We had the house all decorated when the kids woke in the morning... or should I say when JD woke. We ended up waking Allie around 6:30 AM so she would take naps at appropriate times and be in a good mood for her party!
After getting up and eating breakfast we gave Allie 2 of her gifts. Nanny and Poppy sent her this adorable shopping cart that she loves to push around the house. JD loves it just as much as Allie! She got the doll for Christmas from Santa and the wrapped gift was a small Sesame Street toy from Dave and me. JD had fun "helping" Allie open the wrapped gift.
As Allie went down for a nice, long nap, Dave took JD out of the house (I think they just walked around Toys R Us for a little while) while I finished decorating the cake and cupcakes and got the house ready for our guests:
The party started at 3:00 and, amazingly, almost everyone we invited came. We had so much fun. All the kids played well together and the moms and dads enjoyed a little bit of adult conversation. Of course I was running around like crazy and didn't really get to talk to any one person for very long but it was so great to see all of my friends and their little ones! Allie started the party in her special birthday tutu. When I ordered it I wasn't thinking it would be quite so large. The thing was about as big as her! She also wore a onesie with "Birthday Girl" and her name embroidered on it in pink:
Cake time came and we all sang. Allie looked at us like we were nuts. Our neighbor, Ethan, blew out Allie's candle and then she very neatly picked apart her cupcake. She was focused on one of the Oreo cookies until I held the cupcake up for her to take a bite and then she really dug in and made a mess! Surprisingly, she kept her hat on the whole time.
After cake the birthday girl got a quick bath (which she did not enjoy...she wanted to be playing with the other kids) and changed from her over sized tutu into her owl dress.
That's when we opened presents.... or should I say JD and I opened presents. This is what Allie did:
She got lots of great gifts from our wonderful friends and family but her greatest gift is the fact that so many people love her enough to come celebrate with her!
During the party we had a slide show of pictures from the past year playing on the TV. It's long but if you're bored and have nothing to do, sit back and enjoy. It's amazing how much the little munchkin has grown!
After all the guests left, I was left with two kiddos on sugar highs. JD wanted nothing but to eat "owl ears in Owie's chair"....
When all the owl ears were gone, a half naked Allie crawled off to see her new toys.....
After Allie went to bed and JD had a bath, the little nut insisted I tie all the balloons to his bike and he rode through the house naked for a while until it was bed time!
THE END!
P.S. -
Sorry for the delay in posting these pictures. As you can see, there were a lot to wade through. Don't worry, the final bear in the chair pic is coming soon. I wanted to post that with her 12 months stats that we'll get when we go for her check up on Thursday!
And most importantly, this post comes with a huge thank you to Christene Pippin who was kind enough to take over photographer duties for me so I could actually be a part of Allie's celebration. Thanks, Christene! You did a fantastic job!
