Minnie's 1st Birthday Pah-ty!!!

The day dawned with a RING!!! Aunnie Becker, Uncle D and PQ called to sing Happy Birthday to her first thing... she was THRILLED!

We scooted from church a little early so that she could get home to get a good rest before her friends started showing up. I whipped around and hung up the decorations... do you see the timeline banner of pictures and the "Happy 1st B-day" there on the deck doors? :)

The food table before the food :) Grammie R brought one of her WORLD famous fruit platters, L&L brought their cheese, roni, cracker plate, and J brought a yummy taco dip!

The cakes!!! The big one is vanilla, the cupcakes are chocolate and the one just for Minnie was an over-sized CHOCOLATE cupcake ~ Husband and I decorated them ourselves! :) We were pretty happy with how they came out :)

My "big" birthday girl just as she woke up from her nap and realized she was starting to get a houseful of people! :)

Clearly still 1/2 asleep :)

Pretty psyched to see her BFF, Dani though :)

and her cousin Brando... uh... or David Ortiz. Tough to tell...

Once we told her she could open her presents, that NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO BRING, :) She seemed to liven RIGHT up

I love the concentration...

She figured out the fun of paper pretty quickly

Probably the gift she had the most fun with... as did everyone else... can you see the sheer giggly-ness on her face?

and the love of her family and friends all gathered around to watch her on her very FIRST birthday... melt.my.heart.

After presents it was cake time, OF COURSE!!!!

MMM just a little taste...

oooooo

yeah, this is PRETTY GOOD! :) YUM!!!

She had so much fun with her cake it was a hoot to watch her :) Makes me look forward to Dani's b-day this coming weekend :) hee hee hee ~ Might even be more fun when I don't have to clean up the mess :)

After cake it was all about playing with the presents!!!

And then they settled down...

and it was time to say bu-bye... and give Brando... or David... kisses goodbye

snuggled in with 2 of my 3 favorite redheads :)

So Minnie, what did you think of your very first birthday party? Pretty sure she loved it...

We asked Laura Jane to stay for dinner earlier in the week and it was so nice to have an extra set of hands... to give Minnie a bath to clean off the rest of the cake and relax her while I started to put the house back together... Minnie LOVES her time with Aunnie Lu-Lu...

a little light reading of the Little People Nativity directions and it was off to sleep for our big ONE YEAR OLD girl...

Wow that went WAY too fast... I'm just trying to hang on for the ride and enjoy every SINGLE moment.

*cake pictures courtesy of Dawsky Photography

*present opening pics courtesy of Dawson

*Minnie and I pics courtesy of J.T.

~ Thank you ALL for jumping in and grabbing my camera to capture these moments!!! They are priceless to me! ~