DAX'S 1ST BIRTHDAY BASH

Time is a weird thing. Especially when you're a parent. You know the saying "The days are long, but the years are short"? Whoever created that saying, must have been a parent. It feels like yesterday when I uttered the words "babe, I think my water broke" - but here we are, a year later!

We chose to celebrate Dax's first birthday on December 4th, since his actual birthday is just three short days after Christmas and schedules are much too busy to fit in an additional celebration. It worked out great though because Jacob and Dax got to celebrate their birthdays together in one weekend (since Jacob's is on the 5th)!

We hosted a party at the Mellow Mushroom in Columbus, OH. We had some delicious pizza, followed by an EPIC, Cocomelon themed birthday cake that one of my very best friends (of almost 20 years) made for the occasion, and wow was it delicious! Over the course of the following couple of days, I ate the remainder of that cake, mostly by myself (and mostly by the fistful, if I'm being honest...it was so good!). haha

When we were thinking about themes for his birthday, we knew it would be one of two things - Mickey Mouse or Cocomelon. Cocomelon won out because it is Dax's absolute FAVORITE thing. We don't go a single day without watching it on TV and we can't even get through a car ride without having to listen to it on Spotify. haha *laughs into cry* To say that we are tired of Cocomelon, would be the understatement of the year. But nonetheless, it's what he loves and so, Cocomelon it was!

I didn't know exactly what the setup would be like at the restaurant and so I bought a bunch of Cocomelon themed decorations and sadly, we weren't able to use much of them except the balloons, but the table still turned out pretty cute!

I spent most of the morning, throwing together some goodie bags for the other young children that were going to be there. Dax's cousin, Ollie, was one of them. It was so cute to see how excited Ollie was for Dax to open his presents and he wanted to help so bad! He is the sweetest kid and I hope they have the best cousin relationship growing up.

Ollie also really enjoyed seeing the giant Hulk statue that they had in the restaurant. He thought that was so cool and I love this picture of him posing with it!

And even though Dax is only one and he didn't understand what was happening, he seemed to enjoy himself! He really wanted down so he could crawl around (he never stops moving), so he did start to get restless after a bit, which is when we started opening gifts.

Dax LOVES to read books, so we asked everyone to bring a book instead of a card and to write a short note somewhere inside of the book so that when we read it together at home, we can think of them. The books were a huge hit! It's the first thing that he went for when we started unwrapping. So cute!

There were so many gifts that we couldn't even get through them all before Dax started getting sleepy and on the verge of tears, so we moved on to cake. Sadly, he did not get to try out the gift that we bought for him (pictured above), which is a little bike by Wishbone Design Studio that turns into a rocker.

Two weeks later, he's still warming up to it, so I guess it's okay that we didn't get to it at the party, but how cute is it? I love that it's made of wood and it can even grow with him! There's an additional set of wheels for when he gets a little bigger, so that he can move in all directions and not just back and forth.

Dax doesn't eat much yet, so the fact that he tore into this birthday cake was a pleasant surprise! We were so excited that he was enjoying it so much, I could have watched him play in it for hours, but after a bit, he started throwing it on the floor so we had to stop, so that they didn't throw us out. haha

Once that was cleaned up, it was time to wrap up the party, so little man could get home to take his nap and get refreshed for round 2, at home. Later that night, we finished unwrapping the rest of his gifts and he had the time of his life playing with all of his new toys!

I couldn't have asked for a better first birthday for my sweet baby boy. We were so grateful for all of the friends and family who attended and helped us make it an extra special day! These are some of my very favorite people, who I've been friends with since middle/high school and we're still the best of friends to this day. I don't know what I'd do without them, but I'm beyond thrilled that Dax is going to grow up with such amazing people in his life. He has the coolest aunts/uncles ever!

Who knows what the next year is going to bring. All I know is that this little boy fills our lives with so much joy and laughter and we can't wait to watch him continue to grow. Happy Birthday, Dax. Thanks for choosing us to be your parents! We love you to the moon and back!