Happy Birthday Luke

 Luke turned 1 year old a couple months ago.  I am not embarrassed to say I cried the night before his 1st birthday.  They are so fun when the are little, cuddly and cannot yet talk. 

Here are some pictures.  

I think this is kind of funny.  I made him a huge carrot cake.  It was a double recipe, three layers and super rich.  Living overseas I felt like I had to ration my good cake making supplies, so I admit I went a little overboard.  We ate cake for a long time and still ended up giving some away.

Anyways,  I made Luke a little cake (I think they are called smash cakes) for him to destroy.  As I got it out of the refrigerator, I dropped it.  Not to let my son eat a cake with his name messed up, I got in the car, drove home, got more icing, drove back to my parent's house and fixed the cake.  Do you know what Luke did as soon as we put it in front of him (after the candle) he knocked it to the ground.  Wasted trip to fix the icing for sure.  Teaches me a lesson that I will still probably not learn from.

Like all 1 year olds who have never had cake, they sometimes do not know what to do with it.

He eventually got over it.  

However to everyone's great disappointment, this was as messy as he got.  No icing chest smears.  No cake on the face or super gooey hands.  He was tidy, but in the long run, I prefer tidy, so it works in my favor.  

Luke was given some cool new toys that are all his, like some trucks 

 and a new book.

However, his absolute favorite toy of the day was this bunny named Jackson from his Smith cousins.  It really was love at first sight.  I am serious.  He...

loved…

this bunny.

He even gave Jackson kisses.

Later we all went outside for a little bit of piñata time.  My kids have never seen or hit a piñata, but they  were crazy with excitement the day I bought it at Target.  It was also a good way to get rid of all that nasty non-chocolate Easter candy leftover in our pantry.  

Avril was a natural.  All the kids (except Luke) got a chance to whack at it, but was my own personal man arms that brought it to submission.

I attempted to document Luke for his final Bambi photo.  I have unfortunately missed a couple (three) months of photos with Luke.  Sorry dude.  The picture below is the absolute best one I could manage because he will not stay still.  So - 

Luke 12 months 

Luke 3 days (doesn't even look like the same baby)

Happy Birthday Luke!