Kate's First Birthday

Kate had a wonderful birthday.

Hard to have a bad day when you start off cuddling your stuffed animals.

Her new trick is climbing up in the chair all on her own!

Then she got all dressed up for her party. 
She even let me do her hair . . . only because I let her watch a few minutes of her Curious George movie.

So pretty!

Finally, the birthday party . . . 

Lots of cousins, cake, presents, and balloons!

Kate handled it all pretty well, but seemed pretty curious about why everyone was staring at her during the whole party.

She was very happy when she got to get back into comfortable clothes when it was all over.

Happy Birthday, little sweetie!

Decision Through Indecision

I've been approaching one of the largest dilemmas a parent will face:

What to do for the first birthday party.

Image from pro-party.com

Do I do just a family party?

A party with neighborhood friends?

How about Kate's other friends?

One big combined party?

And, well, you can see the pressure I'm under.

So let me explain the long and extenuating circumstances under which I made my decision.

Days kept on going and going and going by, and I realized I still hadn't sent out invitations.

And then, Dave told me he was going on a business trip and asked me if Kate and I wanted to join him.

I said yes.

And voila!  The decision was made.

We don't get home until Friday night, and Kate's birthday is on Saturday - the day of Kate's family party.

So the decision is:

Only a family party this year and not a friend party.

Maybe I'm a bad mom, but I figure that Kate won't remember anyway . . . I'd rather do a fun friend party when she's two or three when she'll be more aware and more likely to remember.

Oh, the pressure of being a mother.

:)

The moral of the story is: if you put off making a decision, you won't have to make one at all.

Green Eggs and Ham

This week Kate attended her very first birthday party - her good friend Barrett just turned one!  They've pretty much been friends since birth, since they were born 6 weeks apart!  There were two other friends: Ellie and Morey, and the kids and the moms all have a great time (we were all best friends in high school).

This picture was the best we could get, considering the wiggliness of the one or close-to-one age.  I was waving a sparkly purple ball above their heads to try and get their attention!

Courtney (Barrett's mom) created a very adorable party theme - Dr. Seuss!  You're going to be just as impressed as I was!  First look at this food table - delicious, a lovely layout, and all related to the theme!

Green deviled eggs and ham sandwiches - I think it's pretty obvious that we're talking about Green Eggs and Ham!

Colored goldfish for One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and 7-Up for A Great Day for Up!

Talk about creative!

The kids loved the food too, and basically migrated from mom to mom begging for food :)

One mom got a little swamped all at once . . .

The one thing Kate didn't love about the party were the hats - 

(Sorry these next couple of pictures aren't that great - they were taken with my iphone)

She pulled on it until it came off.  And then gave me her "Mom, why do you torture me like that?" face.

But Barrett sure looked cute in his!

Happy Birthday Barrett!