Baby A'ecks turns One.

Let this blog post be a lesson to anyone who invites us to any gathering or birthday party. We will show up with our big ole camera and we'll excessively document your child's birthday as if it were our own. And then later we'll sit and giggle and relive the event over a glass of wine. That's pretty much what counts as fun for us nowadays.

This last weekend my sweet baby Alex Private School and Hancock's sweet little boy had his 1st birthday party. His birthday isn't until tomorrow, but we celebrated with gusto anyway. 

Hancock is a ridiculously fabulous hostess. Not sure how she does it, but their house is always clean, there is always a generous spread of delicious food and most impressive-she's always calm. I feel I always greet our guests at the door wearing a wild and frantic expression, so I admire her zen hostessing demeanor. 

Unfortunately Cole was not in a zen mood when we got to the party, so I can only tell you this about the first hour:

Me: [standing in kitchen, holding Cole]. "Would you like to go play?"

Cole: "Play. Play. Playyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"

Me: [starting to put him down]. "Okay, let's go play"

Cole: [feet have touched ground, the horror!] "no play, no play, NO PLAY!"

Me: [Picking him back up]. "Ok, we can play later"

Cole: "Chip, chiiiip, chiiiiiiiiiiiiip"

Me: [offering a chip]: "Sure, here you go, a chip"

Cole: [chip has been offered to him, the horror!] "no chip, no chip, NO CHIP!"

Cole: "Juice, juiiiiice, juiiiiiiiice"

Me: [offering a juice]: "Sure, here you go, some juice"

Cole: [juice has been offered to him, the horror!] "no juice, no juice, NO JUICE!"

And on and on this cycle continued. For an hour. And if you've not met Cole, let me tell you he's the sweetest little soft-spoken boy. But when he gets in a mood that same sweet voice reaches a very high pitch, and to say that he gets whiney is an understatement. So each time I offered an item that was requested, he shrieked his no response. Loudly. And angrily. 45 minutes in we were getting shocked glances from pretty much every person there, and people were mistaking Grady for the mellow twin. Ha. 

We survived and Bruce [thank you Bruce!] snapped Cole out of his mood. All of this to tell you, I don't have a clue what happened the first hour of the party. There were chips, and juice, and I talked to a few people, but can't really remember any conversations. 

I did join in the party action once we all headed outdoors for the cake cutting. Here is Hancock with Alex.

We picked a spot on the lawn to do candle blowing observations.  

And the little man went for it! 

Having hit a sugar high, Cole felt the need to participate in getting his face dirty. 

I'm a big people watcher. I think its neat to capture sweet little moments here and there that you might miss if you were not staring at people. Alex's great-grandma generously offered him a bite of her cupcake. Alex considered.

And accepted. Thank you great grandma.

Back on the lawn Cole's sugar rush went straight to his head and like a drunk college kid started to try to kiss any lady in sight. You can't see from this angle, but his little lips were puckered. Little Andie was not having any of it, though, and Cole had to settle for giving Momma a kiss. 

Ok, back to the birthday party. I love this picture. The parents are posed perfectly, and Alex is giving the sugar rush fist-pump. Cake, YEAH, CAKE! 

Or maybe he was cheering for Cole who took to racing around the lawn?

At this point in the party I felt that I had waited long enough and it was finally my turn to hold Baby Alex. I may have then stolen him away from his godmother, and I'm not proud of that, but whatever. 

I had [smartly] decided to wear a shirt with something intriguing on it. You like the shirt Alex? Me too. Chances are everyone will be seeing me wear it often this summer. I tend to pick one or two clothing items per season and then I wear them ad nauseum. It's just how I roll. 

I should attempt to explain my glee at getting to hold Alex by giving you a little background. When Alex was first born, out boys were in a major separation anxiety stage and would not stand for me to hold another baby in their presence. So for months we'd see Alex and his parents and I could only peer over my kids' heads at Alex. Over time I became braver, but always feared that Grady would come running at us and smack the baby out of my hands. So imagine my relief when I held Alex and looked over to see Grady beaming with delight at Alex. 

Beaming with delight might be an understatement. He was infatuated. He sat like this and stared at Alex for several minutes. Stared, and giggled. Can't you just hear him saying that baby is sooo cool. 

Since a two year old can't quite convey a sentiment that complicated, Grady instead tried to show Alex all his body parts. Here he was going for nose, but I was a little concerned about the fingers coming at the baby. Alex seems concerned, too.

And then Grady decided he needed to hold baby Alex. Seriously. He wanted to stand and hold baby Alex like he saw me doing. Part of me felt that Grady probably could hold Alex, and if Alex were mine, I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't have given it a shot. But seeing that he was not my baby for Grady to drop, we settled for both boys sitting on my lap. Grady was ecstatic. Alex was really a little over it already.

But seriously, how cute is he? Happy birthday, Baby A'ecks!