the birthday boy

See this sweet boy?

This sweet, sweet (loud, messy, busy, wonderful) boy?  This boy who -- in just the last week -- figured out how to walk?

He's the birthday boy.  And he's one year old.

It's almost impossible to believe that a little more than one year ago our girls had no brother and we had no son.  It's just as hard to believe that it's already been an entire year... that our tiny baby is now a (not at all tiny) one-year-old boy!

We celebrated John David's birthday (on his actual birthday) with our small group from church, at one of our regular meetings.  It was the perfect celebration -- lots of children, lots of chaos, lots of joy.  (That works well because our extremely loud boy sort of blends in.  And let me assure you -- he's loud.)

He screeched impatiently in his high chair while we readied the cake.  (I think he thought we were just torturing him, strapping him down for no good reason.)  When we brought it out, he seemed a bit perplexed.

Of course, he could be thinking, "That cake is for me?  It doesn't seem very boyish!"  But when you're only one and can't speak, and your sisters have input into your cake-making, you have to consider it a success when there's no Tinkerbell on the cake.  (No lie, the girls thought John David would really like that.  We compromised with pastel sprinkles.  And frosting that wound up a little more aqua than blue.)

One of our sweet friends was our photographer.  She snapped this photo of us.  It makes me smile.  It's how I'd like you to think of us.

But to be honest, this photo (in all its un-edited, over-exposed glory) is much more representative of what it means to embrace this circus.  Kathleen lunged at her father for a spontaneous hug while I tried to prevent Madeline from putting her entire fist in the cake (turns out she was after the candle).  And Katie captured it on film, guaranteeing that I remember how it really was, and not merely how I think it ought to have been.

We managed to make it a whole year without introducing John David to cake.  (We caved and gave him ice cream over the weekend before his birthday.  He took to that like a duck to water.)  He looked tentatively at the cake for quite a while, but then palmed it and popped it in his mouth.  He loved every last crumb.  Well, at least the crumbs that didn't wind up on him.

You make us smile, Indiana-John David.  We love you and your loud, busy, messy ways.  You've brought us joy every day of the past year.  We can't wait to see all that you'll learn and how you'll grow in the next!