Riker Turns 1

This post is a week overdue, but I can't let this month go by without acknowledging the anniversary of one of the greatest days of my life. Last week, our sweet little boy turned one year old. It's hard to believe that an entire year has passed. It seems like just a few months ago that we were bringing him home from the hospital and trying to figure out what parenting was all about.

Now Riker is like a little person, complete with his own likes & dislikes, an insatiable curiosity, a joyful spirit and the ability to make everyone around him smile. This last year has been an amazing ride, and it's been so much fun to watch Riker grow and change a little bit more with every passing week.

Last Friday Matt and I took off work to spend the day with Riker, doing things he loves. I took all kinds of great pictures with my camera...but then I dropped my camera, and it broke, and I lost them all. Thankfully Matt took some pics of the day on his phone, so I finally nabbed his photos today. So one week later, I can finally say happy birthday to my little man on the blog!

Riker loves animals, so we took him to the Philadelphia Zoo for the day. I like that zoo because it focuses on conservation and what's best for the animals (they even recently gave up their elephants because they felt the elephants weren't happy there). We saw all kinds of big cats, bears, giraffes and other cool animals, but the otters were definitely Riker's favorite. They were actually playing with him from inside the tank!

After covering nearly every square inch of the zoo, we headed down to Philly's Love Park where the city had set up a festive Christmas Village. I love all things Christmas, so I loved all the lights, music, decorations and festive snacks they had there.

We were starving by the time we arrived but didn't feel like sitting down at a restaurant, so we stopped at one of the gourmet food trucks for food we could walk with.

I ordered a spinach, broccoli rabe and sundried tomato grilled cheese with sharp provolone on whole wheat. Food truck, what?! It was amazing! I offered to share mine with Riker, but he was much more interested in Matt's chicken cutlet sandwich. Ah, well. Guess he won't follow in his mom's vegetarian footsteps.

It was impossible to avoid all the sweet goodies being sold, so we also bought a small bag of chocolate covered pretzels. They didn't make it very far. :)

After a full day in Philly, we packed up and made the 1.5 hour drive home. Matt and I had a 30th birthday dinner to go that night, so we had to postpone Riker's birthday dinner until Saturday. We didn't  want to throw a big party right before the holidays, so we decided to do a low key dinner at our house with immediate family. Riker's favorite food hands-down is lasagna, so that's what we made the birthday boy.

Followed by presents and birthday cake, of course.

He had a lot of fun opening the presents and crawling around in all the wrapping paper. 

Ice cream cake for birthday is a tradition in our house, but honestly, what says first birthday better than funfetti?? It may not be the prettiest looking cake on the block, but it was devoured in about 2 minutes.

Cake everywhere!

I've been pretty strict with Riker's diet, so this was the first time he really had sweets. It's safe to say he liked it. :)

Happy birthday buddy, we love you!