One Andthensum.

Finally. And it's only been a month since her actual birthday! I say that's pretty good!

(Note- The party was actually yesterday, but this post has taken me a full day to get together... and I am too lazy to go back and change all the times... so... Saturday... the party was Saturday.)

Today was a busy day. We had 17 people over to the house, which included 10 adults, 7 kids between the ages of 1 and 12. It was crazy. We had planned on doing some grilling, but the weather was threatening to downpour on us, so we switched to pizzas. Six homemade pizzas, a homemade antipasto salad (because there are no good pizza places in St. Louis apparently), and way too many homemade cupcakes. All of which could not have been accomplished without my lovely mother-in-law and husband. We were quite the tag-team.

Anyway, we had glimpses of nice weather, which allowed the bulk of the crowd to eat outside, which was perfect. Then it down-poured and I realized much too late that all of our patio cushions were still outside, getting a nice bath. Uh-well. I'll get them tomorrow (yep- still out there. Go me.)

Well, the lady of the hour did fabulous. She is very much a people-person, and was just thrilled to have so many new faces here. And more kids to play with! And steal toys from! Yay! She was only mildly interested in opening presents, and began to meltdown pretty quickly at the end of that show. So what did we do? Stripped her down, threw her in her highchair, and gave her her own cake to down, of course! Here's some sugar kid! Enjoy! She was actually pretty shy when it came to the cake. It may have been the room full of people staring quietly at her. I wouldn't have wanted to eat either. She eventually dug in... all of which we got on film, of course.

What's that Laura? On FILM?? YES! but not on a new camera. I had one in the house that I have been trying to sell. I don't really like it, which is why I am trying to sell it, but for the sake of the event, I broke it out and let it get some use. So, for your enjoyment. A Picture Show.

The cake I made her. Apparently, I did not learn much from all of those Ace of Cakes episodes I have been watching. But hey... it's from the heart.

Alex really thrives when she is around alot of people. I am jealous of her skills, actually. She just played and played and played.


Proof of my festiveness. There were streamers. And balloons.


This is one of the few pictures where I can actually see that, yes!, there is some of my family in this child!

But then she goes back to this, all Paul. Not that I mind... cause she is cute.

The Happy Birthday chorus. She really didn't know what to make of it. (Another reason I put this one on here? It's the only documentation of my belly we got the whole day... so it's serving a dual purpose...)

She wasn't really sure of that cake. Or of all of the creepy people staring at her...

And finally, the finished product. Not nearly as bad as it could have been.