The Big Oh-One

Lacey turned one last Thursday, and of course as tradition dictates, I threw her a kickin' first birthday party. We invited the family over last night for dinner and some cake and ice cream complete with typical birthday festivities. So without further ado, here are the highlights...



The Birthday girl.

I will start with my favorite part. The traditional first birthday cake. This is the same cake pan that my mom used for my first birthday, and the same one I used for Lilia for her first birthday. Call it a family tradition. Mom made this same cake for all of us kids on our birthday, so when I got pregnant with Lil I got online and found the cake pan so I could continue the tradition. It takes me about 1 hour to cook it, 2 hours for it to cool, then about 4 hours to decorate it. All so we can cut it up and eat it in less than 30 minutes.

The cake:



We started the party out with dinner. Nothing special. Just spaghetti, fruit salad, breadsticks, and homemade rootbeer. After everyone ate dinner and the kids spent a decent amount of time playing at the park across the street, we gathered to watch Lacey open gifts. A few pics of her and I opening her gifts:





After presents, we sang to the birthday girl. She LOVED being the center of attention! Just check out that smile:


Then we gave her free reign on her cake. Unlike her sister, who refused to touch her cake, Lacey dug right in!


The damage to to cake. We let her play for a minute then took it away to start the carving of the cake...


We then gave Lacey a cupcake decorated for her by her big sister, and she proceeded to get that cake EVERYWHERE. It was GREAT! And of course a few pictures of the mess she made...







After a while we put a scoop of ice cream down on her tray. Before we could get her a spoon she decided her hands did the trick.


OH! Brain Freeze!


A picture of the happy, and well fed birthday girl:


And here we are, on our way to the tub:


After tub time she got to try out her new Ridin' Fun Car (Grandma and Grandpa W. bought it for her)


She seems to think that THIS is the proper way to ride it...


It was great to get the family together. We have a LOT of family. Including all the step siblings on Joes side, Lil and Lace have 32 aunts and uncle and somewhere around 26 cousins. We had most of them over last night as well as my cousin Ju, and a few neighbors. Lots of fun!

Now for something fun! Here is a picture of me and Lilia at 1 year with our cakes...

Lilia:


and me: