Bennett's First Birthday Party

This picture has nothing to do with Bennett's first birthday party. (It's a picture I took while we were on our way to his cousin Julie's third birthday party, actually.) It just makes me smile so I decided to post it first so I'll see it whenever I sign on to my blog.

Now, on to the birthday party pictures I should have posted 2 1/2 months ago...

You'll enjoy my blog more if you can completely abandon all expectations of timeliness.

Here we are celebrating Bennett's birthday at Cancun, our favorite Mexican restaurant in Boise. As you can tell, everyone thought the sombrero was a good idea except the birthday boy. I guess he realized it totally clashed with his shirt.

The next day, we had the family over for his party.

Here are part of the decorations for Bennett's "spider monkey" birthday. I don't know if I mentioned that we started calling him Spider Monkey when he was a few days old because he often slept on our chests in a spider monkey pose. But then Steve shortened it to Spider, which all the dudes think is hilarious and most the women think is a terrible nickname for a sweet little baby. Anyway, that's the reason I went with a spider monkey theme for my baby's first birthday. And since there aren't a lot of spider monkey decorations, I just got a bunch of spider stuff and a bunch of monkey stuff and called it good.

Here is the monkey birthday cake. My mom did most of the work and I took the credit, but only because she basically forced me to. (Ever notice how you can make a monkey cake into a teddy bear cake by moving the ears up an inch? Just squint a little, you'll see what I mean.) At the top of the picture you can see some inflatable spider legs and an inflatable monkey tail. Don't worry, they're attached to an inflatable spider and an inflatable monkey, respectively. It would have been pretty weird if I'd just used the legs and a tail as decorations.

Here is Bennett's very own monkey cake. (Yes, it's on a spider plate.) I was just going to slap some frosting on it and write "Happy Birthday Bennett" but Uncle Ty had other ideas. He turned the sucker into a cute little monkey face in, like, 5 minutes. He basically rocks.

Here are the spider cupcakes that I made to complete the spider monkey theme in pastry. I tried to be sure they weren't too scary because I didn't want our 3 year old niece and 2 year old nephew to cry when they saw them.

Here is our little family sporting our spider monkey party gear. If you look closely you'll notice my double chin...and also the fact that Bennett is wearing a shirt that says "Spider Monkey" and Steve and I are wearing shirts that says "Spider Monkeys are awesome!" We're basically awesome.

Here's Daddy helping Bennett open his Little People Airplane. He got way too many gifts exactly one month after he got way too many gifts at Christmas. But he's very democratic in his toy choices and he tries his best to give them all enough attention.

And here's the one you've been waiting for. A little boy completely stoned on his first taste of chocolate cake. He definitely has a sweet tooth or eight. He didn't make as much mess as I expected, but I expected utter carnage, so I'm kind of relieved he kept it to just really, really sticky.

Here he is modeling his hand-crafted post-cake birthday boy shirt made by my dear friend Lindsey's very talented sister. (You should totally check out her stuff and git ya some. A lot, even. It will make you cool.)

And here he is getting ready for bed the night after the party. He must have decided he needed a midnight snack, because he tried to devour the little pig from his new barn toy. Can't you just hear him saying, "Mmmmmmm, bacon!"? It wouldn't have been that funny if he'd just had it in his mouth for a second, but it must have been a full ten minutes of trying to eat the piggy. He's a little weirdo. So he fits right in around here.