Crosby's First

My good friends, Jason and Kaela, had their son Crosby's first birthday last week out at Point Defiance Park, so we went out to celebrate the little tyke's first year on the planet. He's a crazy little kid. Pretty darn hilarious. Jason and Kaela are actually the Program Directors of the camp I'm at this summer, so I'm spending the whole summer with these guys! Kristi and I climbed trees and found a squirrel friend who was completely acclimated to people and just walked right up to us. I suspect he had been fed quite a few scraps. I've never seen a less skittish squirrel in my life! Kaela made adorable moss party favors for everyone. And we ate yummy chocolate cupcakes. Crosby chose to use his cupcake as face paint.

This birthday party reminded me of my brother Ben's first birthday, which was in a local park in California. It was such an incredible event as he wasn't even supposed to stay alive for two weeks. A one year birthday just seemed so surreal. I wasn't old enough to grasp it at the time, nor do I even really remember the birthday party (I'm only 2.5 years older than him), but I've seen lots of pictures of it. He's just this happy-go-lucky one year old shoving chocolate cake in his face like any other one year old would. I can only imagine how overwhelming that must have been for my mother. Overcoming the idea that her son wasn't going to live, then accepting the blessing that he was going to live and then seeing him acting like a normal one year old baby- no tubes in his mouth or nose, no wires hooked up to him reading his vitals, no scars visible. Just a little redheaded boy with the most vibrant smile she'd ever seen. Pretty amazing. If you want to read her thoughts on his 3rd birthday, you can read this post.