Boot Scootin' Root tootin' 1st birthday celebration!

Aunt Laura and Aunt Ashley and Mommy with the Birthday boy! The cute banner behind us my mom made. It said "Happy Birthday Daniel" out of yellow bandanna print paper on a blue and brown border background, strung with leather, it turned out SO cute!

Mike and I love having big parties! Mike smoked boston butts all day that were cut up to make barbecue pork sandwiches, it turned out delicious! We also had fried okra (thank you dad for frying it in our big turkey fryer outside!) and macaroni and cheese (thank you Ashley for quadrupling the recipe!) Ashley and Laura also made yummy homemade salsa for the appetizer. We put out pretzel rods, twizzlers, and beef jerky in mason jars tied with raffia on the kids table for them to nibble on before dinner.

We had close friends and family over for the party. Pictured are our marriage mentors, George and Diane, my paternal grandparents, Pete and Arlene, and my parents, Doug and Kristin. All these people at this table are 100% Dutch (except my mom and Daniel). I made this table clothe by hot gluing a thick rope to the outside edge of the bandanna print fabric. Mom arranged all the flowers in mason jars with red, blue, and twine or raffia ribbon tied to the them. She picked some wild flowers out of our yard, off the side of Thomasville road and some were store bought. She did a great job. Each jar was placed on a colored (either red, green, turquoise, orange or yellow) bandanna print 8x8 piece of paper.

Aunt Ashley with little buckaroo outside on our NEW deck sitting on some bales of hay!

George and Diane hit it off with my grandparents, Daniel's great grandparents!

Mimi with Aunt Ashley, Aunt Laura, mommy and Daniel. I think Daniel was ready to eat!

Ashley made Daniel his own "smash" cake. Mike wanted this cake to have regular frosting (you will see in the other pictures that the big cake has fondant frosting). He wanted Daniel to be able to smear it all over his face and really get into it. Well, Daniel surprised us! I think a combination of factors played into the birthday cake let down. :( He had been fed ALOT prior to the cake, he was probably overwhelmed by all the people singing to him and staring at him, he was probably tired and he had never had a dessert before. So he looked at his cake, stuck one finger in the icing and tasted it, then he started crying. We tried to give him a bite of the cake and he took it out of his mouth and threw it on the floor. It's such a build up to the cake, but oh well, if he doesn't like sweets, that is a good thing, right? Oh, one more thing, I lost it during singing "Happy Birthday," I couldn't even choke out the words, I felt that BIG lump forming in my throat and then the tears started pouring, what a mess! My baby turned one, I made mostly through the day being ok, but the singing got me! ;)

Mimi and Papa with their first grandchild on our front porch. Mom and Dad got here Friday night after Daniel was already asleep, when I got him up on Saturday morning (which this is the first time I cried, by the way, about him turning 1), I took him outside to see Papa, who Mike had already put him to work! :) Daniel said, "Papa" very clearly!! We were both surprised and so excited that he said it! In my previous posts, you probably read about our backyard renovation and all the friends who so graciously gave their time and energy to help lay sod and build our deck. (It got finished Friday night about 10:30 and it looks FABULOUS!!!) But Mike still wasn't finished with his master plan for the backyard. He had my dad up early on Sat. morning to go get a truck load of mulch, then they worked on landscaping, mowing, blowing, edging, and cleaning. It looks great and is a VAST improvement over what it originally was!

Mom made this cute star wreath for the front door. It's kind of hard to see but inside the red bandanna star it says, "Daniel" in black with a "1" in brown polka dot paper.

This is our new (to us) kids table. I bought it used from my friend Stephanie (who is cleaning out her playroom for baby #3). It was originally from Wood U and had never been finished/painted. It had some coloring marks, pen, stickers on it that I sanded off (thanks for lending me your random orbit sander Brian!) I painted the legs, sides of table and chairs with navy blue high gloss spray paint and the top of the table I brushed on black chalkboard paint. I think it turned out really cute. Stephanie then found this cool chalk ink that comes in a pen. It washes off with a wet cloth and looks like you painted on the chalkboard paint.

The cake stand is made from real horse shoes (that I bought at the Tractor Supply Store), that a friend's husband welded for us. Thank you Ryan!! It turned out perfect! The bottom layer of the cake is supposed to look like blue jeans (kind of hard to see in this pic), middle layer like a bandanna, and top layer like a cow print. Clara, a friend from work (she actually makes cakes with her dad, they have made several of her siblings wedding cakes) gave me the recipe and tips on how to make fondant out of marsh mellows that tastes better than plain old yucky fondant. Underneath the fondant was a layer of cream cheese frosting used as the glue to hold the fondant in place. You know me, I got the the cake mixes B1G1 free a while back (bottom was yellow butter cake, middle was chocolate w/ choco frosting under fondant, top was white cake). It helped that I made a practice cake 2 weeks ago, I learned from some of my mistakes what to do differently for the real deal.

Mommy and Daddy with our little cowboy. We are so thankful the Lord blessed us with Daniel after 4 years of desiring to be parents! He is such a gift! I pray that I remember that he is not my own, he belongs to the Lord. We are learning that parenting is a wonderful, challenging, sacrificial, humbling journey and apart from God's grace, we can't do it on our own! Thank you to ALL our friends and family who prayed with and for us for this little boy! We love you all and feel immensely blessed beyond measure at the outpouring of your love and prayers!!

We LOVE you Daniel! Happy 1st Birthday!!!