Giving Cake to a Baby

Though I completely intended to, I never ended up posting about Kameryn's party of her birthday, and slowly I've been using the pictures we took during those times for other things. Because I'm impatient.

Her birthday party was a total success, even though when we got to Muller Park that night there was a baseball game going on, so there was no where to park. I had to come from work, and I got there a little bit early but not much, and when I got there it was Jay and his parents and Kami. And that was all. I knew other people were coming, but I couldn't help but wonder what we would do with all the food if no one else showed up.

It turned out that wasn't a problem we had. My mom came with Allison and Chelsee, Danae Gary and Isaac came, even though Gary was supposed to be working and had to switch shifts to make it, Alan and Nolana and their kids all came, even though Alan was supposed to be at a conference in Las Vegas which was a good surprise, and then my dad came and brought my Grandma Hanna, who came even though she'd had her foot operated on. And it turned out the food went well, and the problem was it started getting dark before we were done partying and taking pictures.

The part I was really excited about was Kami with her first birthday cake. We got one for her that was all her own, and I knew she wouldn't know what to do with it in terms of blowing out the candle, but I wanted her to enjoy eating it. I wasn't disappointed.

She started out a little bit dainty with it, notice the two finger pincher grasp. But as time went on, and with a little help from Jay, she started to dig in.

And before long she decided that this was too good to leave sitting on the table, and she tried to pick it up and get it as close to her mouth as possible, which led to this:

Luckilly we still had presents to open after dinner, which was enough of a distraction that Kami didn't get too upset about the cake. She got some really cool presents, including books and clothes, new stuffed animals and a handmade rocking chair from her Ertmann Grandparents, and a stitched pillow from my mom that says, "Grandma Loves Kameryn." She got spoiled, and it meant a lot to me how thoughtful everyone was with her birthday.

Her actual birthday was like Christmas morning for me, I was so excited to spend the day with her doing fun things. I was ready to party. She was a bit more casual about things:

We decided since she had so much fun at the zoo, we were going to take her to Tracy Aviary to see the birds. Chelsee wanted to come with us, and we talked Geoff into it by telling him about the "awesome bird show." The bird show turned out to be a bit of a flop, and most disappointing, Kameryn was completely UNinterested in the birds. Yeah yeah, whatever, she wanted to WALK. She wanted us to hold her hand so she could walk around, and THAT WAS ALL.

The part that ended up being the most fun for her, I think, was getting ice cream. Her own scoop of chocolate ice cream, which we let her eat herself, mess notwithstanding.

(Proof that at one point her shirt was clean.)

Every instinct Geoffrey has was telling him we should stop her, it was hard for him to watch the ice cream chaos going on right in front of us. But we let her do it all her way, and spent the time cleaning up afterwards. The main thing I learned from her birthday was that it's a good idea to keep it simple. I tend to over-do things, and this was definatly no exception. We had the most fun when I was able to sit back and let her be.

I think she'll be proud of how her first birthday turned out. I am.