Kelan's First Birthday Party

Caution: This is a "Proud Aunt" post. You've been warned :)

On August 17th, my youngest nephew, Kelan, turned 1! He is T's sister Meghan's youngest. I'm pretty sure we all can't believe how fast he's growing up already! On Saturday the 20th of August, they had a family get-together to celebrate his first birthday. And I actually remembered to break out my camera and take some pictures :)

The little birthday boy getting ready to get his first taste of the cake. He had one little candle on top and his siblings and cousins got to "help him" blow it out after we sang:
And then he got to "dig in". I'm pretty sure Kanyon was more excited about this moment than anyone else (look at his reaction in these pictures - Kanyon's on the left). With all of his siblings and cousins crowding around and getting excited, I'm pretty sure Kelan was a little gun shy about diving into his cute little basketball cake. He probably would have been a lot less shy without the audience, haha. But, he did get a good taste of the icing:
And here was the other cake that my talented sister-in-law, Meghan, made for the party. A jersey cake to go with the basketball cake, of course!
After we gorged ourselves with pizza, cake, and ice cream, Kelan got to open presents. Well, actually, Kelan got to remove the tissue paper from the bags while his helpful siblings showed him how to open his presents ;) We gave Kelan a book called "Swing". I'm not sure if you've ever seen or heard of the "Gallop" book, but this is just another book created by the same author. It just has a sports theme instead of animals. I was really glad that Kelan actually really liked the book:
He got some other fabulous toys and outfits as well. One of the biggest hits of the day was this little, soft bowling set. There were 6 little animals shaped like bowling pins and a ball that the kids could throw at it. All the older siblings really enjoyed taking turns setting up the pins and then throwing the ball:
And finally, I had to include a couple of pictures that really just melt my heart (especially because we have a little boy on the way). Here's T practicing to be "Dad" as he was playing with Kelan:

Kelan is just getting so big, and really enjoys showing off his new walking skills. It's become a fun game for him to walk back and forth between us with a huge grin on his face and arms stretched straight out in front. So cute to watch him learn. I love my nieces and nephews so much. In fact, I'm surprised how much I love them. And I can't wait to see how much more I'm going to love my own little man.

Happy 1st Birthday Kelan man!