HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY LAEDYN!!!

Romeo thought something in this toy box smelled intriguing. He kept sticking his head way inside of it. Crazy cat!
Brandon chose this Hello Kitty plush bag with a matching blanket. Laedyn seemed most excited by this present. She squeeled in delight and gave it a big hug. I think that pleased Brandon.

Yes - she got a whole bunch of new toys... alot of them were musically oriented. She loves to "dance" whenever she hears music, so we all obliged her by getting music generating toys. It's likely to drive us crazy, but she's excited. On Sunday we had a "Playdate with Cake" and invited some of Brandon's friends to come over and play with him in his pool. The only catch was they had to sing happy birthday to Laedyn and eat some birthday cake ... I set up the water table for the little ones. Laedyn LOVES to splash in the water.
We also cut up a watermelon. Laedyn sat on her picnic blanket and was eating it happily.
Kade came over to see what Laedyn was doing and kept leaning over and taking bites out of her watermelon. It was TOO funny. Laedyn would just look at him, frown a little, and then eat some more herself. Kade is Kaleb's baby brother and is in Laedyn's class at daycare.
Laedyn and Kade playing in the water. Kade is more than a month younger then Laedyn.

The big kids in the pool are Kaleb, Joylyn, Townley and Brandon (barely visible behind Townley). Laedyn really wanted to be a big kid. All the splashing and spraying didn't phase her at all. I kept worrying she'd tip over headfirst into the pool. She never did...

Brandon was convinced that Laedyn had to have a flower cake for her first birthday. Here's the result. I think it turned out really well! The cake is lemon and Brandon helped make it by stirring the batter.
I figured I'd better provide some chocolate too, so we made very colorful cupcakes. Brandon decorated about half of them for me.
All the kids got to wear little party hats.
She LOVED her cupcake!

After she finished the cupcake I gave her a little bit of the lemon cake. She loved that too. Then she was reaching for one of the plates and pointing at it. When I gave it to her, she tried to eat it too. I think she thought it was just another cupcake - a really really big one!

Lovely. There was blue icing up her nose, in her ear and all around the back of her head.
There were chocolate and lemon crumbs all inside her bathing suit. The only solution to getting it all off was to hose her down. She thought it was great fun & giggled at us!
Tyrus came to help eat cake. Can you believe how tall he is? He's 13 now.
Later, after we were all alone, Laedyn kept trying to get in the big kid pool. I suddenly remembered I had a pool just her size. Mark blew it up and we filled it with water. She was thrilled! Brandon even sat in it and played with her for awhile.

At the end of the day, after dinner and baths, both kids were almost instantly asleep. Imagine that! We need to have cake and pool time every day!!!