1st Birthday

I still can't believe it. I can't believe I'm posting about her 1st birthday. Where has the time gone?!?! I'll give you some stats on her, then I'll jump into the big party and the pictures :) So She is just shy of 20 pounds and 28 inches long. I'd say more like 28 1/2, but I'm not always fond of how the nurse measures her length. So I never think its quite accurate. She has 5 little teeth now. One popped through without any knowledge of ours until we were at the doctor and we noticed all of the sudden there was an extra tooth in her mouth!! She is eating pretty much everything we eat and loving almost all of it! She definitely is a texture girl and doesn't like some things based on texture--like hard boiled eggs and puff pancake. Although I'm sure that she will come to like that at one point :)

She isn't walking yet, but she is doing some more walking with a few little toys she has to aid that. She seems to be so afraid of taking steps. She even refuses to stand for any longer than a half of a millisecond. I know she could stand longer if she wanted to because she is very controlled when she sits down, but she is just scared. But I'm sure before long I'll be posting videos of her taking steps :)

She loves bathtime and splashing as much as possible. She loves to go up and down stairs. She loves the song "Until the Whole World Hears" by Casting Crowns. We call it 'her jam' and whenever we turn it on she gets a big smile on her face and kicks her legs.

Onto the first Birthday. We had so much fun! We invited the staff from church and a few related families and had a blast! There were a good 36 or so of us here all very cozy in home but I think everyone had a good time. We had burgers and hot dogs and Cupcakes. Due to the expertise of my mother, we decorated 48 ladybug cupcakes and they were SO SO cute. Makaela thoroughly enjoyed the frosting and a little bit of the cake. We were so thankful to have such good friends to celebrate with. Here are pictures and video :)

Even though we were busy busy busy all day, Grandma still found some time to get her hands on Makaela. Grandma was such a huge help and blessing!! Thanks so much Mom!!

The Cupcake Creation. We did a few grass cupcakes. I saw the "recipe/pattern" for the cupcakes online and we tried to replicate that as close as possible. I think ours were a little cuter, but I'm probably biased. Anyway, we had a lot of fun doing them and they turned out so cute!!

Before :)

During

More During

After

What's left of the Ladybug

I was a little disappointed with the video only because I totally forgot to take the chocolate chips off her cupcake before she dug in so I had to do the old mouth sweep to make sure she hadn't put one in her mouth. Then I had to take the rest of the chocolate chips off. But you'll still get the idea. She just went for it!!