my walk with eden.com: splash park and shoplifting: Titus' 1st birthday.

As you, the faithful blog reader know, we do a "family day" and a party with friends for each kid. I also do a "pancake breakfast" for each child on their birthday. I think this was honestly Titus' favorite part of the whole day :) For Titus' first "family day" birthday, we took him to one of his favorite places---the splash park. It baffles me how much he enjoys it, considering both Eden and August HATE to get water in their eyes. But, he loves to sit there next to those cold sprays of water and long lost Band Aids and just splash his little heart out:

Here's where the shoplifting comes in: I was supposed to meet Brandon on his lunch break at the splash park so he could enjoy pizza and cake with us. He only has a limited amount of time for lunch, so I was reallly trying to hurry and get there on time. We were at the store, getting a few last minute items, when I loaded the kids up and realized that August had been sitting on Titus' "one" birthday candle and I had forgotten to pay for it. I knew I didn't have time to drag all three back in to pay for it, and I couldn't give it to anyone to take back in for me, so I left with the unpaid, .97 cent candle. I'm a criminal. I will tell the full story eventually, with all the added drama. (Is it appropriate to print that in the newspaper? Hmmm...) But, I did go back later, explain what happened, and paid for it. Did I use it first? Ahem...

For Titus' birthday party with friends, we originally planned it for a Sunday evening at the little park next to the white bridge. It is a new park and the kids and I go there a LOT, but Augs came down with some random virus that weekend and we had to reschedule. To where, you ask? As if I even need to tell you:

Titus had a monkey theme, hence the homemade invitations and VERY obvious homemade cupcakes. I was still able to hang his monthly pics, the kiddos loved their sundaes, and everyone thanked us for changing it since it was 100 degrees the night we were supposed to have had it (Literally. 100 degrees. At 7pm at night. Whew...) We did play dough for party favors, and put them in the drinking cups :)

For Titus' three gifts, we got him the following:

something to read: Board books. He loves looking at these in the van!

something to wear: Swim goggles. I thought he would like them at the splash park. Brandon thought it was so lame. Titus did too. Birthday gift fail.

something to play with: Mossberg .22 rifle.

That's right. Both boys got a gun for their first birthdays.