And He's 1

Happy Birthday to our sweet 'baby Jude'. *And a special thanks to Owen Hart for not being quite big enough to fit into this cute onesie! Jude got a lot of good out of it!

We celebrated Jude's birthday in KC style. We spent the first half of the day at Jason's mom's home and the evening at Jason's Dad's. It was fun to be in KC for his birthday. They make such an effort to come up for birthdays, so I'm thankful that we were able to celebrate Jude's with them.

Jude and the other boys in the Barnes family. This isn't the best picture, but we had 4 under 2.5 years, so I think we did pretty good. Micah, then Atticus-their second cousin, Jude and Memphis, who is Micah and Jude's first cousin. I'm still trying to figure out why I'm holding them and not Jason's grandma...her 4 great-grandchildren and we didn't think to put her in the picture. Hmmm.

My two favorite little boys!

Jude just wanted to play with the flame, and Micah was quite excited about blowing out the candle, so we let him do it! You can't tell, but the cake says Happy Birthday J3, as in J to the third. Jason's brother, who is named Jeremy, and his wife, Jen all have birthdays within a week of Judes. So, J to the third seemed like the easiest way to cover all three ;)

Memphis patiently awaiting his piece!

He had just woke up from a nap, so his smile is a little sleepy ;)

Grandma Cindy set the cake down and Jude picked it right up. The whole piece! I think he enjoyed it.

Jude was quite spoiled on his birthday. Not only did he get two parties, he got TWO cakes! Thankfully Jason's step-mom, Teresa, made cupcakes with some redeeming value to them, just so he wasn't totally overloaded with sugar. She found an awesome website called Weelicious. It has all of these awesome recipes and ideas for healthier foods for our kids. She made cupcakes that had pineapple, carrot and agave syrup in them. They were actually really good, but so was the chocolate cake we had earlier too ;)

This was actually after Jude had given in and gone to bed. We spent some time outside, enjoying the awesome weather. You can't tell in this picture, but they have a long sidewalk that slopes down a hill in their front yard. Micah and Memphis pushed a truck down the sidewalk for 20 minutes, easy! This is Pipaw Stan, Jason's Dad, wrestling with Micah.

The Blackley family, minus Jude and Teresa. From L to R, Emily-Jason's Sister, Memphis, me, Jason, Micah, Stan, Jen-our sister-in-law, and Jeremy-Jason's brother.

These are the cupcakes. They looked really fun and yummy even! There was a 1 for Jude and a 25 for Jeremy and Jen.

Micah waiting for us to stop singing so he could blow out the candles.

We thought he had eaten the whole cupcake, but when we went to take him out of the highchair we found the cupcake, barely eaten beside him in the high chair. Oh well, probably for the best that he didn't eat it all.

Dear Judie-Doodie, I am so thankful for your life. You have a strong spirit about you, but I so look forward to seeing how God uses that to further his kingdom. I love the gap in your front teeth and your silly grin. I love how you cuddle and climb all over me. You are a bright spot in my life and very dear to my heart. I know someday you'll scoff at my kisses and run from my hugs, but know that these arms will ALWAYS welcome you at a moment's notice.

I love you bud!

Love,

Mommy