Early-Birthday Celebration

Ryland shows us how many years he is: "1"!!

We were very lucky to be faced with the problem of "we have too many people in our lives that love our little boy - how are we going to get everyone together to have a birthday party for him?"  With so much family and friends (who, to us, really are just extended family) we began looking for facilities to rent for the big day - and the price tag was getting pretty BIG!  So we settled on 2 parties - one for our families in Ephrata, and one for our friends in Seattle.  So this weekend we drove back to Ephrata - it was a much needed trip.  My poor mom ("mimi")had not seen her only grandbaby in  3 months! 

We had his party at Time Out Pizza - really one of the only places to host a group in Ephrata and the same restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner at so many years ago :)

 

Mimi, Auti, and Callie decorated the place really cute

 Grandma Allred picked out a fun cake for the birthday boy

 Mimi, Chuky, and Auti - all were with us when Ryland was born.  What a great year we've had with them!

We've survived a year of parenthood!

 We rarely get a pic with all 3 of us 

 Not all the Allreds could be with us - but we got grandma, grandpa, uncle Russ, uncle Rian, Izzie, Isaac, and Ian.  We missed the rest of you!

 "G-Pop" and Lisa.  G-Pop gave Ryland the cutest book - the recordable kind.  I love that my dad can now read Ry-Ry bedtime stories 200 miles away!

 Ryland thought cake was pretty awesome.  He's going to be so excited when he gets to do THAT again this coming weekend!

 He's totally spoiled - and got so many fun toys and cute outfits for his special day.  Thank you, everyone.  He has been keeping himself very busy today with his new blocks, books, and puzzles and I love that he can entertain himself!

 Showing his cousins the Zany Zoo!  Such a cute toy

It was such a fun day - thanks to all the family that joined us to make it so special for Ryland.  He was hyped up after we went home and didn't go to bed till almost 11!  Little stinker.  He was all smiles the whole weekend.

Now the official birthday weekend is coming up - I've been crafting up a storm making decorations for his monster party.  Looks like we'll have 20-30 friends joining us to celebrate the past year.  Feeling so lucky to be able to share our little guy with so many great people!