Happy Birthday to You!



It's official! Andrew is 1 year old today! He already had his birthday party at Grandma and Grandpa's house (with Uncle David, Aunt Jenny, and his cousins Mark, and Adam in attendance along with Mom and Dad and Jonathan).

It just so happened that this was the week that Uncle David was in the states, so Andrew's celebration was made just that much more special because he could share in it!

Andrew (of course) didn't really "get" the whole gift thing (Jonathan and Mark were much more excited about the presents than the birthday boy was), but he "got" the cake!



His cake was a three-layer white cake with banana pudding and bananas between the layers and white icing with sprinkles on top.

The night before we celebrated, we (Tara mostly) spent a lot of time making the cake while the rest of us played "cards" with "the greasy deck" (the way we play cards is pretty strange, to say the least. It starts out like Uno, and we make up new rules as we go along with the winner being allowed to make a new rule each round). It's wacky and silly and fun.

Anyway, back to the party. After we'd eaten supper (well, our family had, anyway), I brought the cake in and we all sang Happy Birthday to him. Jonathan helped blow out the #1 candle (he was very excited about this).



Then it was time to eat cake!

While Jonathan stuck to the sprinkles, icing, and bananas, Andrew went in whole-hog. He didn't spend much time picking at his piece of cake before he picked up the whole thing and chowed down on it. He got it in his hair and all over the place - a wonderful mess!

In good Vinson fashion, Andrew didn't stop until his whole piece of cake was done. He loved it. You can see his "all done" sign (with his hands above his head - usually this also facilitates getting more of whatever on his hands into his hair - an added bonus).

After he was done, he got washed up in the sink. Though this might seem traumtic to some children, Andrew loved it. He even loved his funny hair after the sink-bath he received. Then he got to open his presents (and to crawl off some of that sugar he had just injested).

Now, on his actual birthday, we went to St. Marys for their Summerfest. They had lots of food vendors and rides there - that seemed to be it. Plus "all manner" of characters. ?????

We got there at just the right time - in time to make a lap around the vendors and rides, to let Jonathan ride the trucks (while "Metallica's And Justice For All..." blared from an adjacent ride, taking me back to my junior year of high school), to get some grub, and to find a shaded place to watch the parade.

We were by some really nice "big" kids (meaning that they were bigger than Jonathan), one of whom was sporting a 6 inch mohawk. They were really nice - their parents seemed nice, even though dad (?) was sporting a fine swastika tattoo prominently on his back (I wonder if the family would have been so nice if we'd been of another race) and one of the women was wearing a shirt that proclaimed, "If you think I'm a (witch), you should meet my daughter." Pure class. But par for the course, it seems.

Anyway, now the boys are bathed and in bed, and we can relax.

And, once more, Happy Birthday, Andrew!