What will Eli do with his first birthday cake?

 We love to take pictures of our smiling baby grandson (and our smiling son). It's so easy to do these days because he seems to be happy all the time. So we were looking forward to a smile-filled first birthday party. We were all excited to see what his reaction would be to his first birthday cake!

It's hard to believe that it has already been twelve months since he was born. If you follow the blog, you might remember that it was also twelve months ago that Mark and Denisa had Covid-19. We missed being there for his birth because we were in quarantine! But one year later, we are glad to celebrate this birthday with others. The balloons are decorating the inside of the house . . .

as well as the outside. We're also blessed with great weather!

We're celebrating at the other set of grandparents' house in the Oklahoma City area. That will make it easier for more relatives to attend. While Eli is taking a well-timed nap, we are doing some last-minute cleaning. That includes leaf-blowing outdoors. Big sister Carter loves to get in the way of that leaf blower to catch the wind in her long hair!

Eli took a long nap, and was certainly surprised to find so many people had arrived to celebrate his birthday. He was a little overwhelmed with all the new faces, and seemed to be a little uncomfortable with being the center of attention. When he was placed in the seat of honor, he wasn't his usual smiling self. Incidentally, that seat of honor is a wooden high chair that has been in the family for many years.

When his own personal cake was placed in front of him, he was a little perplexed. His shirt is off, because we're pretty sure he is going to be a very messy eater as he enjoys his first birthday cake.

Then the entire group burst into song, as we all sang "Happy Birthday." We must have been terribly off-key, as Eli burst into tears. Sorry, Eli, but most of us were laughing at this point.

Even with gentle prodding from his big sister, he didn't want to have anything to do with that cake! He hasn't tasted much sugar in his young life, and he didn't like it one bit. We were taking video, as we were wanting to capture him digging into that cake with delight. Instead, an uncle put that video on facebook with the song "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to."

We didn't take many more pictures during the party, as Eli wasn't a very happy birthday boy. This was the first time that Denisa's Mother got to see this new great-grandson, and she didn't get to see many smiles.

But after most people left and they took away the cake and quit singing, we got our happy Eli back.

We got a good picture with the birthday boy and Uncle Blake and Aunt Claire.

It was great to have all our kids and grandkids together today to celebrates the newest family member's first birthday!

We took a walk around the lake this evening, and Eli is still smiling. That group includes Denisa's favorite guys! That's a good-looking group of Engel-men!

Then we played inside, where Eli loves going up the stairs . . .

but hasn't figured out how to get safely back down. It's good to see that he still has birthday smiles this evening.

Big sister seemed to enjoy the party more than the guest of honor. We enjoyed a dance party on the stairs and good hugs with Gram.

The balloons all came down and Eli enjoyed the clean-up part of the party the most. So when you read the title of this blog, "What will Eli do with his first birthday cake?" you now know the answer. After all, it's his birthday and he can cry if he wants to!