Sir Jude Laurence's 1st Birthday

My younger brother's little boy, Jude, turned one on February 10th. His mom is so cute and fun that she wanted to make sure that he had a fun, all out, party with his boy cousins. And seeing as how there are so many boys cousins up in our neck of the woods, 6 to be exact, they and my Dad came up over the weekend to have the fun up here with us and boy are we glad! Cristina had a knightly party all planned. She unfortunately left the dishes down in St. George, but that turned out ok because she still made Jude a super cool dragon cake, she had remembered the swords and shields for the boys to make their own, and we found an inexpensive dragon pinata at a party store. We had the shin-dig out at the Peterson's house and to make it even more knightly, Marie had gone above and beyond by making all the boys their own comfy knight's tunic! We had a grand old time, decorating shields with our very own emblems, besting the beast (even the adults got a wack at it), opening presents, and slaying the dragon cake! The present opening also brought a surprise for us when Derek and Cristina had us help Jude open a present which turned out to be a book with the title of "Baby on Board" that was about teaching the older siblings about Mom having a baby! "Do you have an annoucement to make?" I asked. And sure enough! Cristina is pregnant - yay! It was a fabulous party! Cristina did a great job making Jude's 1st birthday a big deal. But, like all one-year old party's, there can get to be too much birthday fun (the last picture says it all). We timed it just right though, and shortly after that pic was taken, Jude was headed back to our place with Derek, Brian, and Ollie so that those boys could go to bed. Cristina, Dexy and I stayed to watch the Peterson boys while Marie and Ryan went to their ward's Valentines Dance. The Peterson boys even got to have a sleep-over with Grandpa Oliver. It was a fun night for one and all!