Hardy's 1st Birthday

 

   Hardy turned 1 last Friday, YAY! I didn't expect him to do anything new that day, but sure enough, he learned to walk backwards. If my memory is correct, AnnElise began walking on her 1st birthday. She'd already taken several steps for over a month, but she became a walker that day. So, on Hardy's big day, he became a backwards walker. I watch him backing up to everything now. He had a fun day, but the most fun to be had was the day after for his party.

   We've been working tirelessly over the last week or more getting the house ready and party planning. So much work is put into the 1st birthday party and they don't even remember it the next day. Our theme for his birthday was Olympics, even though they've been over for 2 weeks, I wanted to stick with it and play some games. Hardy and another little boy that is only a week younger kicked off the games with unrolling toilet paper, Hardy's favorite thing ever. Hardy definitely won since he's had quite a bit more practice. I have to give credit to Daniel for thinking of this game for the wee ones.

  

   We had several games for the kids and gave gold medals to the winners at the closing ceremony. I think the kids favorite part was blow up water slide. I thought it might end up being too cool for it, but the weather was perfectly hot and humid for some water balloons and water slide.

    Our awesome neighbor and small group friend made some special cupcakes in ice cream cones to resemble torches. She made all of the cakes and they were delicious. I think one slice had about 1,500 calories.

Cupcake torches

Hardy really enjoyed his cake, but it took some time for him to realize that it was a good trade off from the watermelon he'd been gnawing on. As you can tell, he was really upset when I took the watermelon away from him. Once he got a good taste of cake, it was demolished and devoured.

Our favorite babysitter came to celebrate and thanks to    
 her mother, we have all of these great pictures to help tell the story.