Happy First Birthday!

Our 1 year old star, complete with birthday dress made by GranDora, food all over her face, crazy Elmo socks and shockingly silver shoes. (I did change her into more appropriate tights for the party. But that's our girl, no slave to fashion, setting her own style pace and going for it! Oh, and showing off her great new chompers, as well - all the better to get at that birthday cake! Being a working mother is a struggle, with me constantly feeling that both work and family don't get 100% of my true capabilities. And let's not even mention "me" time! So it took me a while to organize an official first birthday party for our baby girl. We had it on January 8 (less than a month late!), which was a long weekend for Embassy folks, but since most of us are not Orthodox Christians, not really a holiday weekend. This meant that folks were free to come over and party! I limited the guest list this year to friends who have little ones under a year (and then our good buddies the Millers, just because we like them!) The Playgroup set here at Post is numbering well over 30, so it just isn't practical to invite everyone under 5 without getting out the riot gear and the emergency soporific music. Oh, and no matter when you have a party, it's someone's naptime, so there's always a bit of crankiness. Not exactly a restful recipe. So with all of this working against us, I still managed to get both girls dressed up, the place cleaned up and a cute, simple, yummy cake made up. We even had bruch for everyone!

And now for the exhilarating action sequence - here Mom brings out the birthday cake, to the delight of the few children old enough to have figured out that birthdays mean sugary treats (I invlude the adults in that group, as well.) And now big sister is fended off as she tries to "assist" by blowing out all of the candles. I love our friends' face at the end of the table - she is a wonderful little girl, and I can just tell that she's thinking - "enough pageantry, let's get to the good stuff!"Blow. Blow wind. Blow wind blow. All we want is a tug on the mainsail... no, that's another song for another day. Here we have the singing and the looking and posing and, ultimately, the blowing out of the small candles in the shape of her name (ooohhh, aaaahhh!)And the happy birthday girl - isn't she beautiful?