Emily's First Birthday!

So today, was Kaylee's friend's Emily's 1st birthday. So we all packed up and went to enjoy the festivities. Does the ball pit look familiar? It should, we like to share:)
Kaylee finally got to meet Emily's other friend Nevaeh.
Thick as thieves, Kaylee and Emily pal around in the ball pit (again.)
And soon another friend, Salvator joined in. In one little house, we had 4 September 2006 babies. Go Snugglebugs!
Kaylee and Nevaeh got along just fine. Kaylee was practically forcing the poor girl to play with the red ball.
We thought Emily was pretty mobile, but Salvator put them all to shame, climbing, walking, running etc. He's a cutie.
Then it was time for Emily to have some cake! Just as Kaylee is a ladybug, Emily is a butterfly, so she has a beautiful butterfly cake.

As the paparazzi popped flashbulbs as if it were Lindsay Lohan getting arrested (again), Emily dove into her cake. She was much more aggressive than Kaylee was. Jackie should have some great scrap booking material.
She even double fisted!
By the end she had destroyed the cake, but had a lot of fun while doing it.
She even decorated her balloons...with cake frosting! Hooray.
Kaylee tried on Emily's birthday crown before informing us that it was past her nap time.
Thanks for the great party Emily, Jackie and Phil. And again, happy birthday to Emily!

Humphrey Park

On Friday, since it was Daddy's day off, we went to the park because it was such a nice day.
We started on the swings!
Daddy gave Kaylee a push or 2.
Then it was off to the big slide! Kaylee had a blast going down with Daddy.
And again.
And down she goes with Mommy too.
Then it was back to the swings. I know this pic is back lit (bad bad photographer) but I hope you can see her little smile! She just loves the swing so much. (Note: this is meant to be a major hint to both Grandpas reading this.)

We pushed her a little higher.
And a little higher! "Mommy, this is kid stuff!"
And then so high that she basically went off my photo frame, but she loved that high flying fun. Our little adrenaline junky!
Yay for parks!

Playdough

OK so today, Mommy decided to do something totally new. She made some playdough for the little munchkin to squish her hands around in and experience some new textures etc. (This is a no cook playdough recipe which is edible, although not tasty so safe for the little ones--I am lazy and I don't like the playdough recipe where you have to boil/cook it--anyway if you want the recipe let me know, I learned it from my brief stint working in daycare a few years ago.)
Anyway--Kaylee wanted first to be sure I did it correctly.
"Mommy are you sure you did this right?" she asks.
I told her it was perfect and pink to boot! "Alright." she said, although she still looked a little skeptical.
But she rolled it around a bit. Picked it up. Dropped it back onto the table.
She examined small pieces of it that broke off.
Eventually she even seemed pleased with her new toy.

I think the part she loved the most was the somewhat greasy residue...
Or the goo-i-ness!
She wasn't sure about the taste though...salty!
"How did you playing with the playdough?" I asked her.

"It was great mommy...messy, gooey, salty, sticky...that's my kind of toy!"

Look at that grin!

And clean up is a breeze. Plus it stores for a long time in an air tight container so we can make this part of our daily routine if we want. And maybe I'll make some more colors soon!
Wow, 2 days in a row for posts!

playgroups!

OK, as many of you now know, I joined the Moms club in our area a few months ago. And now every Tuesday Kaylee has a playgroup...we rotate houses each week, so last Tuesday, we packed up and went to Madison's house where Kaylee got to play with all sorts of cool toys.
On Friday we went to a Moms Club Coffee Talk at Julie's house. Kaylee here is sporting her very first haircut which I did myself on Thursday (with much goading from Grammy.)
Still Kaylee enjoys not having her hair in her eyes anymore, it was that annoying length...not long enough for a ponytail, but long enough to be in the way. Here she is with her friend Megan at Julie's house. Megan's birthday is September 10th so they are basically the exact same age, but look how long her hair is!
And then today it was our turn to host playgroup. So we pumped up the ball pit again. You've all seen Miss Emilies before, and the little heart breaker with them now is Henry, another September baby. Kaylee has found a lot of age-appropriate friends through the Moms Club.

Kaylee doesn't mind sharing her ballpit with her friends. Here she's saying to me "Word Mommy, this ballpit is for all my homies!"
This is just a cute shot of Kaylee discovering the new gate system. She is officially climbing stairs now, so we are officially blocking them!
Oh, and just so you know what I go through all the time now. Kaylee is into this fake crying thing...which she basically does constantly. Its completely fake...she scrunches up her face and lets out a ridiculous wail. Believe me...it sounds as good as it looks!
That's all for now!

The Birthday Bash

Saturday, September 8th dawned like every other day for our little girl. Little did she know, this was going to be no ordinary day for her. We let her try on a hat...and play in the ball pit. So far pretty normal...

But then we got dressed, put a really fancy hat on her head...and her friend Bailey stopped by. Well...still, that's not all that abnormal. Bailey really enjoyed the ball pit too.
But then more people started arriving. And Grammy took her right out of the ball pit to make sure she got some Kaylee time (well that's definitely normal, for Grammy.)
And Ba, he's here too! "Wow I sure am getting a lot of visitors today," thought Kaylee.
Then Emily and her parents arrived as well. Emily met Bailey and then all 3 girls were fast friends. They played with the stacker cups.

They played in the ball pit.

And they played with Kaylee's activity table.

This was fine with Chase because it meant he got to play in the ball pit without worrying about hurting the girls.

All in all, there sure were a lot of people hanging around.
"Alright Mommy," Kaylee says, getting the feeling there's something amiss, "You can't fool me. What's going on here?"
"Well Kaylee, its your birthday! You're finally one year old, and all of these people wanted to spend your special day with you!"
"Wow," thought Kaylee.
For her birthday lunch, Kaylee enjoyed some cheese and hot dog pieces and she discovered her birthday balloon.And then it was time for some birthday cake which Mommy really tried to make look sorta like a ladybug...At first, Kaylee didn't really know what to think of this large red cake coming toward her.But she figured she better investigate.She was tentative and relatively clean at first, tasting the frosting and putting some in her hair for later.
She got a little more into it as time went on...using several fingers at once.
But this was as messy as it got. No face planting as Mommy had hoped, but it was better this way...Kaylee isn't generally that messy, so I'll be happy with what I got!
Besides, the red food coloring really makes the frosting stand out on her skin...she got plenty messy!
So after this, we changed her...as there was frosting all over her shirt and we did a quick wash of hands, face and hair so we could move onto our last event.

Presents!
Kaylee made out like a bandit. All of her friends and family were very generous.
More toys than hands...Kaylee explored each toy as they were unwrapped.
And found them all to her taste! Boy, Kaylee, your family and friends must really love you.
Later that night, after her party guests had departed and she had had a nice nap. Kaylee explore that balloon a little bit more. Who would have thought something as simple as a balloon would entertain her so. Forget the big expensive toys, books and clothes she had just received. Kaylee loved that 75 cent balloon!
"Look at what it does, Daddy!" Kaylee points out.Perhaps this is why Kaylee found something so simple so intriguing...look at what else she found...For some reason, Daddy thinks Kaylee is going to be trouble when she gets older...I wonder why!
So that was how Kaylee spent her birthday. We had a great time and we want to thank everyone that came and made her day all the more special!