1st Anniversary & Jason's Birthday

We had our 1st Anniversary the Saturday after Justin was born. We had already decided having a baby was going to be our present to each other since my due date was that same weekend. (as well as Jason's birthday) Anyways, Jason surprised me with this beautiful necklace that he'd managed to sneak out and get for me. I was so excited. It was kind of an emotional (mostly good emotions, but emotions none the less) day still adjusting to having such a beautiful healthy boy and such a wonderful husband, and being a new overwhelmed mom . Jason managed to make it absolutely wonderful though.

So no, we didn't go on a cruise, or a vacation, or even out to dinner...but I couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. It's been such a crazy year with so many unexpected blessings. This was a perfect way to end such an amazing year: Spending a quiet day at home with my loving husband and precious baby boy.

The next day we celebrated Jason's 23rd Birthday. I'd been so excited about getting to make him a real cake since last year his birthday got a little forgotten in the craziness of the wedding/reception. I didn't quite have the energy to make it exactly how i'd planned but it turned out close enough. I wanted to do a beach theme since that's one of his favorite things. Cheesecake is also one of his favorite things, but since you can't decorate a cheesecake all that well, I decided to do a cream cheese frosting a filling between layers. It was absolutely delicious! Thank you cooks.com for the recipe! (: Oh and I discovered this wonderful place in Idaho Falls called WINCO where you can get all sorts of fun treats by the ounce, so I picked out different ocean themed gummies to decorate the cake with. I wanted to put a palm tree on it, so I actually used a chocolate salt water taffy and 3 alligator gummies that somewhat resembled palm tree fronds. It was quite a bit of fun to put together!



(Jason put one of the gummy bears in the ocean cause he thought the shark looked hungry :(