We made it to one year with this little cutie pie! We had a fun day. Jace opened up a package from his Tamanaha family and got a Chase-me Kitty and a toy phone. Now Jace has a phone smarter than his parents' phones!
You should see the way he giggles chasing that silly kitty and his little victory dance when he catches it! He played with those during the day while mommy cooked, and cooked and cooked! I made him spagetti and meatballs for dinner with home made bread and a dairy free, egg free cake for dessert, which we had with some coconut ice cream. Rod's one rule of thumb for this birthday celebration was that there was nothing new so Jace wouldn't have an allergic reaction on his birthday. Well, mommy forgot to check the spagetti sauce, so Jace had a reaction to the spagetti... We thought we'd discovered a new allergy until we looked at the spagetti sauce label and discovered there was cheese in the sauce. Failed on that one! Then we pulled out the cake and ice cream. I made a little cupcake for Jace so he could dig in and Rod and I just had slices of cake.
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| What am I supposed to do with this? |
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| I could try eating it... |
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| After getting blinded with the flash too many times, this was Jace's trained response to seeing the camera last night! |
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| This must be the neatest first birthday cake eating I've ever seen! I think he takes after his father... |
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| The proper way to hold your cupcake: stick a finger in it! |
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| MMMmmm, Ice cream! |
So, to those of you wondering how good an egg free, dairy free cake might be, it could have been quite good. It seems the recipe was good, but I didn't mix it enough so it had that baking soda flavor all throughout. Not very good at all. We threw it away. Jace munched on it a little bit, but not more than what you see in these pictures. The dairy free ice cream was delicious though! Definitely worth it!
And then we opened presents. Jace seemed to have a better grasp on what to do with wrapping paper at Christmas than he did with his birthday... he wasn't sure what to do at all!
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| Mommy had to help him unwrap everything (may I just say, I look a lot better for this birthday than his actual birth day?) |
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| His first gift was a ball from mommy and daddy. He lost interest in the other presents after opening that one... |
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| Books from Grandma and Grandpa Haehnel! This one's on fire trucks, Jace should be well versed in types of trucks now! |
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| Daddy modeling Jace's new hat! |
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| Jace got a tractor from mommy and daddy, and it didn't take him long to figure out how to crawl around with it making "brrrrrr" noises! |
All in all, I think it was a pretty happy day for Jace! It was a crazy party evening for mommy and daddy! I just can't beleive I've been a parent of this sweet little one for an entire year already! I can't beleive the way he's gone from a tiny little baby to a still small, almost toddler.
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| We had no idea what we were going into, how much crying we'd endure, and how much joy we'd have in the course of this next year just cause this little one joined our family! |
Can you see how helpless and little he was? All curled up on himself, now he sleeps all sprawled out! And in these pictures, not mobile at all, and now we chase him around the house! What a difference a year makes in the life of a child! In the life of a baby! It's such a fun, crazy adventure, we're loving it and looking forward to many more years to come.
