Gavin's 1st Birthday

My little baby is officially ONE! For each child's birthday, I try to make them their favorite meal and really make that day feel special to them. What can you do for a 12 month old baby? I love that first birthday because, well, it's pretty easy to make them feel special about their birthday. They don't even know it's their birthday. And they already feel special because if they didn't, they'd sure cry and let you know. Oh, I wish we could all be more like babies sometimes!

And Gavin's favorite meal? Breast milk. And I am NOT serving that up to my family.

 I was good and weaned the others. Cut me some slack here. I have too many children to follow the rules. It is too hard to wean. And too hard to have rigid schedules. And too hard to do just about anything.  Thus, Gavin still loves to nurse.

So we decided to have some fun with his "favorite" meal and make it be baby food.

We invited SIL Becky and her children over for supper. I hid all the delicious food I had prepared and hurried and did all the dishes and wiped off all the counters before they showed up. I had my kids stack jars and jars of baby food on the counter along with baby spoons and sippy cups. Oh, I wish I had gotten a picture. It would have been priceless.

And that's what we served them up. Let me tell you it was the easiest meal ever. No cooking, little cleaning, no choking. On the expensive side. But it was fun. My kids dug right in and grabbed a jar and filled their sippy cup up with kool-aide. Audrey dug right in too. Tyler and Austin were hesitant but finally gave in an indulged on a jar of applesauce. I don't think Becky ever joined the ranks of a baby food eater. Probably 'cause she knew I wouldn't really serve up only baby food. Maybe also because she could smell the yummy supper I had prepared. We had enchilidas with rice and a salad. Maybe I had some other vegetable. I can't rememeber.

Nathan actually eating green beans baby food. That is one I do not like. But he actually ate it. He always has been great at eating his vegetables!

Gavin really doesn't like baby food. He doesn't drink from a sippy cup either. No, he isn't exclusively breast fed, he actually drinks from a regular cup really well. And he eats what we eat. Plus goldfish.

This is Austin finally giving in and realizing baby food isn't so bad.

Sweet little boy hadn't napped that day. Too much excitement. He took his long nap for the day between supper and opening gifts. I think the nap was at least a good 15 minutes.

He LOVED his birthday present. He still plays on it daily. Such a hit. Thank you Costco!

The following pictures tell this story pretty well. Taneal made Gavin's birthday cake. No, I haven't attempted another cake since my last outburst. She did a nice job. And it is a red and white cake. Not pink.

Gavin was very interested. He was reaching to grab that sparkly lit candle.

Evan was ready to stop Gavin from grabbing the candle.

Evan actually stopping Gavin from grabbing the candle and in the process all of us yelling and scarring the living daylights out of Gavin,

Gavin backing off from the candle. Too much of a reaction from all of us, he knew something was wrong with that candle.

He refused to touch his cake or get anywhere near that candle. Evan finally made Gavin touch the cake hoping that if Gavin at least took a taste, then he would dive right in.

No such luck. Gavin refused to get near that cake. But I did like this picture of him sucking the frosting off his finger.

We finally gave Gavin a fork and then he was okay with touching the cake. With the fork.