Kaylee's 1st Birthday

First, let me preface this posting by saying that the pictures are not a great quality.  Our camera decided to totally crap out on us the morning of Kaylee's Birthday (ugh).  That means we had to resort to taking pictures with my cell phone & our camcorder -- both have decent photo capabilities, but it just wasn't our trusty camera.  (We have since ordered me a new camera, so I hope to have new, sharp pictures posted later this week!)

Saturday was Kaylee's 1st Birthday!  Both kids got up extra early that morning, so I took them garage saleing with me while Justin slept in a bit.  Once we got back, Austin helped Kaylee dig into her birthday gifts that had been awaiting her in our office for the past few weeks -- gifts from us, her Aunt Shelcey, Nanna & Pock, and Mimi & PawPaw.  Austin was definitely a pro at opening gifts, so Kaylee just mostly sat back & watched....and waited until Austin would hand her a toy to play with!

It rained all day on Saturday, which made for great fun while trying to get things ready for her party.  We had planned a backyard splash party complete with two kiddie pools, our huge sand box & our blow-up water slide.  Needless to say, by the time the party rolled around (5pm), the rain had actually stopped, but it was then in the 70's instead of the 90's.  Call us spoiled, but since we're in Texas, we don't consider the 70's to be too warm... so the kids ended up not playing in the water.'

We had about 20 of our friends over on Saturday night for a cookout party complete with chicken fajitas, creamy jalapeno corn, cake & my homemade ice cream.  It was a total success & we had such a great time just having our friends over again.  Some of them ended up staying until about 10pm that night, so we had so much fun just sitting around & telling stories...

Below are the party favors that each guest got to take  home.  Austin helped me fill these little boxes with lots of pink candy...

It's a household tradition that I always make the kid's birthday cakes & decorate them myself.  I didn't have many ideas for Kaylee's 1st Birthday cake this year, so I opted for a simple 2-tier cake with a circle pattern all over.  I worked on this late into the night on Friday night -- so late that Justin refused to let me decorate her her own individual cake to dig into on her birthday.  :)

Kaylee did get her own slice of cake, and she wasn't too excited about it.  I put a bite in her mouth, and she quickly spit it back out...

...but playing in the cake turned out to be much more fun than actually eating it!

And, finally, here's Austin playing in his biggest kiddie pool before our friends started arriving for the party.  He got a good 30-45 minutes of playtime in before people started showing up, so I think he was pretty happy he still got to enjoy the water toys in the back!

All-in-all, we had a great day & really appreciated all of our friends coming over to hang out & help us celebrate Kaylee's birthday.  Our friends truly are our family here in Texas, and we don't know what we'd do without them all!!