Shepherd's Birthday in Exhausting Detail

Well, my intention was to get this blog done much earlier today, but Shepherd has been under the weather with a fever, runny nose, and mild cough, so I've been playing nurse. He is now in bed trying to sleep off that fever (please say a little prayer that he will soon recover), so I'm going to take a moment to recount his birthday.

I put the camera by my bed the night before so that I could get a first-thing-in-the-morning picture. He is always really happy when he wakes up.

Because I have no patience when it comes to giving gifts, we opened presents first thing after everyone was awake. Ninety percent of these presents were from Aunt Marcy. One of them was from BJ and I. He is going to really love his Aunt Marcy.

His Nana knit him an awesome hat for the winter.

He was unsure about the whole unwrapping process. He mostly just wanted to eat the paper.

Our gift to him was a walker that turns into a scooter when he gets older. He thought it was big fun helping his dad put it together. (Everyone take a moment to laugh at BJ's bed head.)

Later that day, it was time to eat, and eat we did. But first, we took pictures in ridiculous hats I got because birthday parties for one-year-olds should be cheesy, and dang it if I wasn't going to go all out on the cheesy.

Now, I have always objected to the idea of giving a baby their own cake on their birthday and letting them dig into it. However, when I started planning out the big monster cake, I couldn't help but think how cute a little monster cake would be. Before I knew it, I was sitting with my camera taking 40 pictures of Shepherd tearing into his own chocolate cake. Here is what I learned from the experience: giving a one-year old their own cake is one of the funnest things you can possible do on earth, it doesn't hurt them, and you will laugh until your face hurts if you ever actually experience it. In other words, I've been converted.

At first, Shepherd was hesitant with the cake. He would only stick a finger in, lick it, and then look at us to see if we really were condoning this behavior.

Once he got his monster's horn, though, he tore in, and there was no stopping him.

After he had eaten about a third of his little cake and we took it away, he sat in his chair laughing for no apparent reason. It was as if he was just really happy to have discovered that the world had something as beautiful as cake in it.
So that was Shepherd's birthday. It was a great day. And despite the sickness, today had a pretty awesome moment as well. Shepherd took his first steps totally unaided. He did about four little steps to get from me to a chair. He really is growing up on me *sniff sniff*.