It’s hard to believe it’s been a month since Will’s first birthday. I know the timeliness of this recap is a bit late, but I wanted to go ahead and share his first birthday celebration anyway since it’s the start of a tradition I think we’ll keep for many years, and because this blog serves as a sort of time capsule to many of the milestones in our lives and it only feels right to document how we marked this occasion. Plus, the photos are cute and I wanted an excuse to post them.

For starters, let me just say that birthdays are a big deal to me. I like to celebrate. I like to give presents (who doesn’t!?) and I like to eat cake. Again, duh.

So, I knew I wanted to make Will’s first birthday feel special even though he’s too young to remember it. It fell on a Monday and Wyatt and I both had to work, at least part of the day anyway. Still, I think birthdays are meant for doing whatever the birthday boy or girl wants to, so we decided to do all of Will’s favorite things, including lots of time playing with his cups. The kid loves cups, and I was happy to oblige him all morning.

The real fun started that evening when Wyatt got home from work, though, since we pretty much play with cups every day anyway. First, we headed to the park near our house to swing. Yes, we have a swing in our backyard but going to swing at the park felt a little more special. And, he had lots of fun.

Plus, he got to go down the slide for the first time which he thought was pretty great.

After playing for awhile, we headed to Chick-fil-a to eat chicken, which is another of Will’s favorite things to do. We didn’t get any good photos of this because, let’s face it, the kid is all business when it comes to eating chicken.

He was having a good time, though. I promise.

And then, we went to the mall to pick up my Mother’s Day ring that had been resized, and even though Will doesn’t care for much for shopping, he got to hunt some Pokemon with dad while they waited, and he thought that was pretty entertaining.

When it was time to head home, he got to eat some birthday “cake.” I posted all about his actual birthday party, including his healthier smash cake recipe, HERE.

He was slightly more enthusiastic this time around with the cake, and after eating all the blueberries on top, he had fun playing with the cake more than eating it, but then again, he was full from all the chicken he had scarfed down. Before he got too crazy, it was time for bath and bed.

All, in all, a really sweet way to mark our sweet boy’s entrance into the world. It was good to reminisce about the year before and some of our favorite moments and hardest moments. And, we had fun to compare what we were doing this year with what we were doing last year at that exact moment when I was in labor. (For Will’s birth story, CLICK HERE.)

Thanks for letting me share some memories of Will’s first birthday celebration with you all. As he gets older, I hope to continue to let him choose to celebrate his birthday with his favorite things. Wyatt isn’t a huge fan of birthdays, but I think even he had a nice time celebrating Will. Ha!

How do you celebrate birthdays? Any other favorite birthday traditions to share?