Kate's First Birthday

I can't believe that Kate's birthday party is over! I had been planning it for months. I really wanted it to be special, even though she will have no memory of it. We celebrated it a week early so that it would work out with everybody's summer schedules. It was a very special day!Lots of prayers were lifted up for a beautiful and sunny day. I had decided a while back to make it an outside party. I wanted the hot tub to be used as a pool and to also have some baby pools and a slip and slide out for all of the kids. As most of you know Zack and I have 12 nieces and nephews total. Their ages range from 11 months to 11 years. It was important that we had some form of entertainment for them. We had mostly family with a few close friends attend. The theme was a mix of cupcakes, turning 1, and cookout. Her invitations were cupcakes and said "it's our lil' cupcake's first birthday party!" I bought a cupcake cake mold for the cakes and I had been practicing for weeks on cake recipes and making sure they baked right in the molds. I also had baked cupcakes for the kids. We had grilled hot dogs, deer sausage, chips and dips, watermelon and carrots and dips to eat. We had juice, cokes, lemonade and water to drink that we put in ice chests outside. One of my favorite things was the framed pictures of Kate throughout her first year of life with labels of when and where they happened. It got me choked up when putting it together. Our baby is growing up! Zack did an amazing job getting the front and big yard looking nice. Zack's parents came in for the weekend and they were so helpful! Overall, it was a great day. Zack's dad did a very sweet baby blessing for Kate. It was very special. Kate absolutely loved her little mini cake that I got from the Tom Thumb bakery. I think she would of eaten it all if we would of let her. That might have had something to do with her not wanting to go to bed till 10:00 pm! All of the kids had a great time swimming and playing. We received very fun toys and cute clothes from everybody. We really appreciated everything! Thank you everybody! If we had the money and space we would of invited all of you! We felt a lot of love being poured out to her daughter.