the new adventures of the old Larsens: Happy Birthday Royce!

My little man turned 1 this past week. Nov. 1st to be exact. I'm getting to be old when a year flies by the way it does.

I wasn't going to do any party or anything except a cake with Royce, Aaron, and I but a friend of mine admonished me and told me that a 1st birthday is still a very important event. After feeling like a bad mom I got my party planning on.

For his cake, it's family tradition to do a large cake for everyone and a little personal cake for the birthday boy. I kept asking Aaron what Royce liked so I could make the cake into that shape. After serious consideration he said,

"Well, Royce likes to destroy things. You could make a wrecking ball cake!"

"A wrecking ball cake?"

"Yea, it would be a grey and you could put a black chain on it."

"Aaron, that's a horrible idea."

I'm sure I hurt his feelings with his all serious wrecking ball inspiration, but I still haven't let him live that one down. A wrecking ball cake!?

Well I do know that all boys like football, right? So for his personal cake we made a small football and for the big party cake, it was a football field. The end zones were purple in honor of Aaron's favorite team, the Vikings.

The frosting turned out very strange because it kept melting onto the cake, St. Kitts is hot! So we had to refrigerate it. And by we, I mean my good friend Kim (the one who admonished me). She was nice to come over the night before and help me make his cakes. It turned out pretty cute though I thought.

I bought a ton of Peardrella and Ting, delicious local sodas. There was salami and cheese, chips and salsa, a veggie tray, This party was ready to happen.

Royce had about 16 adults and 1 child at his party. Most of the people there are the friends we made our first week on the island in our Ross orientation group. We were so lucky to be put in such a great group.

Brandon and Tamsin (from church)

That would be Jessica mauling my child.

Emily, Daisy, Ericka

Royce and his buddy Kaillin. She used to cry just at the sight of him but now that they are in daycare together, they're tight.

Some more of the party go-ers.

Before we were able to start on the eating of the cake, we had to make sure that we could get both sets of grandparents on skype to watch the festivities. They both had front row seats.

Do one-year-olds ever understand the concept of blowing out a candle?

His first taste. He was very methodic in his attack.

Now he's getting it.

I was amazed by how much cake he ended up eating. This was no cupcake sized cake and he ate about half.

And here's our messy boy.

We immediately threw him in the shower and cleaned up the floor while everyone else was eating cake. He still had some presents to open.

It took him a while to get a hand of the ripping presents open part. Which is surprising because Aaron was right about one thing, he loves to destroy things. I thought wrapping paper would be right up his alley.

Kim sewed this adorable "watch me grow" to hang up in Royce's room.

Thank-you Grandma Nancy.

That morning, I had been sewing together Royce's Halloween costume, and I thought it would be fun to give it to him as a gift for his birthday. Maybe we'll make that tradition too, we'll have to see.