THE birthday and the party

THE day- 17 April

Birthday morning with pancakes! I had a hard time making them for some reason, so praise the Lord, Luke DID get his favorite food of all time.

Then, we went to my favorite restaurant since I was the one to push him out (and due to the fact that Luke can't voice his preferences yet) and Mom treated us to a lovely lunch.

I was tickled that even tho the lunch was a fussy one for Buddy, he was full-throttle for his gifts! In fact, so was his big sister. He hardly got to even see his presents, poor lad. Anyway, we also got to Skype Nana and Papa and open the presents they sent, too!

The day of the party (18 April)

Josh made way better pancakes and then, after lunch, Mamama, the kids, and I went to KC Kangaroo's while Josh rested from a lot of schoolwork this week. Luke played with the balls and Mamama and Rebes played in the balls and even lost a sock in all the fun. ;)

The party- I took a quick (blurry) pic of the food, but not the cakes- they were yellow with chocolate frosting and Italian Creme with cream cheese frosting and coconut sprinkles. I was very pleased with how it all turned out. Once again, the timing worked so well- both kids napped exactly when I needed them to and for good lengths of time. The guests were timely and plentiful- we felt so honored to have almost all our friends. The guys got to talk theology at a level previously unreached in this flat, while the girls chatted about nursing and sound machines.

Katrina and Duncan- they moved here when we did and even tho Luke was 6 months old when Duncan was born, Duncan has already crawled...goodness. LOVE the pirate get-up!

Brannan and Josh (Brannan goes with Kate)

Kate and Allison- they both arrived last year

Mark (he goes with photographer Rachel), Andy (he goes with Sian), Katrina (her husband is in the States right now), and Chris (he goes with Rachel G)

Sian and Kate

Rachel, Allison, Melissa, and Rachel

The infamous photographer Rachel

The singing

I'll let you guess if you think he liked his first cake.

I think chocolate was the right choice. ;) This was the perfect moment! I LOVED watching his face light up as he got to claw through the frosting. He never really made it past that part, but his facial expressions were priceless.

As you can see, there were lots of children and even more fellowship! I had a blast and was so glad for the company as we celebrated keeping Luke alive for a year!

p.s. The REALLY good pics were almost all Rachel's, tho my mom got some great ones, too!
p.p.s. THANKS to my awesome Mom for doing ALL the dishes all week, but especially today!!!!