness! That is the cutest baby walk ever!! Yay Andrew! :-D

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  3. I too made a healthy cake and Cal was underwhelmed. Broke out the Sander's Bumpy Cake and he went to town!

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  4. Happy birthday, darling boy! He's a keeper, Ames. :)

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  5. Wonder where they get those stats. My daughter turned on May 3 and we had her one year check on Monday. She's 23 lbs 10.5 oz and in the 90th percentile and for height she's 30.5 inches and in the 90th percentile. We live in MI but I expected it was national or something.

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    1. I wonder if your ped was using charts for girls and mine is using a combined chart?

      On this site (http://pediatrics.about.com/cs/usefultools/l/bl_percentiles.htm), which is gender-specific, 23.5 lbs is listed as only 57%ile for boys but 85%ile for girls, which jives with your numbers. 65%ile seems to split that, kind of.

      Fascinating.

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