Since you’ve been gone…

There’s a lot more than Kelly Clarkson lyrics that I have to complete that sentence.

I’ll start on the happiest note. 

You have a grandson.  

He just turned one yesterday. We all had a blast celebrating, and L was so sweet celebrating her brother. She didn’t show a single hint of jealousy, although I did keep her busy all day and gave her jobs like being in charge of taking pictures, decorating, helping him open presents, and showing him how each toy worked. L felt very important and seemed to enjoy her role as my special helper.

I made a smash cake that L and my stepdaughter, A, decorated with blue frosting and sprinkles. Walmart was all out of “1” candles, but luckily my husband was able to find the perfect one (pun intended!) at the commissary on base. I put together this big balloon bouquet and photographed the cake smash myself - I love how the pictures turned out. I did a great job with L’s cake smash on her first birthday too - I’ll have to post some of those pictures sometime too. 

The star of the show!  I found this cute dress outfit on Amazon and it fit him perfectly. I wanted him to look very fancy (he loves looking fancy) and destroy it all by getting messy. My husband gets a little twitchy about messes, but was a good sport about the whole thing.  He took some hair gel and slicked the birthday boy’s hair back to complete the look. My son, J, is all smiles and giggles and total chaos at all times. 

It was a simple little birthday, but a good one. He survived his first year, and we did too. Me and my husband both have a few more gray hairs than this time last year, but our family wouldn’t feel complete without this little guy.