Party time...

On Saturday we formally celebrated her first birthday with family and friends. Thanks to everyone...Nana and Granddaddy (thanks to Granddaddy for the delicious brisket later that evening), Uncle Greg and Aunt Jenny (whose dog, Raider, she was most fascinated with...at least until he wanted to lick her face), the Browns, the Barners & Barrett, the Steiners & the twins Jacob and Eva, Tonise & Olivia (especially her best pal Olivia!), and Ralph, for all coming out to make it a great time for all, most importantly of course for the birthday girl. Due to circumstances beyond their control Nana and Papa were unable to make it, but they did get to enjoy some webcam time earlier in the day.

Thus far Riley has not been a big fan of big crowds in any setting, so we were not quite sure how she would handle 20 or so people in our house. At first things were a little uncertain, and she more or less kept her distance and hung out with one of her play-sets.
But once Olivia arrived all was well. The two of them ran (or crawled) around together and, as you can see, had quite a time together.


After some food...
...and mingling time it was time to get down to business...presents! At first she was mostly interested in the wrapping paper, so Mommy and I ended up doing all of the unwrapping. Then her attention shifted to one of the picture books we gave her, and that was pretty much the only thing that held her attention until we opened the Little Miss Sunshine doll. The next morning though she realized she had quite a few new attention holders and she really enjoyed her Laugh & Learn Learning Home, as well as her Discovery Playhouse, Busy Gears, cookie jar, and her new "purse"...complete with money, lipstick, and bracelet of course. In addition to those fun things she also got some more much needed items...more clothes!
Earlier in the week (on her actual birthday) Mommy and I took her to Stride Rite for her first pair of "real" shoes. She wasn't all too interested in the sales guy, but she was more than interested in seeing the rest of the store on her own. As for the shoes, we, and she, liked them a lot. But seriously...how do baby sneakers cost as much as my own?

Finally it was on to more important business...cake! This cake deserves a little background though. Uncle Greg and I went to pick up the cake, a two tiered one with an owl on the front, earlier that morning. While we were very happy with the outcome, the ride home entailed Greg sweating it out while balancing the cake on his lap and us both praying none of the idiot Dallas drivers pulled out in front of us or stopped suddenly. Just in case disaster awaited us, I took a picture with the cell phone to prove that at least for a while we did have a very cool cake. Fortunately after a stop off to pick up a few more items for the party, we returned safely, and Uncle Greg spent the next hour in a dark room decompressing after that stressful ride. Ok, not really...but I am positive he felt like it. ;)

So back to the cake...we had given her a practice cupcake earlier in the week to see how she would handle it, and she handled that very well. In fact she was covered almost from head to toe in chocolate.

So we were pretty confident her cake would be a hit. Though it was a different color from the cupcake...pink instead of dark brown...it did not take her long to realize that it tasted just as good, and she dug right into the icing. She never really made it to the cake, but who cares...the icing is the best part anyway. For the record, I would like to officially recognize Mommy for 1. Delivering such a fantastic daughter. 2. Making all of the party decorations seen in the pictures. and 3. Everything else!