Leila's First Birthday

As promised, here are pics from this weekend's trip to Springfield to celebrate Leila's first birthday!

Josh & I headed down Friday as soon as he got out of work, and planned to meet up with Josh's parents at Hemingway's for some seriously delicious all-you-can-eat crab legs! Occaisionally, Josh and I get a craving for seafood, and Hemingway's is our favorite place if we're wanting crab legs! We had a good time eating and catching up with Josh's parents, and they were loving the time with Laney! Elena discovered that Hemingway's also has delicious chocolate mousse! So she had two bowls full. No joke... after she finished the first one she picked it up and tried to lick the mousse off of the bottom. Which would account for mousse ON HER FOREHEAD! Then she went after the second bowl with two spoons. It was pretty entertaining! :) And made for a good picture!

On Saturday morning Josh, Laney & I went to CPO (Christian Publisher's Outlet) to spend Josh's gift card. Poor Josh, he actually only found one cd he wanted... I, on the other hand, found 4 canvases to hang in our living room (after we paint this summer). So excited about them!!

Anyway, after CPO, we headed back to the Looten's to help get everything ready for the party! It was a pretty simple plan (the best kind) with little sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, chips, and other finger foods.

Even Laney climbed up on the island to help stir the punch...

...mostly because she wanted a taste!

Anyway, the party went really well, everyone chatted and had fun, watched Leila (or really Luke & Jess) open presents, and eat cake- which was pretty funny, as all 1st birthday cakes are! Jess put me in charge of taking pictures. I discovered I really like taking pictures of babies and set up... not so much of grown ups. I just always feel like I'm intruding when people are talking. Or I take a picture right as someone opens their mouth or does something silly. So, not many pictures of the partiers, but lots of pictures of the birthday girl (and her friends!). There were 4 girls (counting Leila) there age 2 and under. It was fun to see them all in different stages!

The birthday girl, enjoying some juice!

And her cousin... enjoying some dinner! :) Laney loved all the snacky food, she ate the entire day! Never much at a time, but she was constantly eating a chip, a carrot, some ham, some turkey- whatever anyone would give her! Except for red peppers- she was NOT a fan!
The big cake...

...the little cake

With so many girls the same age, Leila had some serious competition when it came to opening presents! There were many reminders that those were "Leila's toys." But they all had fun!

Leila says "Yay for presents!"

Now it's time for CAKE! :)

Once the candle was out, Leila started off slowly... just tasting some icing!

But discovered that it was pretty delicious!

Unfortunately, she rubbed those purple-icinged hands in her eyes. Made for a good picture...

...but ended up with stinging and screaming!

And the demolished cake! :) Leila mostly stuck with icing, apparently!

Laney got in on the cake-action, too- she opted for chocolate... and a fork!

The Wilson family, after the party!

After the party was over, we headed outside to enjoy the weather- it was 70 degrees and sunny, absolutely beautiful! The girls ran around for awhile, and then the grown ups goofed off for awhile. Everyone had a blast, and ended up with grass-stained and muddy feet (most of us were barefoot)!

Laney picking flowers! :)

Grandma and her girls!

Laney had fun standing on a chair next to the porch rail and watching the grown ups play ball... and mooching some more punch from "Shella," as Laney called her.

Finally, Laney went inside, found the balloons, and drug them outside. Since the party was over, we let her have fun with them!

We really had a great time. It was a short trip, but a lot of fun hanging out with family and celebrating Leila turning one!