The Walker Family: Our Little Monkey Turns One (Oct 2009)

Previously, at the Walker House…

Finn started the tradition of “birthday week” early in life. His real birthday landed on a Thursday, so his party wasn’t scheduled until the following Sunday.

Not to worry! Auntie Jennie & cousin Rylie came to visit. so Finn spent his birthday day playing with family at Nana & Papa’s house & then that evening, we had some birthday ice cream & opened presents (round 1).

Smile!

have you heard? it’s my birthday!

note the change of expression when he sees the candle…

you’re gonna love ice cream, kid. it’s in your DNA.

cousin Rylie “helping” finn open his presents

Our attempt to get the cousins to take a picture together took some perseverance, but paid off in the end.

SUCCESS!

Thanks so much to Jennie & Rylie for making the trip out to celebrate the Big 1 with Finn & family. It meant so much!

The weekend following, we threw another birthday party for the Finn-man. What started as a “family-only” affair ended up getting a little bigger than we had planned for, but we still think everyone had fun, even our little birthday monkey.

Unable to resist, I bought Finn an absolutely adorable monkey costume for Halloween. We didn’t actually GO trick or treating, but since his party was pretty close to the 31st we (I) thought it would be OK to dress him up for the grandparents for the first part of the party. He was a good sport to say the least.

Then all the other kids & adults showed up, we ditched the monkey costume and settled in for the party portion of the day.

For grub, we had a “make your own pizza” bar, thinking it would be fun for some of the older kids (& let’s face it, some of the adults too) to get involved in the food prep. Plus, pizza at the time was one of Finn’s favorites!

The cake was supposed to look like a monkey as well (to match his birthday invite) but it didn’t come out great. Luckily, Finn was too young to care and the cupcakes were still delicious!