1 Year Old!

Cohen had quite the birthday experience.  Sam's family had a family reunion in Arizona the weekend of Cohen's big day, so we were able to celebrate with much of Sam's extended family and then we had an official birthday party for him after we got back.

Cohen and his cousin Tristan the first night of the family reunion.  Tristan is two months older than Cohen and he acts two months older, but Cohen definitely looks like the older one.  (At Cohen's 12-month doctor appt., he measured the size of an average 18-month old!)  They kept trying to play with this tractor all night, but their second-cousin did not want to share.

Luckily Sam's sister gave him the perfect birthday present the next day--his very own tractor.  He played with this thing for HOURS!  However, he had no problem sharing with all of his cousins--I was so proud!

       

We spend most of Cohen's birthday at the lake.  He LOVED it!

Cohen met his Great Grandma B for the first time.  I'm so grateful they could finally meet.  She lives on the Navajo reservation, about 4-5 hours away from Sam's parents, so we don't get to see her as often as we'd like.  Cohen went right up to her, tapped her on the leg to get her attention, and and then went right for her necklace!  They were so sweet with each other.  

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For Cohen's party, I made him his very own cake.  The idea was to have several layers of chocolate cake stacked on top of each other, then covered in beautiful wisps of whipped cream and topped multi-colored sprinkles.  I wanted it to be cute, yummy and messy!  I froze the cake to make it easier to cut and frost, but it was about a zillion degrees, so the cake defrosted too fast and little cake crumbs got into the whipped cream as I was frosting it.  The whipped cream also didn't stand up to the heat very well.  It ended up being the ugliest cake I have ever seen!  However, Cohen loved it, and that was my ultimate goal.  Several of his cousins couldn't help themselves either and joined in the fun of devouring the chocolate & whipped cream mess!  I was grateful to the zillion degree weather afterward because we could just hose him off!

Katrina and her brother came to the party, too.  I'm so glad they could share this special day with us!  Katrina had just gotten back from Costa Rica and gave Cohen a really cool drum.  Here you can see where Cohen gets his good looks!

It used to bother me when adults would say something about kids growing up too fast.  As a kid, growing up seemed to crawl by.  But now I'm one of those annoying adults.  I can't believe how fast the past year has flown by!  I am so grateful that I get to have this little guy in my life.  I love getting to know him.  He teaches me something and makes me giggle every day.  I can't imagine my life without him!