Better belated than never?

On July 14th of 2009, we had a small gathering at Aunt Mel's house for Davis' first birthday. It was sort of a combo party with Jack since Uncle Greg and Aunt Sharon were in town from Missouri and would miss Jack's big party.

To prepare for the party, Jack helped decorate by coloring these banners. Hope made this cake in honor of Jack getting ready to go to Kindergarten. (Then we had to tell him he could't eat any of it. Poor guy.)

The man of the hour! He was doing his best to climb out of those straps and/or pull down that tablecloth, so this was a bit of a short-lived scene.

See what I mean about that tablecloth?

Aw, some brotherly love for the birthday song. Davis REALLY looks like Jeff's Dad Jarrell to me in the picture on the left. He used to make that same face with his eyes wide open. Aw, we miss Papa!

But, we did have the next best thing! We were very blessed with a surprise visit from Jarrell's little brother, Robbie Griffin from Salado. It made us get teary-eyed seeing Davis with Uncle Robbie because he reminds us so much of Jarrell.

Davis read his puppy card over and over while Jack opened a ton of gifts.

Love this pic of me and my boy. We've both gotten bigger since last year.

The fave gift of the evening was Davis' new sports field. Once Jack showed him how to use it, he spent the next year shoving EVERYTHING BUT those orange basketballs down that plastic chute as the crowd cheered him on.

Happy (belated) First Birthday, Davers!