It's the Little Things: Birthday Edition

He went from happily playing with his balloons...

...to this, in 2 seconds flat. Not sure what the balloons did to him.

Honestly, this week was more full of "big things" than "little things," so although I'm adding this post to the little things series, hosted by Ashley and Jess, I actually think celebrating Ezzy's first birthday was a pretty big deal. (Obvs.) 

Ezzy's birthday celebrations really began on Friday, when my parents and brothers got into town. They came over and assembled Ezzy's birthday present: a rocking horse. I had one when I was little which I loved. As of now, Ezzy doesn't know what to make of it, but I'm sure one day soon, once he's big enough to climb on it and balance, he'll love it as much as I loved mine. Friday evening we went to dinner with Ezzy's grandma and grandpa Brett. 

Saturday was the big party, which was so much fun. I'll do a separate post just on that later, but I will say Ezzy loved his first encounter with cake. I've mentioned this a few times, but I was most excited about his smash cake, and he devoured that thing. It seriously felt like one minute there was a whole cake in front of him, then I went to the bathroom to get some paper towels, came back, and there were only crumbs left. He is definitely my son. 

On Monday my family took Ez and I to Disneyland. Last time we went to Disneyland, Ezzy was about six months old and hated just about every ride we took him on. (You can read about my tips for taking a baby to Disneyland here.) This time we didn't really bother trying to take him on rides. Also, I got away with only bringing one backpack (stuffed to the brim) which I was able to squeeze into the bottom of the stroller so we didn't have to bother with lockers. It helped that it was summer time, so I didn't need as many layers for him as in December. Ezzy spent the day with Gangy and Grampa while I went on rides with my brothers. I think everyone had much more fun this way. I got to ride all my favorite rides, and Ezzy got to watch the pretty girls dancing in the parade and spend 40 minutes trying to climb the big rotating water ball in Tomorrowland. By the end of the day it seemed that Ezzy preferred his grandparents to me. He definitely knows how to work the grandparent angle. At one point he had them alternating feeding him spoonfuls of pineapple whip. He would just turn his head toward Gangy, open his mouth and wait, then turn his head toward Grampa, open his mouth and wait. If one of them dared to take a bite for themselves he'd give them a wounded "how could you?" look. Well played, Ez, well played.

On Tuesday, Ezzy's actual birthday, we got the day started with breakfast with the family before they had to head home. The day was scorching hot, so my initial plan of taking Ezzy to the zoo suddenly didn't seem too appealing. Instead I thought I'd take him to the pool, but apparently they haven't opened for the summer yet (even though it's summer year round down here...). It turns out Ezzy was pretty exhausted from all his other celebrations though, because he took almost a four hour nap. When Joe got home we went out to dinner and Ezzy got to devour a birthday cupcake, then we went to an outdoor mall with a really cool Vegas-style fountain that Ezzy was mesmerized by. He was sitting with his feet in the water, just watching all the lights and the streams of water shooting up in the air. During the big finale Ezzy was bouncing along with the music and babbling loudly. Afterward we went home where Ezzy opened his presents from us. Once he realized he could rip the paper, that became much more interesting to him than whatever presents were hidden underneath the paper. He would've spent all night playing with shreds of wrapping paper if we'd let him. We got him a set of huge legos with cars and a bathtub basketball hoop with three small basketballs. You can see the video of us trying to get him to make a shot. His aim isn't quite up to par yet, but his enthusiasm was high.

Tuesday, May 13th (Ezzy's actual birthday):

Ezzy tries to score:

Monday (Disneyland!):