One Year Old!

Caroline turned one on Thursday! Can you see how excited she was about it? She had a busy day at school and then Grandma and Poppy came to town and we all went to the Notre Dame Club cookout and Reverse Raffle. She didn't nap at all last week at school, so she had a snooze for the first 30 minutes of the event and then managed to make it until 8 p.m. The highlight for her was eating a cookie and getting to draw the first ticket in the Reverse Raffle. Later I got to draw a bunch of tickets, too. This photo was taken when we got home and she was long overdue for bed.

Friday morning Caroline had her one-year-old check-up and all was well. She weighs 23 pounds and is now in the 80th percentile for weight and 90th for height. As is to be expected, she didn't care for the shots. I, however, was very excited to see that she got two pink bandaids. Now she has started drinking milk instead of formula and Mom and Dad are rejoicing! She hasn't gotten the hang of the cups yet, but we're happy not to have to buy or make formula, so we will accept washing bottles for a few more weeks.

I have been so excited about Caroline's party and I talked about it all week. Every morning, I asked if it was party day. Finally on Saturday, I was thrilled that it was the day and I went off to do A LOT of errands with Daddy.

We had about 20 people over, eight of those guests were five or younger. The "bigger" girls ate and played in the princess tent that Mommy decorated. It was pretty hot at noon on our patio, so we had a lot of glistening faces. Caroline's nap ran a little late so the guest of honor joined the party slightly in progress. After lunch, Grandma resumed her kindergarten crafts role and led us in making an art project with lots of glue and pom poms and feathers. Finally it was the long-awaited cupcake time and Caroline loved it! She ate her first cupcake in about a minute and of course Daddy was happy to help out the birthday girl and giver her another one. And she ate the whole second one, too!
By this point some of our little guests were fading, so we quickly opened presents. Mommy had lots of helpers willing to help open the packages and several very thoughtful souls brought gifts for me as well. "Our" biggest gift was a wagon from Grandma and Poppy, which everyone was excited about. Caroline also got some cute new outfits and fun toys, too. And I was rather excited about the toy shopping cart that I picked out for her.

After the gifts we tried to coordinate a group photo of the girls, but that did not work out so well. The one below is the only one where some part of all 8 little girls are even in the frame!

Once all our guests left, it was nap time and Caroline, Hannah and I all had good snoozes (and a few grown-ups may have gotten a few Zzzzs as well). When everyone was awake and refreshed, we went out in the wagon. I was nice enough to let Caroline and Hannah have the first ride and I helped pull it. They were pretty funny in there with their white hats, stealing each others cups!

After that we played in the backyard under the tent and enjoyed our bubble machine and some of the dance mix that Mommy made for the party. While we were out there, Caroline took her first steps! Jen, Billy and Hannah left around 8 p.m. Saturday evening. On Sunday we had a tamer day. As you can see, I got a new piggy bank. We went to the park, did some errands and went out for a casual dinner. Our house is almost back to normal.

All in all it was a great birthday celebration for our Sweet Caroline.