1st Birthday!!! September 6, 2008

Mommy and William with his "in space" cake.

William was not sure what was going on.

He was not happy with all the noise that singing "Happy Birthday" brought.

He was also not sure about the cake.

Maybe he was strategizing (is that a word?) on how

best to consume this hunk of chocolaty goodness.

Ok. So his strategy was not very good.

Most kids would shove chunks of it into their mouths.

Not Dainty William.

His finger had to touch it; then his hand had to mash it.

Then he his two fingers would gently pick

up minuscule pieces and place it in his mouth.

Yes, he is licking excess off of his arm.

Heaven forbid he should get too messy!

You saw the hunk of cake in the previous pictures,

that is how he left it when he was finished.

He is a happy boy with sugar in his system!

Although he looked unsure of the cake earlier, he did love the cake.

And the whipped cream icing. MMM.

We went into St. Louis on Labor Day weekend. It was a very quick, very tiring, yet, very fun weekend. Saturday we drove in to Cuba, Missouri to go to a Power family reunion. This was the first without Jerry, Mike's father. I think we, being Mike's immediate family, all agreed that it felt a little awkward. Nonetheless, we all enjoyed our time together as an immediate family. We were able to spend time with Mike's brothers, their wives and children, and Mom Power that we may not get to spend with them later on this year(due to Mike's busy schedule right now; I'll let Mike fill you in on the details of his work later). We stayed the night with Mom/Grandma Power. William and Grandma had such a great time playing together. I've got some great video of Grandma making William laugh. He sometimes laughed so hard I thought he was going to have a heart attack.

On Sunday, we held a 1st Birthday party for William at Grandma Power's house. The celebration was a week ahead of his actual birthday, but we couldn't make it in town any other time.

Listen to this; this is incredible... Both sets of William's great-grandparents were able to make it to the party. We got lots of pictures of the 4 generations. It was so neat to see. I don't have copies of the pics of both sides of the family yet, so I will not post those until I get the other side. The rest of the guests included grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and close friends.

William was a little overwhelmed. He did not allow anyone to hold him or kiss him; except Mike and I, of course. He got used to it once he got some sugar (cake) in him. That's when he started running around with his cousins.

All in all, it was a GREAT weekend.