Family photo (before any of the blood, boogers or tears ahowed up)

Between the dining room being in shambles, getting ready to host a first birthday party, and spreading ten yards of mulch, you’d think we’d take the weekend to finish everything and clean up.  I mean even God rested one day.

But these two parents don’t conform to the masses.  We don’t do “normal”.  What we do is anything but traditional.  We go, we do, we make moves.  So in between a gym visit, a quick, but effective nap for all and cleaning saw dust out of every nook and cranny in the house, we crammed in enough excitement to fill up an entire week off.

We hit the road early this morning for music class.  There was singing and dancing and daddy getting yelled at for talking to much.  Pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then it was off to visit our favorite camera couple at Pink Elephant Photography. This whole baby thing happened so fast I can’t even remember where the time has gone. Today we pulled up to the studio almost eleven months after nervously arriving for his newborn photo shoot… And here we were, arriving for his first birthday.

You know you are in good hands when your son is photographed with duct tape holding his shirt on and the photographers commend you for your quick thinking fashion fix.  Our Pink Elephant ladies do an excelled job with our little man.  We only had to consider tying him to the tricycle once, and that was only after I dropped him.

So here’s where things started to take a turn for the worse.  I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the photo shoot was all rainbows and butterflies, because it wasnt.  It was a hard fought victory for the adults. Four adult brains working together to outsmart an almost one year old. You’d think the  scales would be tilted towards the adult brains, but anyone who’s ever participated in an infant photo shoot knows better.

It took wit and extreme bribery.  And I’m not ashamed to admit it.  Three outfit changes, a bruised eyeball, and gobs of baby hairgel would have you dangling whatever you could infront of your kid too.  Those poor, patient ladies… Just sitting there with the camera ready to snap away as every Small Potatoes album played over and over… It must have been like nails on a chalkboard after a while.

Birthday Bread/Cake (made with love)

But once mommy brought out that amazing “Birthday Bread” fresh out of the oven for the “cake smash” we hit the point of no return.  How can you argue with two parents so determined to keep up with the latest baby trends that they would be willing to sit their half naked son in a stranger’s basement and encourage him to “Hulk Smash” an icing covered cake (bread)?!! A few months ago I would have laughed at the thought of a “cake smash” photo shoot, yet here I was pushing my kid’s palm into a frosted banana bread.  (Parent tip: kids hate icing this young… Use some “treats,” we used his cereal puffs, to trick his little brain into wanting to attack the cake.)

OK people, listen, by now you know me… I’m not sugar coating anything here. It is what it is… and you know what you’re getting with these two parents.  We’re not perfect… We do some things we might not always be proud of (dropping Jax off of a tricycle and bruising his eye being one), but in the end how can you argue with the two people who made this: