Mollie's First Birthday Party ... Finally!

I don't know if you recall, but the day after Mollie's first birthday I got a lovely case of the stomach flu.  Consequently, her party, originally scheduled for the Saturday after her birthday, got postponed to this Saturday.  Unfortunately, my sister ended up coming down with the stomach flu early on Saturday morning.  Which meant that, not only could she not come to the party, but she wasn't able to make the cake either.

Luckily, Mom was able to come over and help me bake the cake (I've only made a couple cakes in my life and none of them while juggling two kids), and then I was left to decorate it.  Here is what I came up with ...

It's not the prettiest, but it wasn't too bad.  Baylor wanted to help me so badly, but even just having him on the step stool next to me meant that he was constantly bumping into me while I was trying to write.  So he had to leave.

At 5:00 the guests started arriving and our house quickly filled with friends and family, sixteen total including our foursome.  And, of course, Baylor quickly put Grandma to work reading some of his favorite books.

Mollie got some hugs in with Oma.

After a pizza dinner, we got down to business opening gifts.  As soon as we sat down with the birthday girl and her gifts, the kids swarmed around us to see what she got.  She was pretty excited about all the clothes she got, but the other kids were geeked about the toys.  She's a funny little lady, our girl!

Mollie's friend Anna took some of the tissue paper from another gift, wrapped up one of Mollie's balls, and gave it to her as a gift.  I just love how creative kids are!

Mollie totally isn't used to wearing barrettes, but she looked so cute!

Anna also passed out toy food to everyone for a mid-gift-opening snack, so Mollie munched on a chocolate donut.

As usual, sometimes kids feel like the tissue the gift came in is more exciting than the actual gift.

It was finally time for some cake!  Mollie was ready, though we knew she probably wouldn't even try the cake.  She didn't mind us all singing to her ...

... but Baylor freaked out.  He cried so much I had to sneak him into the laundry room to calm him down after the singing was done.  Little dude hates loud noises, and the singing of "Happy Birthday" is one of his least favorite sounds.  I'm not really sure why.

Once he got a slice of cake, though, he was right as rain ... and messy as all get out.

The party got rave reviews (at least from our friends the O'Neills) and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.  But it ended up being a late night and Mollie got pretty tired pretty quickly.

As I was getting her pajamas snapped up, she toppled forward and hit her mouth on the changing table.  Worried that she had really hurt herself, I took her to the glider in her room.  While I searched her for injuries, she continued sobbing ... then promptly threw up.  All ... over ... me.  Three times.  Ever seen the Exorcist?  Yeah, Linda Blair has nothing on my girl.

After getting washed up (yes, I actually needed a shower to decrud), we got her in bed and hoped against hope that it wasn't the flu.

This morning we found out it was.  Ughhh.