happy 1st birthday vaughn!

on monday, my sweet son turned one. but since i had to work, we celebrated on sunday. rachel and her family and catherine came home for the holiday weekend, so i had lots of help preparing. we decided on a race theme, so we got checkered material and rachel and trey made tablecloths and a banner out of it. mom got a race car pinata and we used grandpa's indy 500 glasses. trey was nice enough to grill the chicken. and mom, catherine, rachel and i made potato salad, beans, bi-layer jello, four layer dip, and cream cheese dip.
josh swept the shop and after dinner they had a race on the plasma cars. ellis has spent a lot of time on the cars, but instead of using his arms to propel the car, he uses his feet. we thought that a father/son race would be fun, but ellis wanted to steer AND put his feet down, which wasn't possible with trey on the car. so halfway through the race ellis starting crying and screaming, but the still managed to win. brian and ben (josh's cousins) had car trouble and no pit crew, so they sadly came in last.
afterwards, we had cake and ice cream. mom made this awesome race track cake, but it was too windy for the candle to light, so we had to pretend. vaughn probably would have put his hand on it anyway, since he grabbed it off the cake.

all of vaughn's guest were very generous. he got books (pigs in hiding, scarlet monster lives here, and a wrinkle in time) from aunt catherine, lego blocks and a stacking wooden train from mom, an inflatable pool (we put him in it and he splashed around, but it was a little cold) and little swimmers from rachel, and clothes from grandma deb. he also got a swing, flashlight, shape sorter, and a zebra bouncer. we got him a puzzle and a hammering bench which he has already dented. vaughn got so many toys, we are seriously going to have to reconsider his play area setup.
the rest of the pictures are on the web album. thanks to everyone that helped with preparation and clean up, and we missed those that couldn't come. hopefully we'll see you during his second lap!