Our Weekend

This past Saturday we had a family party at our house for Lydia's first birthday. On Friday, Elizabeth came over to hang out and keep Lydia company while I cooked and made preparations. It was a big help since I spent the majority of the day in the kitchen!
There are quite a few "good cooks" in my family (3 of whom were at the party) and it is tradition in our family to make all of our cakes from scratch. (My Aunt Jenny made my wedding cake - it was beautiful and delicious!) I've made several kinds of cakes before, but never a birthday cake which I also had to decorate. So I set out and decided to keep the decorating as simple as possible. After all, Lydia certainly wouldn't care! I had to make two cakes (one for her and one for the rest of us) and three kinds of icing. (My mixer got a work-out.)

We ate on the deck, which was great because we just hosed everything off after Lydia played
with her cake. She probably only ate about 3-4 bites of it, but she had fun destroying it and dropping it all over the deck! Of course her every action was captured on film - I think I counted 5 digital cameras and 1 video camera! As you can see, she gave up on using her hands and decided just to try to get a bite straight off the highchair!


After cake, she opened up her presents which was hilarious in itself. She preferred to play with the wrapping instead of the gifts! Then, if a gift caught her attention, she didn't want to move on and open another. What can you do?! It was a fun evening and wonderful to have our family share it with us.