Cake time!

With so many party pics, I thought it's best to save one entire post for cake!  Once again, my cropping and editing didn't show up on these pics and they are MUCH better cropped because you can see Luke's expressions better, but you get the idea.  I made Luke a banana cake because he loves banana and we've had to cut it out of his diet for a while due to constipation issues, so we thought this was a great time to bring it back!

Big brother helps with the candle...

At first, he didn't quite know what to do and got just a little bit on his hand to taste...

Next he went all in with his mouth...

He kept looking up at me like he was wondering what he should do and if it was really OK...

 

Yes, it's OK.  I'll even help hold it closer to your mouth.  Dive in!

Icing face...

Ooohh, sugar coma...

We like to Party!

We had Luke's official 1 year celebration at Chad and Cassy's house in Richardson since it's closer to everyone and it worked well coinciding with Easter weekend.  We called the party "Eat pasta, crawl fasta!" because Luke loves pasta and is an eating and crawling machine.  We started off with a pasta lunch.  Luke spent half his party shirtless with all the messy food...(on a different note, I know this blog isn't read by many, but I have a question.  I cropped and edited all these pics in Picasa, but then when I download them to my blog they come out in the original without edits.  It's so frustrating!  Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? )

 After a good lunch, we headed out front for a few games.  We played a version of 3-legged race meets egg hunt.  Here are the competitors:  Big T and Cohen...

 Papa and Jake...

 Cassy and Channing...

 Nana and Campbell...

 And they're off...

 Here are Grandmama and Luke enjoying the race...

 After all the collecting, everyone got to discover the treasures inside the eggs.  Luke was content with an empty egg...

 And another game of balloon walk.  Here are the guys with their game faces ready to go...

 Next was presents.  We set Luke in the middle of the room on the ottoman so he could be center stage.  He luckily had some help with the presents from his cousins and brother...

 Wow!  What's all this?

 A cousin pic.  Luke is one happy 1 year-old!

The Big O-N-E

Luke turned 1 on April 13.  I seriously can't believe he's already one!  Since we had planned to have our family birthday party the following weekend, we kept the cake for then.  Instead, we sang him "Happy Birthday" with a cinnamon roll.  I only took pre-cinnamon roll shots, so you can't see from the pics, but Luke LOVED his first cinnamon roll...

 We opened a couple gifts from us...

Jake picked out a special gift for Luke, his own microphone.  It seems like his brother knows just what he likes...

 An attempt at a brother shot, but once again closed eyes...

 Tissue paper is always fun...

 Another thing we did on his birthday was pull down a bin of Jake's 1-2 year-old toys and let Luke at it.  Luke was in heaven, and especially love this car ramp...

 Here's our big 1-year-old...

Camping Inks Lake

We went camping a couple weeks ago with several families and had a blast!  This is only the 3rd time we've been camping since Jake was born and every time I'm so glad we did it.  It's nice to be out in nature and only have nature and the company of others to entertain you.  It's a little challenging having a crawler, so hopefully we'll get more use of our tent when Luke starts walking.  The weather was PERFECT for our trip, which is always my #1 worry, but luckily no worries this time.  Here are the kids hanging out by the lake.  Jake is down to his shorts because he did get into the lake...

Jake's 6-year-old friend, Luc took this beautiful sunset picture for me...

Here's Mr. Brian fishing with the kids...

Just woke up to a cool, beautiful morning...

I think Luke was a very happy camper!

Some morning fishing...

Brother love...

There were 5 children under the age of 2 on our trip!  Madelyn was a big helper pushing Luke around...

Here are the sweet friends...

Some of the other moms got together an Easter egg hunt for all the kids, and here we are getting ready for the hunt...

A happy egg hunter...

Luke watching the fun and playing with his football egg...

Spring Days

We love Spring!  You just can't beat the chance to go outside and play, wear shorts, and enjoy sunshine after a long winter.  We've been doing our best to enjoy the outside while it's not too cold and not too hot, and the boys love it!  Here's Luke discovering the neighborhood park...

 We went on a family hike on a trail in Cedar Park and we found a few bluebonnets...

 The best part of this particular family hike was that one of my best friends from college joined us from Shreveport!  Carrie spent a few days with us during her Spring Break and quickly won Jake and Luke's hearts...

 The Lawson guys...