Brooks's first birthday

Rather than continuing to mourn the loss of our digital camera, I thought I'd post some pictures from the last month that DIDN'T get lost - Brooks' first birthday!

Several of you have asked how we marked his special day. Quite honestly, I was pretty blue for a good portion of the day. My family left to head back to the states early that morning, and I was already missing them. Plus I had some melancholy feelings that I wasn't expecting surrounding the milestone itself - somehow my baby officially becoming a "toddler" felt like a *really* big deal... However, we did do some fun things to mark the big date, and as Eric made the (very wise) decision to work from home that Tuesday, we were all together most of the day.

He wore his Peanut T-shirt from Shel all day... adorable! :)




I thought he looked so cute playing with the birthday candle.
















He's completely cracking up here. I'm not sure why he's laughing... Maybe just happy because it's his birthday. I love his rosy round cheeks.


But he *really* didn't like his birthday hat. When I tried it on him again with Daddy later that evening, he immediately burst into tears.



But, even on their birthday, little guys still need their naps!



Rather than baking a cake in our fan-powered oven (I have *almost* got chocolate chip cookies figured out, but I wasn't ready to risk baking his b'day cake!), we found a cute little Kensington bakery that mainly does cupcakes. Yum Yum!



After his nap, Brooks had fun "unwrapping" his birthday present from my mom and dad.



Can you see his "nap-hair" sticking up in the front?



Unfortunately, dinner that night did *not* go as planned. We took a very long walk in the rain to a new highly recommended restaurant, only to find it and discover that it was closed. Bummer. We ended up in a pub on Portabello Road that looked promising, but after waiting for our appetizer for 35 minutes, well... in the end, we gave up and went home without supper. But hey, at least we got some cute pictures of Brooks and his Dada while we waited for the food that never arrived!!




Wow, this post is getting LONG. Cupcake pictures will be next...