Birthday #1

On Saturday Chad and I had the pleasure of attending our little friend Eli's first birthday party. His parents (our good friends Pat and Kristin) threw a wonderful monkey-themed shindig for the little guy complete with an incredible monkey cake and all sorts of other fantastic food. I got to be the official photographer of the event, and I'm glad I could help out in that way since Kristin had her hands full with entertaining guests and Pat was busy manning the grill. Although I haven't gone through and edited all the pictures from the day, here are enough to tell the story of his party!

There were some terrific decorations.

Kristin and her mom made an incredible (and tasty) monkey cake.

Eli was very excited to see his friend Lakin and hugged on her almost the entire day.

He wasn't terribly into opening presents, but he did enjoy playing with the new toys once they were open. I got him this baby blackberry and he immediately knew what to do with it!

Eli had a split second of uncertainty when first given his mini-monkey cake.

The uncertainty soon gave way to this...

...and to this...

...and this! It was a very impressive display of cake eating/playing!

Today was Eli's actual birthday, and this evening I enjoyed more time with the little munchkin and his family when I did his official one-year-old photo session. I came home and started editing right away, and after just a single pass through the bunch I found quite a few that I really like. I hope his parents like them too! I uploaded them quickly in low-quality just so I could provide a sneak peak today!