Happy FIRST Birthday, Zachary James (the 28^th)!!! It is un-stinkin-believable that we have a one-year-old. Really, somehow this year has been the longest and yet the shortest the best and yet the worst all at the same time. (I’m trying to avoid the “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” but it does fit quite well). It’s been full of ups and downs – the biggest up, of course, being our Zachy. (Perhaps the runner-up up being my new found love for professional Therapy and prescription-strength happy pills).

Zachary rang in the party day in true Martin style: with a bit of a trauma. Unbeknownst to me, Matthew opened the gate and was “helping” Zachy go downstairs (“He was going feet first”). But apparently, at some point, said-Zachy decided to no longer go feet first. I was on the phone and had to say, “Oh my God! Zach just fell down the stairs. OK. Bye.” (Yes, I did manage a fairly polite sign-off). Zach was lying at the bottom of the stairs, crying. Thankfully, he shook it off under a minute and was totally fine. Apparently celebrating the big oh-one with a mild concussion is all the rage.

Friday night, we had Zach’s big birthday bash. To celebrate, we invited my family and a few friends (the “few” somehow turned into about 25 people) for pizza and cake. Winnie Pooh was the theme and this cake seriously took the…cake. I’ve never in my life seen a cake so big. Yes, I did order – on purpose – the cake that feeds 50 people (we took the other half to our Engaged Encounter dinner Saturday night), but this thing was seriously freakishly large. It was ridiculously cute too. It had the standard writing, Happy 1st Birthday, Zachary! and was decorated all Pooh-style including a little plastic decoration of Roo being pushed on a tree swing by Tigger with Pooh looking on. Quite a touching scene, really.

Zachary wasn’t quite sure what to think of the piece of cake displayed before him. He was definitely a fan of the 10 little children surrounding his high chair, cheering him on though. Big Bro Matthew decided to help out by using frosting as face paint on his brother. However once Zach had a taste of it, he needed no help in doing his own facial-decorating and facial cake-stuffing. No surprise here: this boy wanted his cake and ate it too…and threw it and adorned with it and covered himself from head to toe in it. (Pictures to come soon). Poor kid – I think he woke up with a pretty severe frosting hangover.