surprise arrival

This special little guy, my little bro,

celebrated in style this weekend!

He turned 1 years old on Friday, can you believe it?

The last year has come and gone in lightening speed...
Elijah can now screach with the best-of-em....
play peek-a-boo like an all-american...
and he is diligently honing in
on his walking skills
(so so close! closer by the day)

In honor of Elijah's birthday,

Auntie Darcee, Megan and Maycee
pulled off an incredible surprise this past weekend!

Mommy was in cahoots with them,
as they showed up in our garage
late Thursday night,
right before bedtime.

Surprise!

They came all the way from MT to spend
Elijah's birthday weekend with us!
"That is so so cool"

As you know, a birthday is no birthday without a party
(from the mind of a 4 y.o, 2 y.o., and now 1 y.o)...
so we headed to Noni and Papa's after church to celebrate!

Elijah's introduction to cupcakes....

Initial "plunge"

followed by further exploration....followed by full-on, committed inhalation!

good to the very last crumb....

(total cupcake eating time: 22-seconds, roughly :)

Hannah and I jumped in
on the sugar-loading as well...
(notice we are a little more polished in our
cupcake eating tactics :)

Elijah did his best to participate in his gift-opening...

as he had many many helpers to "assist".

Thanks everyone for the fun new,
and refreshing toys/puzzles to play with!

Other fun birthday-weekend festivities included:

staying cool at the Fort pool...

including a fun visit from Brother Bede...

(and indoors -yikes, the humidity)

Thanks Elijah for having a birthday so us cousins could be together!

I asked Mommy tonight "why don't we go live in MT?"
we agreed to going to visit in less than 2 months!

So....sad good-byes for now :(
but we'll see you in August!