Happy Birthday Isaiah!!

As you likely know, Isaiah turned one on Christmas day.  Naturally, it still hasn't quite sunken in that I have a one-year-old!  We chose the name "Isaiah" well in advance of his birth when his estimated due date was January 12, 2010.  We liked the sound of the name, but even more than that, we loved the meaning and hoped it would shape his life: "The LORD is salvation".  How beautiful, then, that this boy named for the prophet who foretold of Christ's birth was born on the day set apart to celebrate said birth.  We realize--as people frequently remind us--that we will have to be intentional about making Isaiah's birthday special and set apart from Christmas celebrations; yet we never want to lose the deeper, spiritual meaning and focus of Christmas as a day to celebrate Immanuel, "God with us".  Our solution this year (and likely most years to come), was to have his birthday party a week before the 25th.  We planned a month+ in advance, sent invitations to his friends and our family, etc, etc, etc.  The unfortunate turn of events, however, was that Isaiah came home from daycare 3 days before his party with viral gastroenteritis.  Thankfully, it was fairly short-lived, but the next day, Chris and I became ill.  Needless to say, we didn't feel that we should invite healthy babies and toddlers into our home and risk getting them sick as well, so we postponed the party for Jan 8th.

In the meantime, we did celebrate Isaiah's birthday with the Starnes family on Christmas evening.  I baked (from scratch!) a red velvet cake, and we let him open gifts from us and the Starnes'.  He didn't really dig into the cake like I expected, but instead pinched off the green decorating icing and ate it.  It was a nice, close family affair that we'll always have fond memories of.  Here are some pictures:



Looking serious in the birthday shirt made by our friend Tricia Cartner (critterbugandcricket.blogspot.com)

 

Homemade Red Velvet--not the prettiest thing to look at but it didn't taste too bad!

Trying to share icing with cousin Hallie

Finally, on January 8th, we had a larger party in Memphis at our church.  The theme was "Fun with Spot" from Isaiah's favorite book collection by Eric Hill.  Unfortunately, there is nothing in that theme sold ready-made in party decorations, so it required quite a bit of advanced planning and preparation.  Nevertheless, it was well worth it to have a character he recognizes and enjoys.  We had cupcakes and snacks.  We also had a junior sized bouncey ball pit that Isaiah absolutely loved.  He mostly sat there and let Daddy bounce him, but he enjoyed rolling around a good bit too.  He happened to get his first kiss in that ball pit as well (see below for details)!!  I think Isaiah really enjoyed himself, and we sure enjoyed the chance to celebrate his life with friends and family.  Here are pictures from his big day:



With Pawpaw and Jude



After destroying his cupcake

In the ball pit with Dakota Cartner (3 1/2).  She was so sweet and helpful with him in the ball pit.  We were enjoying watching them in there together, and at one point, they were both kind of lying side by side, and Isaiah swooped in for a kiss!!  It was so hilarious and precious!  I'm a bit jealous cause he's never kissed Mommy.  Definitely one for the baby book :) 

In terms of other developmental changes in his twelth month, he's standing for longer periods of time without holding anything, and he's taken a single step a few times.  One of the cutest things he started doing was reading to himself--he'll pick up one of his books (or ours, see below) and start flipping through the pages and talking with the intonation of reading what's on the page.  It's especially funny because the book is often upside down.  He says the single syllable "Dah" for his daddy, "mama" on occasion for me, "dahdah"' is byebye while waving.  He crawled up the steps at Mawmaw's house as previously mentioned.  He loves to dance (he has a funny booty dance he displayed at the party if I ever get around to uploading videos).  He loves going for rides in his new wagon (usually been around the circle in our house as it's cold out).  He's such a fun little guy, and we're so glad he's ours!

He discovered the bookshelf in the hall and found some of my textbooks that interested him--he seemed to favor this small one in particular.  See below for the title...

Hmmm...