Our cheeky little one year old

Its that time of year again! Footy grand finals, Melbourne Show, the beautiful, sunny spring days... these are all things that take me back to the days leading up to Sam's birth.I loved eminiscing... thinking back... "this time last year I was watching a movie, and secretly recording how far apart the contractions were", "this time last year we were just about to head off to the hospital" (yes we were up at that time - getting ready for the party!). Then waking up in the morning and thinking "this time last year I was starting to push', and then a couple of hours later "this time last year I was STILL pushing" and then "this time last year he was born!". And remembering the little sheep like cry that he had!

I rewound the home video back to the first footage of Sam, the day he met Josh. It was amazing to see this tiny baby, making the smallest of movements, a little tongue poking out, eyes looking to the sides, fingers moving slightly. And comparing to now!!! A little boy who is always on the move (usually to where ever I am), who can understand what we are saying, and can tell us in his own way, what he wants (usually with a lot of grunting and reaching).

Sam woke up at 6:30am, and we had to wait until 7:30 for Josh to wake up to start the present opening. The first present that Sam saw was his train ball pit. We set it up the night before, and I had to keep reminding Josh that it was Sam's, not his! We dropped in the 50 balls that came with it, and couldn't believe it! They didn't even cover the floor of the train. Lucky we had another 200 balls from Josh's ball pit tucked away in the cupboard! Sam LOVED it! Actually, we couldn't get him out of it to open the other presents! We also gave him an Amazing Animals train. Josh picked out a giraffe toy that you pop balls in it's mouth and they come out the bottom(!). Oh and we almost forgot the Sam CD that we got. It has songs with your child's name in it. It was a bit strange to hear the Sam version, when we were so used to hearing the same songs with Josh's name in it!

Sam had a morning sleep, while we got ready for the party. We had a Teddy Bear's Picnic theme for Sam's party. Even before he was born, I knew that I wanted to attempt the 3D teddy bear cake that I had seen on the Internet. We planned for a picnic in the park... but the weather had other ideas! A quick call to Lisa and Laura (who live right near the park) for a Navan Park weather report told us that we were going to have to change plans... and quickly. It was just too windy! A mad rush of text messages and phone calls, followed by a mad rush to clean up the house and we were ready for the guests to arrive. Sam had even obliged by having a nice long sleep until about 10:30am.

The teddy bears had a picnic in the lounge room, the humans had a bbq lunch under the pergola. The actual party seems like a big blur to me (I will have to check the video to see what actually happened!). We got some great items for Sam's time capsule, including letters, poems, a copy of The Australian Car Buyers Guide 2007, a copy of Rolling Stones, a recording of Playhouse Disney and a 5 inch floppy disc. I can see that one being very interesting on Sam's 18th birthday... we will have to try and locate a computer that has a floppy disc drive. Even now, most computers do not have one! I think they are already more obscure than a record! To think that they only hold 1.44MB, compared to a CD - ??? & a DVD ???. My iPod holds 4GB and that is considered small now. There are not many files these days that will even fit on a floppy disc! Anyway, I am getting a little off track here! Back to the party...

Sam was spoilt with lots of presents, he just couldn't cope with opening them all at the party, so we left them til after his afternoon nap. That means a lot of people didn't get to see him open presents... so I am sorry about that. I know that it can be great to see people open the present that you bought for them. He got some clothes, a Finding Nemo dinner set, an alphabet puzzle, hand made puppets, a caterpiller pull along toy, a train beady toy, a teddy bear, another carriage for his Amazing Animals train, bath toys, a truck, a Teddy Book, a hand made beanie.

Look at all these presents!
Me and the boys!
Josh - sprung with cake!

The funny hat family

And now to talk about the cake... I was really happy with the end result! I think it looked great, and it really wasn't that hard! I just hired the 3D teddy tin, made the cake, and iced it with a special tip that makes grass, or in this case, teddy fur! Just one minor detail... the first cake I made - a caramel mud cake - was a bit of a disaster! Two packet mixes at $6 each, and my teddy came out looking deformed! He had no feet! I kind of forgot that mud cake doesn't rise... so it wasn't quite enough mixture. So I had to madly rush about making another one, this time a madiera cake. Luckily I started the cake on Friday morning! The caramel mud didn't go to waste though - I just chopped it up ready to dish out. And it was delicious!I think the best compliments I got were when guests arrived and walked right past the cake not even noticing that it was a cake! They thought it was a teddy bear!

My favourite photo - brother love.
Josh had just blown out the candle, and I think Sam was in awe!
Sam got to have a little cup cake all to himself. He sucked on it for ages!
He must have wanted it to last!

One thing that I noticed was the comments about Sam's walking. To me it seemed that he had been walking for ages, but even Aunty Kel who only saw him five days earlier said that he was walking heaps better then the last time she saw him. He is a man on a mission now! He will still start crawling if he is in a hurry, but most of the time he toddles along. And if he can grab
somebody's finger to take them for a walk he can really get up a head of steam!

I don't know who had more fun at the party - Josh or Sam... and it seems that Josh is spending a lot of time playing with Sam's new toys... but we all had a great time. And we can't believe that it has been a year already!