how do you measure a year?

on the 18th we celebrated ryder's birthday by having some friends over for dinner. we crammed 6 children(ages 3 and under) and 8 adults(we're not mentioning ages) in the back room and let the "fun" begin. the kids always seem to have a great time together which makes it much easier on the adults. ryder had no clue it was his birthday but his big brother was pretty excited to blow out the candle on the cupcake.

ryder opening his birthday gift from trent and julianna. isaac is struggling to get out of a chinese finger trap.

he loves his sugar even with the wrapper on.

it's always an adventure with 6 toddlers. barely controlled chaos.

trent and ryder man up

the large majority of the adults. the kids are all off camera playing with dangerously sharp objects.

give that kid a cupcake

somebody has got a muffin top

going, going...

gone! isaac was more than a little disappointed

a little madagascar to soothe the savage beasts

i heard the book was way better

surviving this night was a bit of a shock, but i think we were most surprised that a whole year had flown by since ryder made his cameo appearance before being rushed of to the NICU. little did we know that those 10 days in the NICU would be his most mellow days. homeboy now walks all over the place, and is beginning to say things like "ball" and sign things like "thank you". we are never quite sure if this sort of thing is "normal" but normal is pretty overrated anyway.