Birthday Round Up

The birthday extravaganza began Friday night with pizza and birthday cake with Bubbie and Dadaddy. She opened her presents from me - a silver tea service for "fancy" tea parties, some wipe off alphabet and number books and the Princess and the Frog on DVD. Then she opened her presents from Aunt Georgie, Uncle Harry and cousins Christopher and Suzanne, which included what has turned out to be her favorite present so far - binoculars



Not sure where she got the idea, but she actually requested these for her birthday a couple weeks ago. She's enjoyed wearing them in the car to monitor rooftops and traffic lights as we drive. They also came in handy at Central Market to see things on the top shelves.

Saturday afternoon our friends the Rileys came to town. Ellie and Jackson and Alice Anne played with pretty much every toy in the house and enjoyed their sleepover. I have no pictures of them, because I'm lame and often forget I have a camera when there's something special to take pictures of.

Sunday we and the Rileys enjoyed lunch at Kincaid's and then headed to Little Gym for the party. Ellie got a little more adventurous than the last time we were there, and decided to try out the uneven bars and the balance beam. Her favorite was the bouncy bridge. I'm trying to figure out the logistics of renovating a room in our house to install something like this. I think it could guarantee an early bedtime on a regular basis.





Ellie thoroughly enjoyed her party, with the exception of one crying jag after she blew her candle out at the beginning of everyone singing Happy Birthday and then got embarrassed when we relit it and told her to blow it out again. The combination of overstimulation, no nap and a long, tiring weekend of celebration was just too much for the poor bunny. She rallied and enjoyed the rest of the party, although in the parking lot she told me she was "big tired" and needed to go to bed. Once we got home she got a second wind and we snuck in some outside play time before crashing into bed. All in all I think we made a pretty good first birthday impression on this little girl!


And so begins her fourth trip around the sun - enjoy the ride, kiddo!