Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Big 1-Year-Old Birthday!

Okay, it’s official. And I don’t mean that our little girl is one-year-old. I mean that I’m not doing another birthday party anytime soon…like not for another five or more years!

The race to the birthday was exhausting enough. It’s a good thing I took Friday off from work or I would have never gotten everything done – cleaning the house, cooking, one-year-old pictures Friday evening and decorating that cake. I will humbly submit my cake photo. It’s certainly not winning any competitions – it wouldn’t get past the first round – but since all she did was destroy most of it anyhow…  Still, I am hoping and praying she goes for pie, ice cream, cheesecake – anything to get me out of decorating a cake again!

The monkey butterfly cake.

Since Ed had to work all morning of the big day and then go do the rounds to pick up his parents (a half day venture by the time you get each of them, drive half of Pittsburgh doing it and run a couple of errands for them), I did all the cooking. It was so windy and snowy (yes, our little spring girl got snow for her birthday while my winter birthday saw 70 degree temps – something is NOT right about that), the grill blew out a couple of times. But I got it done and everything was ready just after they all arrived.

Snow for the birthday girl!

In our birthday outfit – it has a butterfly on the front!

We enjoyed Emry’s favorites (mac ‘n cheese, strawberries, clementines) as well as hamburgers, brats and hotdogs. Then we opened our many gifts:

Pop beads from Aunt Grace – a toy she loves and brought back memories for both Ed and I who had sets of our own.

A Strider bike from Ed and I. Ed insisted, even though she isn’t walking yet and even if she were, her feet don’t reach the ground when she’s on it. But maybe before the summer is over.

And our favorite – the Little People barn, tractor, dairy barn and tons of animals from Grandpa and Grandma Sturm. We LOVE pushing the tractor back and forth and listening to Old MacDonald had a Farm over and over again.

We also got some money, a cute butterfly headband from Cousin Jay (as you can see from the pictures), a piggy bank and lots of books. (Amelia Bedelia being my personal favorite – yea, Aunt Grace, for starting us out right!)

Next it was time for the cake. She did not hesitate a moment. From the very second I put it in front of her, she poked her finger in and started licking. She loved every moment of it and made quite a mess.

Yea, a cake all to myself!

 
Okay, I think I’ve had enough now.

It wasn’t too long after clean up that Ed took everyone back home and Emry went down for a nap. It took her a while to fall asleep, but she and I both made up for it with a Sunday afternoon nap. After which, Ed’s brother and his wife brought over their three girls. (So much for trying to get Ed’s family to plan ahead by sending out invites a month earlier. They couldn’t make it on Saturday, so they called Sunday afternoon to say they were dropping by. His family’s last-minute everything drives me up a wall!) Still, Emry enjoyed seeing her cousins:

The Camus cousins – Caley holding Zoey and Macey holding Emry.










All in all, a very nice first birthday. But like I said, we’re not doing another one for five years…or maybe ten!

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