One Singular Sensation

Exactly ONE year ago today, I was preparing to leave the hospital to come home with my husband and my new baby boy. That's right, folks-we have made it one year as parents! Yahoo! Since Zachary was born on the coolest day ever 8-8-08, we were able to celebrate his first birthday on an almost as cool day, 8-8-09. It still really hasn't hit me yet that my baby is one. Here are some of the highlights from his big day.


The awesome cupcake cake I made for the guests. We used pictures of Zachary from each month of his life (that we documented with his good pal Woody) as cupcake toppers. We kept the party small, mostly family and a few friends. The party was held at Brampa and Mom-mommy Moses' house. Guests were served hamburgers & hotdogs with all the trimmings, baked beans, potato salad, chips, homemade strawberry icecream, and of course these adorable cupcakes!

Zachary enjoyed being at his grandparents house and playing with his friend Sophie (they have an arranged marriage planned for them!) and his cousin Matthew. Other guests included Mom, Dad, Gram & Grandad Chumbley, cousins Thomas and Gabrielle, Memaw & Papa Wilkerson, Uncle Kevin & Aunt Jamie, Great Aunts Cindy and Becky with Great Uncles Doug and Stanley, and Sophie's Mommy and Daddy.

Zachary thought the ribbons were amazing. Otherwise he wasn't even all that impressed with the wrapping paper, let alone the gifts. Psst, silly boy. He did play with the gifts when we got home, FYI. His gifts included lots of $$ for Kindermusik (we start TOMORROW!), new Toy Story & Policeman pajama's, A Toy Story backpack, wooden nesting & stacking blocks, clothes for the winter, rescue cars, a bubble-lawnmower, shape-sorting blocks, and his red wagon.

But I do believe Elmo was his favorite gift (of course, it was from Brampa & Mom-mommy.) As mentioned in the last blog, we had considered getting him an Elmo for his birthday, but decided on the wagon instead. This Elmo talks when you squeeze his hand and will blow kisses with the other hand. As you can see, Zachary didn't even wait until it was out of the box to start giving him sugars all over-so cute!

After presents came cake time....gonna save the best for last. Or so we thought. Apparently Zachary partied hard because by cake time (which happened WAY before his normal nap time) he was already crying and ready for a nap. Well, we went ahead anyway with the cake. Stripped him down and put him in the highchair. He stopped crying long enough for us to sing "Happy Birthday" to him, but as you will see below, that was all he stopped for!

Now, if you know my husband, you would know that cake and icing are his weakness. In fact, I had to threaten him several times to stay OUT of this buttercream icing I had made earlier in the week. He inherited the love of icing from his Mommy, so we thought this would run in the family. Apparently not. Zachary did not want ANYTHING to do with that cake. He screamed and cried, even after his cousin Matthew showed him how to eat it and Mom-Mommy helped. Oh well. Guess he already has an opinion about some things!

(By the way, gotta love how Daddy left the knife right by the cake in that shot! Thankfully Z was too upset to notice!)