The Big One!

How did one year fly by so fast? Don't get me wrong, it was challenging and there were days and nights that seemed like they would never end. But it is unbelievable how quickly our tiny little baby became a one-year-old, crawling around, standing up and having a little personality of his very own.

We had a lot of fun celebrating Ezra's birthday. On his actual day, we went to a Music & Movement program at an early years centre. After nap, we drove to a street called Ezra Ave and took his picture. Then before our pizza dinner, we did his cake smash. We decided to do these pictures ourselves and we were lucky that the weather, and the kiddos, cooperated for a great photo session. Ari was so excited to be able to eat cake before supper but didn't want to get messy. And Ezra dove right in, and loved it until cake went up his nose. And who can blame him?! That's not where cake belongs.

Because his birthday was on a Thursday, we waited until Saturday to celebrate with the family with a little party. The theme for his special day was "Ezra is Reeling in The Big One" so there was a fishing theme to all of the decorations and food. I had so much fun getting ready; scrolling Pinterest, doing crafts in front of the TV at night and planning. And amazingly, I wasn't really stressed out leading up to the party. Not even in the minutes before. Pretty much everything was done in advance so we were able to enjoy ourselves (as much as one can when surrounded by the chaos that comes along with a 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0.5 year old all being in the same room.)

And I think everyone else had fun too. Ari had a lot of fun helping me with decorations, picking out his own present at the store and icing the cake. There was a little dance party (with Papa doing some flossing!) and present opening, lunch and then, of course, cake.

I'd like to say this was Ezra's first taste of sugar like it was supposed to be, but as he approached one year, and he was within grabbing distance of ice cream cones all summer, we couldn't deny him a taste or two. So it wasn't his first taste of sugar. But it was his first cake!

I tried to decorate Ezra's high chair because we got such great pictures at Ari's first birthday with his high chair decorations but Ezra just wanted to kick and pull on them so they didn't really work out. But the fishy cupcake-cake was great!

I think it's fair to say that our celebration of this happy, smiley, snuggly, funny, sweet boy (with amazing hair) was a success!