First Birthday and First Shiner

We celebrated Grace's first birthday with family, presents and cake! (BTW, When did this year fly by? It is all just a fuzzy blur.)

Grace sure enjoys her little store (I put it together myself and it had a lot of steps and needed four different tools!), but Conrad likes it even more. (I admit that that was done on purpose--pulled it out before C-dog is too old to play with it, too.)

Lucky for us, big brothers are very good at helping open presents.


And putting them together.

Ta-da!

I "made" Ann's cake by buying angel food cake, cutting up strawberries and whipping up real whipping cream. And Evan Loved all the candles!

I really did make Grace's cake. It is a pink lady bug, in case you couldn't tell (Tyler was concerned about the lack of antanea and eyes.)

Grace wasn't sure about the candle or fire, but there were lots of cousins who took care of blowing it out for her.

But she loved the cake (This is my favorite part of first birthdays, thus all the photos):

She was laughing and hamming it up for the camera, Silly Girl!

Con enjoyed the black frosting, too.

And then it was time for a bath. Having the birthday celebration at Ann's house has its perks, such as frosting and cake mess in her tub (which she assured me is now Drew's responsibility, so we weren't making a mess for her).

If you look closely, you'll see Grace's first black eye. Just as I was going to schedule her one-year photos, she had her first major spill that left a mark on her face, on the printer's pull out shelf. It looked way worse in person and I feared it would make her look beaten in professionally lighted photos or close-ups.

Side-note: This is yet another example of how girls and boys are different, at least my girl and boy. Conrad had his one-year photo at 15 mos because he consistently had a major bruise or gash on his face from 11 to 15 mos, and beyond. We rushed into a studio the first day he had no noticeable owies, and he got one later that night. Seriously! And here is Grace with just one, and it has healed already.

I'll be sharing those cute photos we got last night as soon as they are emailed to me.