The birthday report

What a great day we had yesterday, from beginning to end.

We started with special birthday pancakes for breakfast. Then David, Anna and Lucy arrived and we ladies went next door for play group. I think the little girls had a good time. Lucy found some good books and a squishy kid chair that she really liked. Molly is finally walking around with all the bigger kids. One of the girls about Lucy's age was in a particularly friendly mood and gave Lucy kisses and hugs. She also tackled Molly with some serious hugging and kissing, and Molly hugged her right back. That was a little strange -- the two little girls rolling around together in my lap. Huh. Maybe it was some special birthday lovin'.

Back at home Molly got in some play time with her uncle and cousin.

Oma and Grandpa arrived with their dog, then Jim came home early from work. Molly took a nice nap while I made her cake. (Blogger is flipping the photo to vertical, which is just as well -- clearly this was not a professional design job).


We had a big lunch, then we played a (totally geeky) Powerpoint slide show I put together with photos of Molly from the past year. Molly got her hand prints all over the TV.

Then we opened gifts. Molly enjoyed each gift so much we had to work really hard to get her to open anything else. She opened this gift from her great grandmother B. first and liked it so much she was ready to call it a day. She carried the outfit around, flopped on top of it on the floor and snuggled it, and got annoyed when we tried to set it aside.

Snuggling it:
We got a video of this really cool toy from Kim:




After presents we sang and helped Molly blow out her candle.
And she dug in.
We carried her straight to the tub, where it took two of us to find the baby (oops, little girl) under all that chocolate glop. She had a great time splashing around while Lucy stood at the side of the tub pointing and saying "duck" and "soap" and "splash" and "nakey."

Once everybody was clean we settled in for some family time.



Around the time Molly usually gets ready for bed we bundled the girls up to take a walk outside and see the Christmas lights in the neighborhood (and shake off the cake-induced sleepiness).


Despite the unusual evening craziness...

our little 1-year-old girl got all cuddly and snuggly with her cousin, then went right to sleep.