THE PARTY!

Dum, dum dum, DUM! At last, I've finally caught you up on our busy, busy week and I've finally made it to Sunday which was birthday party day!!! All the planning and cleaning was so worth it because it was such a fun and special day that we got to celebrate with ALL of our closest friends and family. A special shout out goes out to Keri, Shawn & Kylie who drove up to Greenville not once, but TWICE in 2 days just to celebrate Austin's big day! :) I also want to give a shout out to Aaron, Jeff and baby GIRL Willey who weren't able to make it because they were up in Ohio freezing their tails off all weekend. Oh, and did you notice I said baby GIRL Willey?? That's right, Aaron is having a baby girl and I'm so excited!! If baby Harris #2 turns out to be a boy at least I have someone to give all this pink stuff I've already bought to! :)

But anyway, back to Austin's most fabulous 1st birthday party ever...

The fun started at 2pm and Austin was up and raring to go after a 2+ hour morning nap. (YAY!) Ryan and I were running around all morning but were finally ready once the first guests arrived. My sister and her boyfriend, Nick, had to drive my mom up because my poor daddy is very sick and couldn't make it. Austin really missed him, but as soon as he's feeling better we'll be down to Columbia for visit I'm sure!

Austin and his Aunt Catherine played and laughed while the other guests filed in. We sat around and talked and Austin soaked up all the attention until it was time to eat. We didn't think our house was quite big enough to serve 15+ people a sit down dinner but somehow it worked out! Austin had his lunch of potato salad, sweet potato casserole and baked beans and then we were all back in the living room for present opening time!! Austin went straight for the biggest wrapped present he could find and started ripping away. He had been opening gifts since Thursday so he was a pro at it by now! He got some really great stuff and especially loved all the tissue paper and big boxes that everything came in.

After what seemed like hours of gift opening (he sure is one lucky little boy) it was finally time for the moment I had been so excited for....time to eat cake! While, yes, I was very excited to eat some of the cake, I was more excited to watch Austin dig into his very own "smash" cake! The moment was absolutely priceless and once he got that first taste of icing on his tongue there was no stopping him. He was taking cake by the handful and stuffing it in his mouth and then sucking all the icing off his fingers and going back in for more! When I started worrying about the risk of him entering a sugar coma, I had to stop the fun and put my messy, sticky, orange icing covered little boy into the tub and hose him down! We emerged a few minutes later nice and clean and with a sugar high I thought might take us into next week!! Hey, they're only 1 once!

After saying goodbye to all our friends and family, Ryan put Austin down for a nap while I cleaned up some of the mess to prepare for party #2! Ryan's dad, step-mom and 2 step-sisters came over a little later to see the birthday boy, have some cake and give him his gifts. After his short hour long nap, we woke up our little man and he was surprisingly happy and alert and still ready to party! He showed off like the little ham that he is, opened all his nice gifts and proceeded to pull off the tags and then throw the items across the room. Grandma Pat couldn't resist giving him a few bites of her cake and I think she now has a friend for life. They were shocked at how much he loved that cake and I was sitting there shocked at the amount of sugar I let my baby have in one day!! Nothing but vegetables for the rest of this week, I think!

Austin was up until 10pm last night and we didn't think he was going to bed easily, but after a few minutes of babbling and shouting "dada," we went to his room to check on him and he was sacked out with his leg sticking out of one of the slats in his crib. With such a busy day, we didn't hear a peep until 8 this morning and he was in bed by 7:30 tonight. I think as soon as this post is done I will be joining my little boy for an early bedtime as well!

What a great way to celebrate such a special day and such a special little boy. I honestly think it was the best day he's had so far and I can't wait to celebrate even more birthdays with my sweet baby. It's just so refreshing to see people gather together and get so excited over a birthday. I haven't been excited about a birthday since I reached my 20's so it's good to finally remember and put into perspective why we celebrate birthdays to begin with and I plan on making every one of Austin's birthdays from now on a big deal...for as long as he'll let me of course!

With this 1st year flying by so fast I'm already starting to wonder if I should go ahead and start planning for #2!!