Happy Birthday, Emmeline!

On April 26th, 2012, we celebrated Emmy's first birthday. It was an absolutely perfect day in my book. I had all this random anxiety leading up to the actual day, but once it arrived, I was like a kid at Christmas. Sure, Emmy had know clue what was going on, but she got special treatment from her mama and daddy all day long.

In recovery, shortly after my c-section on April 26th, 2011. 

We started the morning by going into her room with a birthday balloon for her and singing happy birthday. I was a little surprised that she didn't get more excited. I think she was more shocked to see both of us (it's normally me up with her in the morning) and the fact that we were singing and holding a balloon probably weirded her out too. We let her play with the balloon for a bit, gave her lots of hugs and smooches, and then of course, she was more concerned with getting her morning bottle. We played for a while, I snapped some pictures (shocker) and waited for Daddy to get ready for work so that we could all have a little breakfast together.

For breakfast, I decided to pick up some "confetti" pancakes for Emmy. I thought this would be a fun treat from her normal oatmeal or whole wheat pancakes. Plus, they were all pretty and festive! I tried to put a "1" birthday hat on her, but she was having no part of that. She loved being able to have breakfast with both of us and you could tell that she knew it was a special day. I just love her big smiles! She waved "bye bye" to daddy and then we went about our morning playing.

I'm pretty big on "family time", so Rob made an effort to have all three meals with us that day. It was great! We had baked spaghetti the night before for supper, so we decided to just do leftovers at home for lunch on E's birthday and let her try spaghetti for the first time. Wow! What a fun day for her! :)

For her birthday "night", we decided to go to my favorite Thursday night spot- La Fiesta!! I got a beer (it's actually cheaper than getting a diet coke, gotta love dollar draft night!) and we laughed and relaxed and talked about the past year of our lives. It was a super fast year, but also long at the same time. I think my Dad nailed it on the head when he said to us that night -- "I bet y'all are having a lot more fun with her tonight than you were a year ago tonight." MOST DEFINITELY! People always tell you that each stage gets better and better-- so true.

Rob and I feel so blessed to have been given the chance to raise such a sweet child. She has taught us so much about our love, our Lord, and ourselves over the past year. We are very lucky. There have been many a' bump along the road, but nothing we couldn't work out together. Thank you LORD! We survived the FIRST year! :)