My baby is one!

Arie's first birthday was yesterday.  It is hard to believe it's been a whole year since she was born.  It even makes me a little bit sad.  Sometimes you just want your kids to stay little!

Arie had fun ripping some of the paper off her presents.  I just love this cute little face.

We gave Arie a Fisher Price Ballapalooza and a sippy cup.  (The toy wasn't something we planned on buying, but when I found that $60 toy in the store on clearance for $25, I couldn't leave it there.  Plus, we had no idea what to get for Arie's birthday, so we figured this would work.)  Arie got a really cute outfit from Grandma and Grandpa Burgess and a bouncing elephant toy from Grandma and Grandpa Webb.  And she liked her cards from her grandparents.  I had to rescue them so she wouldn't destroy them.

After Arie opened her presents, she figured she would try to get away with things that she's not allowed to do on a normal day.  Unfortunately, it didn't last for long.  Also, notice the open cupboard... Arie will not leave my cupboards, and their contents, alone.  As soon as Nate gets a spare minute, the baby locks are coming out. 

Of all the presents, I think this one is Arie's favorite.  Should have known that babies are not too hard to impress.  She thinks this sippy cup idea is the coolest thing ever.  If you need to take it away, you have to pry it out of her hands, which results in a lot of angry screaming.

Later in the day, after the older kids got home from school, we all headed out to the park to play.  Poor Arie doesn't get to play outside very often because, #1--she can't walk yet and we live in the land of dirt and rocks, and #2--she still puts everything in her mouth, including dirt and rocks.  So she enjoyed being outside on her birthday.  She loved the baby swing, once she realized it wasn't scary. 

She was not really interested in being restrained for a picture with her sister and brothers.

Here's a little sidetrack from the birthday action.   I've known this before, but in going through my pictures from the day, I noticed that I have a compulsive photo bomber.

Sometimes he is a little more sneaky...

And sometimes he is very much... well... not.  And yes, this was supposed to be a picture of Arie.  Do you see her?

I had no idea what to do for Arie's cake, and since I couldn't ask Arie what she wanted, I asked the other kids.  They decided that a butterfly would be good and I thought it was a great idea.  It turned out cute, though I wasn't overly excited about it.  The butterfly was cute, but I don't really like how I decorated it.  I should have used different colors.  I don't really like yellow.  So why did I use so much yellow?  I have no idea. 

Here's the birthday girl with her cake.  You can see from this picture that the cake looks really big.  It looked big in person too.  Shockingly, it is made from one cake mix in a 9X13 pan, cut into pieces. 

I call this the "what are you doing to my cake, dad?!" picture.  Kind of a fun side note... this same "1" candle has been put on each of our kids first birthday cakes.

This is while we were singing "Happy Birthday" to her.  We sang it throughout the day, and she loved it every time.  And she would always open her mouth, like in this picture.  I think she wanted to sing along, but didn't know how.

Instead of attempting to get the one year old to blow out the candle, we let the other kids do it for her.

Mom and Dad with Arie.  She is mad though, because I had already given her that piece of cake you see in my hand, and she had tasted the frosting.  But then I took it away because Nate wanted to video her eating it.  She was not happy.  Honestly, I can't blame her.  I would have been pretty mad myself.

Messy baby!  But she loved it.

And then she got a bath.  She loves baths.  Her favorite thing to do is sit by the running water and methodically try to grab the stream of water with her hands, though she knows she can't actually grab it.  She enjoys trying and it's cute to watch.  This happy little girl is very much loved by everyone in our family.  Happy birthday to our sweet one year old!