miss claire's first birthday

It's hard to believe that a year has passed since Claire has come into our family and changed our lives forever. She has been a complete joy and brings so much happiness into our home.

Those first scary days of her life, when she was in the NICU, the nurses always joked about how naughty she was at her birth. "You invited us all to your birthday party, and then you were so naughty!" they teased.

Well, a year later, it seemed as though Claire woke up knowing it was her big day, and this year she was going to enjoy every second! When we went in to get her out of her crib, she was all smiles.

Daddy thought we should celebrate the big day by having breakfast together at the Pie Dump.

Claire's sisters, of course, thought this was a great idea!

And the birthday girl was pretty happy with the idea, herself.

When it came time for the cake, however, she was all business.

Talented cousin Mckell treated us with her cake decorating talents by giving us her weekly cake project she made in her cake decorating class- a giant OREO. It's hard to tell how big it really is i this picture, but it was huge! We barely even made a dent!

We enjoyed a yummy dinner with all of the grandparents. Even Nana and Papa joined the party, which is the first of my kids parties they've been able to come to!

And then? . . .Yeah! Present time!

I know this makes us sound like the tackiest parents ever, but we didn't even buy Claire a gift. Earlier that day I dug into our storage and found all of the girl's old toys. They were still in such great shape it seemed silly to buy more, so we scrubbed them off and re-gifted them! (Claire: if you are reading this down the road, just know that you really, really loved them! Think of it as a savings for your college fund.)

Grandma's and Grandpa's gave lots of fun, new things too!

The hit of the day was the girl's old walker! Miss Claire thinks she is pretty big stuff!

Back and forth, around and around.

Happy 1st Birthday little Miss Claire! We are so happy you stayed to join our family. You light up our lives!