Max's First Birthday!

 Max is now 1!

I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by that I feel like we must have missed something along the way.  Also, with the craziness that a second child brings, I can honestly say that many parts of the last year are a complete blur.  It’s even hard for me to remember what our daily lives were like before we became “4”.  At the same time, it often feels like Max has always been a part of our family - even Addie will ask sometimes where Max was when talking about past events.  Max has brought so much joy to our family in his smiles, giggles, snuggles, his outward demonstrations of excitement, and in making Addie a big sister.

We had a few celebrations planned for Max’s big day.  The first was a joint birthday party at Tina’s for him and his buddy, Helene who turned 1 six days earlier.  They wore birthday hats, sang, and ate cake.

We also like to take the kids for an outing on their birthday.  Since the weather was so nice this year, we decided to spend the afternoon at Water Tower Park.  Max is starting to really enjoy the park.  He loves to swing, slide, turn the tic-tac-toe board, play music, and a new favorite is crawling through the tunnels.

 Finally, we had Wild Rumpus planned for the big day with many of our friends and family.  Max did great with all the people and attention.  He did well opening gifts (with many helpers), and received many thoughtful and generous gifts.  I think the highlight of the party for him was the cupcakes.  He clapped along as we all sang “Happy Birthday”, and dug in as soon as we let him.  Once he started I went to the kitchen to grab some cupcakes to hand out, and when I returned he had already finished half his cupcake and all the frosting!  He was so busy eating he didn’t even make a big mess out of it! 

 Overall, it was a wonderful day celebrating Max’s first year.  Happy birthday, Max!