When your little girl turns one on a Wednesday, you (of course) celebrate the day she arrived. And then you throw her a birthday party a few days later, on Saturday, the Official Day of Birthday Parties. But since you have family in town for a week, it winds up being more of an all-week long sort of celebration.

No complaints here! Here is how the fun week broke down…

Sunday:

Here is Sugar Bear on Sunday (Kay Kay’s birthday!), contemplating her big birthday coming just around the corner.

She looks so grown up here. Like a little lady!

Monday:

Mike assembled Caroline’s birthday gift: her very own kitchen!

We even put a baby-sized champagne bottle and a gift bag of Cheerios on the counter. Note the fact that Caroline’s toy kitchen actually has four burners (our kitchen only has two). Also note the baby cell phone. I was correct in guessing this would be her very favorite feature of the kitchen. Ha!

I also loaned Sugar Bear the kitchen towel I received from my cousin Lee for Christmas. It pretty much sums up how I feel about Caroline’s culinary pursuits.

And just for good measure, to keep things more exciting, we hid toys in each of the compartments!

Tuesday: 

We let Caroline snuggle with the Tigger we ordered for one of her party games. This little girl loves to smoosh stuffed animals to her cheek. And to eat their tags.

Wednesday:

Happy Birthday, Caroline! Hats off to you, little lady! We celebrated with lots of playtime, a fun-filled trip to Michael’s, and chicken pot pie for dinner–in honor of our Pi Day Baby 🙂 We also served her a banana with a candle in it and sang her Happy Birthday. She will get her cake on Saturday, but really loved trying to grab the lit candle.

Thursday:

We took Kay Kay and Pa to the neighborhood park, where Caroline got to show off her sweet moves pushing on the yellow giraffe and pulling up on the ladder.

Friday: 

Mike’s parents arrived, as did Matt & Preston, and we all headed to Carlyle for a celebratory birthday dinner honoring our March birthdays–my mom and Mike’s dad. It was a wonderful time and the perfect kickoff to Birthday Weekend!

Saturday:

St. Patrick’s Day, and Roman Noodle’s baptism! It was a really nice ceremony. Holly is the godmother and Raul’s Uncle Ruben is the godfather. Ruben brought a traditional Mexican baptismal gown. Marylu and Frank came into town, along with Raul’s mom and stepdad.

Roman was appropriately alarmed when the priest anointed him–he showed his spirited side!

Raul walked him around a little bit to calm him down.

The ceremony was a perfect opportunity for Caroline to wear the gorgeous mint green dress that Raul’s sweet mom had made her a year ago. It fit perfectly. Preston wore his finest bowtie. Look at all of these people who came out to celebrate Roman!

Later that afternoon, Mike, Matt, Caroline, and Preston and I went back to the house to prep for the big party! Caroline took a nap and the rest of us–especially Preston–got to work arranging food platters and hanging up last minute decorations.

Ellie the photographer came over a little before Party Time and captured the birthday girl…and Mike’s brother John flew up from Atlanta to surprise us, so e put him front and center in the family picture.

These two. Love them together.

The party was a fantastic success! Everyone had a blast and the birthday girl devoured her smash cake 🙂

Sunday:

In the morning, we had to wake up Uncle Matt. Who doesn’t love a little person climbing on him to welcome him to the new day?? Matt was wondering why she didn’t come bearing coffee..

Preston loved feeding Caroline her breakfast oatmeal. He would start giggling uncontrollably when she would get a little messy and he would say, “Car-o-line!! MANNERS!” She didn’t understand what was so funny about the very serious business of eating.

Then Kay Kay had Caroline walk on top of her feet, which Caroline found hilarious.

After all that morning fun, off to the playground we went.

We opened up some of the many, sweet gifts that Caroline received for her birthday, including this Rody Pony from Meg, sweet personalized step stool from Joy, and stroller from Daddy, which Preston quickly discovered made an excellent shopping cart to push Caroline around in!

Later that night, we all gathered at SER to toast Roman’s baptism and attempted a picture of the kiddos:

Believe it or not, this was the best shot we got!

After the restaurant, Kay Kay and Pa were nice enough to take the kiddos to bed so us four could go out on the town in DC! We went to an Improv show and then had some drinks at Birch and Barley. There were some delicious cocktails!

Monday:

Bright and early, this little lady headed out to her 12 month check up where she received 4 shots and had her blood drawn and didn’t cry one bit! She loved playing with the gears on the toy in the waiting room.

Afterwards, we packed a picnic lunch and headed out to Great Falls where we met up with Roman, Lee, Raul, Ed, Susan, and Ruben for some amazing waterfall views, rock climbing, and beaver fort building–per Preston’s request 🙂

Tuesday:

Everyone was flying out around 2 pm, so we headed to Pinstripes in the morning for some bowling fun! Caroline ate tooooo many waffles (thank you, Kay Kay!) but still had a ball.

Preston quickly got the hang of rolling the ball down the slope and even got a spare! Caroline enjoyed the “slide.”

Preston showed off his gymnastics moves in addition to his bowling skills.

They caught their flight out that afternoon (after a long delay), right before a big snowstorm rolled into our area. It was so wonderful having them here for the week.