Happy Birthday Avery!!!!

Happy FIRST birthday to my sweet little Avery! I don't think 1 year has ever gone by so quickly. Honestly. But what an amazing little girl I have ... she is pretty much always happy, smiling and sweet. She gives the best little hugs and she loves to snuggle. I am going to miss my little baby, but I'm excited for all the upcoming milestones too.

I spent most of Saturday baking; I made one big cake, shaped like a cupcake, two dozen big cupcakes, two dozen mini cupcakes, and one personal cake for Avery. It was a lot of baking and a lot of decorating! I have so many memories of my mother baking cakes (from scratch, no boxed cake mixes like I use!) and decorating them beautifully when I was a little girl. I have a long way to go to get to my mother's level, but I'll have fun practicing. I really do enjoy it ... until I catch Reagan putting her hands in everything, then it gets a little tricky!

This morning, I got Avery dressed in her new blue dress, courtesy of the Siebenberg family - Thanks Camille! Then we let her open the presents my parents sent. They gave her an adorable fleece outfit, as well as a navy blue polka dot dress. The dress is size 2T so it will fit her next summer ... Reagan fell in love with it and insisted on trying it on over her pajamas:

You might notice this is the same dress Makenna is wearing in their family pictures ... my mom thought it would be fun to get all the grandkids matching dresses for a future family portrait. Reagan will be opening her birthday gift in just a few weeks, so I'm assuming her dress will be pink and white, like the one Samantha has. Too cute!

Avery still loves to stand up on her own, but when you ask her to walk to you, she takes two steps and then lunges toward you! The walking is coming along pretty slowly, but that's okay. I'm really in no rush. She gets around so quickly by crawling, that I don't think she sees any reason to walk yet.I spent the entire day cleaning the house, getting it ready for Avery's little birthday party. We tried to keep things really simple this year, so we only invited John's family, and then my two good friends Meredith and Nicole. Unfortunately, Meredith couldn't come because she had tickets to "Day out with Thomas" ~ we missed the Caulfield family!

Here are TONS of pictures ... I'm getting worse at narrowing down my photos for my blog. I just don't want to leave anyone out! So here are the pics from the party ~ I'm pretty sure I included at least one picture of every person in attendance!

Here's Avery after she woke up from her nap, getting her hair done for her big party!

Mia and Avery

Ethan and Gabby

Maribel and Debbie


Josh playing with Bennett

Avery with Abuela

Marcelo and Chris

John, Pepin, Jose Avery and Nayda

Maribel, Amanda, and Nicole

Doreen at dinner time ... We ordered some Italian food from Cousins in River Vale; Penne with vodka sauce, Meatball Parmigiana, and Chicken Marsala. I decided to spend my time baking the desserts instead of cooking the meal!

Alexis

Jose and John

Lauren and Mia

The Mendez Family

Here's video of us singing Happy Birthday to Avery and the initial eating of the cake

(I've been having lots of issues with this video clip, so if you can't view it, try clicking on it at the bottom of the post where I posted it again)

Reagan helped Avery blow out her candle

Video of Avery eating her cake

Avery didn't hesitate at all ... she dove right into the cake and devoured it! Of course, I had no doubt that she would love it ~ this girl loves to eat!!

Reagan's new favorite game is Hide and Seek ... her favorite place to hide is this closet in the living room. She and Mia were having a lot of fun hiding in there!

Avery and Papa

Nicole and Chris

Happy little Avery

The kids were all running around like wild animals. It got pretty crazy after the cake, so I guess they were all on a sugar high. I love this above picture of Jose going through the door. He was a good sport, playing with all the kiddies.

Twirling in their party dresses! Reagan's dress was actually a size 2T ... it's been sitting in her closet for over a year and she's never worn it. Glad she got to wear it before she (hopefully) GROWS out of it!

Mia, Maribel and Joaquin

Joaquin and his uncle Jose. Joaquin wanted a cupcake so Jose gave him one. Then Jose opened his mouth and asked Joaquin to share ... Jose ate the whole thing, something Joaquin wasn't expecting! So Jose gave him a new cupcake, and when Jose opened his mouth again, Joaquin started cracking up and shaking his head 'no'! He wasn't going to let his uncle eat his cupcake again!

I think it was Ethan who started bringing me gifts, telling me it was time for Avery to open her presents. The kids all swarmed around us, eager to 'help' Avery.

Avery received several adorable outfits, which were great because the hand-me-downs she's been wearing from Reagan are getting pretty worn out! It's nice to have some new clothes for her :)

It was a wonderful party and I'm so happy that everyone came. THANK YOU!