Charis' 1st Birthday Party

I know. I know. It's been A LONG TIME since my last post. Please forgive me. We've been busy!!

Today we celebrated our sweet baby girl's first birthday. Her birthday isn't until tomorrow (April 10), but of course it's easier to have a party on Saturday than on Sunday!

Here are a few things I want to remember about her first birthday party.

At the last minute (literally, late yesterday afternoon), I asked myself (and Ian) why we hadn't just planned her party at Chick-fil-A. He said, "Well, we still can." So I called the guests and changed the location of the party to Ian's store than our neighborhood's playground. (I began getting worried about "getting in trouble" with our neighborhood's security officer. We didn't make reservations through the front office or make sure it was ok with them or anything. I just imagined the security officer "crashing" our party, asking everyone for their little ID tags, and then promptly ending the party when he realized we had too many guests there than what they allow. I have no idea that any of this would have happened, but I wanted to spare myself the stress and embarrassment. So we changed it.)

There actually was another little girl's birthday party taking place at the same time at Chick-fil-A. This occurrence produced a couple of funny moments... 1) 2 men showed up at Chick-fil-A for the other party...they didn't realize there were two parties going on at the same time. So when they saw a nugget tray, a cinnamon clusters tray, and a tray of chicken minis on our table, they just walked right up and helped themselves! One of them even asked Ian and the other 2 dads at our party if they knew so-and-so (someone from the other party). Ian responded, "No. We don't know them." And the man just said, "Oh ok." And continued making his plate of food! 2) One of those same dads came over to our gift table and grabbed a gift from the table. "Sorry. I didn't know there were two parties going on. This gift is for the other little girl." We joked with him about stealing one of Charis' gifts, and we all laughed about it. He said, "Next time, I'll be sure to bring two gifts." :)

Another family was confused about who the birthday girl actually was. They couldn't believe little Charis was really turning one! I assured them though that she was actually 12 months old, despite her little petite body.

The cake pops were a hit! Well, all but little Sarah. She told me she didn't like them that much. But everyone else loved them. So that was fun! I enjoyed making them into little bouquets using the pails I found in the dollar spot at Target, and using the pinwheels to decorate the pails (that we also used as the party favors.)

Charis danced the whole time we sang "Happy Birthday" to her. It was so cute. She acted like she knew all the attention was on her, and everyone was singing to her...she ate it up! She definitely had no idea what to do with the candle on her cupcake. She came very close to grabbing it. But Bubba blew it out for her, and then Daddy helped her eat it. She LOVED it, and actually ate almost the entire cupcake. A couple of larger bites ended up on the floor, but the rest of it ended up in her tummy and on her face and hands. (We did a quick wardrobe change to keep her cute outfit from getting ruined for the rest of the pictures.)

She loved pulling the paper out the gift bags...but so did Bubba. He insisted on opening all of her presents. She got some cute dresses and outfits, a fun teapot set (which Cayman is in love with), a new bathing suit and cover-up, a book, new bath toys, sunglasses, diapers (more for mommy and daddy than Charis! woohoo!), a cell phone and Elmo toy.

I would say her first party was a huge hit! We had a blast, and we had some awesome friends drive over from Port Charlotte to share her special moment with us. We are so thankful for their friendship. We are even more thankful for the precious gift the Lord has entrusted to us for her lifetime. We love our sweet Charis Parker. We can't wait to see what her next year of life will be like!

Who knows where we'll celebrate her 2nd birthday! :)

Umm...I have to figure out how to add a slideshow. I have a lot to re-learn!