I promised this pic from Josiah's birth....
and here it is:
*Warning!!!
The photo below is a graphic photo of a baby JUST born. If seeing a baby in his most natural state does not fascinate you, SKIP THE FIRST PIC BELOW!
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June 18, 2008
Did you see what was so funny to us? Look again. Look at Josiah's right hand. I guess he was pretty upset about being removed from his nice, warm home in my womb! Haha!
What a difference a year makes, and how exciting that
it's been a year since we met Josiah! 
What a joy to celebrate that first year and all of his growth and accomplishments in that time! This precious child is so...
well, precious! He's walking, talking, constantly teething, most often giggling, and still a cuddly boy.*Gotta give a shout out to our friend Natalie, who so graciously gifted Josiah with this shirt! Along with an adorable personalized backpack present, we're so grateful for this special big boy garment! If you saw Kyleigh's array of personalized 2nd bday gifts HERE, you know these are Natalie's own creations! (www.nataliekdesigns.com)* Josiah's birthday was last Thurs. June 18th, and we celebrated as a small family. Then on Friday local friends as well as friends and relatives from out of town/state arrived for JoJo's big party! We've always done Kyleigh's parties at home, but with the chaos of moving and such we opted to for an alternate location where the kids would have lots of room to play--we had a Kindermusik party! There were hula hoops, music, balls, instruments, and dancing! My kids loved it, and I think that their cousins and friends did, too.
I also made Josiah a special cake...special in decor, and special in ingredients to meet Kyleigh's food allergy limitations. Honestly, I was just as excited watching my daughter eat a piece of cake as I was to see my son try cake for the first time! I had stayed up all night making the cake(s) and only caught a quick cat nap from 6:30-8:30am. So I was really tired by the evening party, but watching my kids enjoy birthday cake was worth the exhaustion!
*The cake was to be loosely modeled after the Baby Einstein caterpillar (only our antennae were yellow, his are red...whatever!) Overnight I baked 7 cakes--5 cakes for the caterpillar, 1 for Siah's "smash cake", and another for us to taste (these were ingredients I had to special order, like potato flour???, so Chris and I were curious). The cakes were chocolate with chocolate chips, and yep, all ingredients were gluten-free, dairy-free, oat-free, and egg-free. Oh, and I made some buttercream icing by replacing the recipe's butter with vegetable shortening. I think the finished product tasted like a dry cookie-brownie with super sweet icing! Not my everyday favorite, but my kids liked it, and that made my year!*
We're so grateful that Josiah's grandparents, a Great-Aunt, Uncle, 2 Aunts, 5 cousins, and some friends joined us for the party. It was a super sweet celebration of our beautiful boy, and we were glad so many shared it with us. JoJo was also blessed with some incredible gifts, and we're so appreciative for all those items. As a parent, I'm grateful that people put such thought into those items, finding gifts that were fun, educational, and completely age appropriate and useful
(isn't it awfully sad to receive a gift you can't use?).
He completely loved every wrapped blessing,
and it's a joy to see him using them!
To each who partied with us or sent bday wishes, thanks for making Josiah's celebration so special
Here are some pics from Josiah's big day...
Kyleigh helped wrap Josiah's 1st ever bday gift--
she gave him a book!
Josiah LOVED this Peek-A-Boo book from his sis!
He likes all books, so Kyleigh couldn't go wrong with
her gift idea! Such a great sister to help pick that out!
Me, baking, at some ridiculous hour of the night.
Anything for the kiddos!
I'm no Martha Stewart, but I can bake a few cakes!
An allergy-free bday caterpillar in the making. Yummy!
Sweet buttercream cake icing! Made a ton of this,
separated it into a few containers, then used
food coloring to get the desired affect.
Turned out pretty cute, thanks to the help of my homies!
(To be just like the Baby Einstein caterpillar, the antennae
could've been red, but it was a last minute scramble,
so we're just glad the little guy got done! It was so hot,
we had to ice the cake on location, and my sweet
sister-in-law Crystal & pal Cayla made it happen!)
The "smash cake"...not fancy, we put all our energy
into the caterpillar, which was fine 'cuz Josiah
demolished this!
(I suppose that's what the "smash cake" is for!)
Silly boy even managed to get cake between his toes!
The kids started off playing with hula hoops.
Josiah was entertaining his guests with
some of his many charming qualities!
Let the fun begin!
Precious Kyleigh handed out instruments all around the room
to the grownups not seen in this pic, as she wanted
to make sure nobody felt left out!
See, she even shared 2 bells with Miss Cayla!
Jen & our little buddy Elijah having musical fun!
Josiah liked playing the same instruments as the big kids,
it made him feel big, too! He also liked the singing & dancing,
and I believe he enjoyed his 1st birthday celebration!
After the par-tay, family stopped by our place
to see where we're living now.
Some had exciting imaginative fun...
While others took a more laid back approach!
A quick pic of the family!
My bro and his peeps had to hit the road, it was late;
my parents/baby sis + Chris's dad and aunt stayed overnight.
It was so lovely having so much our family together to celebrate!
(I can't believe we fit that many people in this little house! LOL)
These pics were taken via BlackBerry over the weekend. The kids and I strolled around the mall to escape the excruciating heat of our un-air conditioned home (which I'm told daily will be fixed soon, so I hope it's fixed soon). As we paroosed Kirkland's, Kyleigh came across these mirrors and just couldn't get enough of herself! I can PROMISE you we don't teach this kind of vanity at home. I don't walk around with my hands on my hips, I don't twist and turn in front of mirrors (let's be honest, I don't necessarily want to take in a 360* view on a daily basis!), and we don't watch such TV shows as 'America's Next Top Model'. This is just who she is! She started using a purse before I did (I'm a keys-and-chapstick-in-the-pocket kinda gal, except w/ two kids I finally got a bag so I could carry Mommy-esque stuff!), she likes to wear bracelets and earrings daily even though I generally only wear a wedding band, and before we left BG she started doing a sort of strut up and down a runner (that's a long, narrow rug) inside our foyer, as though it were a runway. You may remember THIS post...it's a random post about my ordeal of getting ice cream late one night while Chris was out of town, but the pic is of Kyleigh strutting on that aforementioned runner that night! Hilarious!
