Gage's 1 year birthday...

Here's "Grandma Mike" (fondly named by Gavin because Pam is mother to Uncle Mike) holding her grandkids. In one arm she holds 2-year-old Madison, and in the other she holds 1-year-old Gage...and yet there is a very strange balance happening here. Though the kids are a year apart in age, they are apparently only ounces apart in weight. It's very funny to see!

Instead of a birthday cake for Gage, Gavin and I made a sugar cookie snowman with gum drop buttons and facial features. It turned out to be downright tasty, so Daddy's hesitation about no traditional cake was all for not. (An aside: Gavin is holding up his plastic pizza plate from his birthday party, not world's sturdiest and largest piece of rubber pizza, as it may appear.)

Of course, Gage had NO idea what to make of the whole singing, candle and sugar cookie snowman thing, so I took it upon myself to blow out his single candle. He was precious, as always.

I'm so glad for the occasional picture of the four of us together. Gavin was a ready helper when it came to opening Gage's birthday presents, as you can imagine, so I'm sure that stopping for a family picture was really delaying him in his "job."

Gavin and I made this sock snowman for Gage. We filled it with rice and put blue jingle bells on him to represent Gage's blue eyes. It was Gavin's idea to glue two of the orange pom poms together to make the carrot nose. A common line around our house for the weeks before and after Gage's birthday was: "Gagie, I love you so much that I'm gonna give you a birthday present. OK, Gagie?" And then each day Gavin offered something different. Here are some that I can remember: "It's gonna be my Legos...It's gonna be my tractor...It's gonna be my whole room." By the end, he really wasn't messing around! His whole room, huh?