Birthday Party, Part 2

So continuing from yesterday's post, we had a wonderful day! The guests in  attendance included:

My parents

Lee's parents

My sister-in-law  Emily and Harper (I guess I didn't get a picture of Emily with the birthday girl lol...I remembered taking a picture of her  with a baby---guess it was the "wrong" baby though! :-)

And Sawyer and Raya (I didn't take any family pictures with  Raya! Oops. But in all fairness, it was supposed to be *Brielle's* special day, so I guess it's good that Raya was shorted on pictures :-)

My brother had  to work, but he made it at the  very end. (Brielle was upset here  because  Harper was picking on her LOL...love Harper's face)

My friend from college  and her husband made  it too--they're  the  ones who Raya was  a flower girl for back  in May.

We also  had Emily's  brother and his  girlfriend over, but I forgot to get a picture! Oops. They are the one's who are having a little boy in March and I'm going  to start babysitting him 3 days a week.

So  anyways, here are a couple pictures of the decorations. I  kept  it *really* simple  because it was  only a small party (Let's face it--she's 1 year old and as Lee said "you do realize she won't even remember this right?" haha. Granted, I still wanted to celebrate but I'm not putting on wedding. It's some cupcakes and a few presents :-).... and I didn't have time to make a bunch of decorations when my Etsy shop keeps  me so busy! But  I thought it turned out cute (except for our balloons, which Lee  got the night before and they all  started deflating that  morning! Oh well haha)

Our basement worked great for setting up tables and eating down there.

And the birthday girl's outfit  of course had  me busy too :-P

I had originally intended  to crochet her a matching sock monkey  hat....but then decided that it'd
be silly to waste 3 hours crocheting a hat  that she would refuse to  leave on her  head, so I decided to make her  one next year when she's older instead! She barely left the tiny hairclip I made her in her hair...we had to fight her on  it constantly.

After lunch we opened presents. Brielle had  ZERO interest in opening presents, but luckily she  had Raya and Sawyer  there willing to lend a hand!

She was being a Grandma's girl at the  party haha. At one time she even took 7-8 steps trying to run after my mom
down the hallway! That's the most steps she's taken in a row yet :-)

They  all  liked the big monkey pillow we got Brielle

Completely "over" presents lol

Introducing "hoo hoo" pillow to the  new Monkey

Raya  got some xmas  presents  from my college friend and she was in love with  all the Minnie  Mouse  stuff. Here  she is hugging  the  Minnie toy :-P

And real quick, here she was last night wearing her new  Minnie  pjs and  hair  clippie

So after presents yesterday we sang happy birthday and had  cupcakes and  icecream.

Are you all  singing for me?!

I want fire!

 My friend got an action shot on her  phone of them blowing out the candle

This is the one time she actually  looked like she  might kinda like  it. That feeling
didn't last  long though!

But don't fear, Raya was more than happy to eat cupcakes for the both of them! LOL

A couple more phone  pictures...

Brielle was thankful when Grandma F.  offered to share her  icecream....much tastier than cupcakes  I  guess!

After cupcakes and  icecream everyone just visited and the kids  ran around entertaining themselves! Brielle took about a 5 minute nap and then was up again--apparently the though of sleeping while others are partying  is not appealing ;-)

So that's that--I still can't believe my  baby is 1 year old!

Now enjoy a few more random pictures...

And to end, a little  story about how Brielle's happy birthday almost *wasn't* so  happy....ya know, because  she could have fallen and died.

So  it was near the end of the party and we were all downstairs in the basement visiting (and apparently not paying any attention to the birthday  girl!) After awhile  I had to run upstairs  for something and so I come around  the corner to head upstairs and I see Brielle standing at the top of the steps....just right at the edge with no baby gate or anything.....staring at me. For a minute I felt like I was in a dream, because it was just  crazy to  see her standing waaaay up there looking down at me....and then the little shit backs  up, grabs the baby gate, and starts closing it on me. At that moment  I  sorta snap out of my daze and call out "who's  upstairs with Brielle?!" (because obviously  if  my tiny baby  is standing at the top of a flight of about 15 steps with no  baby gate then certainly some adult  must  have  carried her upstairs and not be watching her  or something)....but then I realize no, Brielle crawled her  way up the flight of steps, stood up, and as she  saw me coming she closed  the gate on me...all by herself! So I run/fly up  the steps in a panic and  get to her---safe and sound. But seriously, how did that just happen?! haha. I cannot believe she didn't  fall  and seriously hurt herself. I occasionally let her crawl  up the  steps by herself when I'm right behind her, and she constantly  turns around, slips, almost falls even then. And we *always* close the baby gate at the top of  the steps, which means when she gets to the top she usually is stuck and then turns around and would fall (if I wasn't right there). But yesterday (luckily) she crawled up  by herself with no problems and the gate just happened to  be  left  open so that  she could  continue right  up to the landing and not be stuck  at the  top of the stairs. Phew! I about panic  when  she's out of my sight now haha. What a little  monkey!

This was the view I had when  I first  saw her....only the  gate was open and she was standing right  at the  edge of the steps, looking down at me!

That  little stinker!