The Big Birthday Bash

Aaaccckk!!! Who set my cake on fire!

Oliver and his friends Julian (l) and Gigi (r) eat birthday cake.
Julian admires Oliver in his birthday crown.

Oliver turned 13 months old today. How is this happening? I'm just getting over the fact that he is one year old. I know what's going to happen -- one minute he is laughing his head off because he figured out he can suck on my nose and make me laugh and the next minute he'll be old enough to be horrified that he ever sucked on my nose at all. Ah, well... I want nothing more than for Oliver to grow up and find someone who's nose he can be excited to suck on.

Anyway, all this growing up business also means that it was one month ago that we held Oliver's birthday party on Baker Beach, right next to the Pacific Ocean for those of you that don't know the area. Given that we feel like we are just barely treading water most of the time we were fortunate that our friends Sarah and Sabrina stepped up and organized the party for us. Thanks again you two!!! It's likely that had they not done so we would not have had a party at all.

Well, in case you don't know this... one of the things that I love about George (and there are many things, mind you) is his natural ability to feel and express enthusiasm. This enthusiasm often often leads to excess. Not that that is a bad thing... it's just it usually takes me by surprise. So, the nice little party of 10 to 20 or so people I thought might show up turned in to about 60 or more! Oliver is one lucky little dude to have so many fans.

With so many people it was tough to chat with everyone the way we would have liked but it was fabulous to see everyone there. Folks brought their families, their dogs and their high spirits. George did a great job with the decorations; blue and yellow helium balloons, lots of rubber duckies to give away and a pinata. The weather turned out to be a bit foggy but it was pleasantly cool and not too windy. Perfect.

Somehow we managed not to take any photos. If there is anyone reading this who has pictures from the party please send them to us! We'd love to have them. Even though we don't have any still photos from the party, we do have some video. I haven't figured out how to attach video to the blog yet but I included the links to seeing what Oliver did that morning of his birthday at Sarah's here and the video of us singing happy birthday to him at the beach.

Thanks to everyone who came to the party and made it so much fun. And to those who couldn't make it -- we missed you!