Party Time! {E's first birthday}

We had a blast celebrating Elise's birthday with our families.  I love to plan parties . . . for E's birthday we went with a pink/green theme.  

This was the invitation:

Pink and green decor . . . 

I made garlands with ribbon and the cake eating pictures that we took last week ;)

And the yummy cakes!  White and chocolate "ding dong" cakes, made by a friend of mine who makes cakes out of her home.  They are so delish, and she did a fabulous job with the colors/decorations.

Elise - ready to party! (of course the bow didn't last long - she always finds a way to take it off) :)

Chef Billy made pizzas for the party - I think he's almost perfected the deep dish pizza now. :)

Thanks to everyone who was able to come and help us celebrate!  (Uncle Josh got a new camera and took lots of pics for us - so many of these are courtesy of Josh. Thanks!)

 

Time for cake!  Elise didn't get very excited, but Braden sure did!  He loved "helping" her blow out the candle.

I will show you how it's done, Elise!

She finally got into it - thatta girl!

Present time - Braden was eager to help with unwrapping too . . .

 Little Miss gained quite the impressive (and adorable!) spring and summer wardrobe.  (I am clearly not the only one who finds little girls' clothing hard to resist!)

Midway through opening gifts, E got a little overwhelmed and headed over to sit on Grandma Jane's lap to watch Braden finish unwrapping for her.

 

 Playing with cousins and new toys!

What a lucky little gal . . . we are so fortunate to live very close to most of our family members.  I hope Elise and Braden have as many great memories of gathering for birthdays and holidays with relatives over the years as I do.  

This morning Elise and I were the first ones up . . . she was thrilled to play with ballons from her party while Daddy and Braden slept in . . .