1st Birthday Party!

First, here are Gabrielle's 1 year pictures I took....

This post is totally picture overloaded...but I couldn't help myself!  I had so much fun planning Gabi's birthday party and we had a great time!  Gabrielle had a wonderful birthday party full of friends, family, and gifts!  It was quite the process to get the house cleaned, rearranged, and decorated but we pulled it off and it went great!  We ended up ordering the 7 1/2 foot party sub from Subway (awesome idea) and had chips, fruit salad (the only thing I actually made...haha), sodas, water, and cake of course.  We had three other babies at the party, so Gabi and everyone else was thoroughly entertained :)  Gabi took a good morning nap as planned (woo hoo) and then woke up and got dressed right before everyone arrived.  We ate and then Gabi opened her presents.  She wasn't too into unwrapping them and was slightly annoyed that we had to put the thing down once it was unwrapped to unwrap more

Gabi did really well with all of her toys and the other kids had fun keeping them company while Gabi finished opening everything.  She got a big play kitchen, clothes, and books from G&G M and a singing bike scooter, clothes, socks, and a book from G&G T. She also got a doll, puzzle, drum, unicorn pillow pet, tea set, cookie jar, school bus, electronic books, paper books, clothes, and lots of other stuff too much to list! She is such a lucky girl to have so many people that care for her! We also got a couple of duplicate gifts and a gift card from Uncle Greg, so we have a bit more shopping to do too.

After gifts, everyone had cake….and so did little G! We got our cake from Ron’s childhood friend who is a baker, so that was kind of nice. She did a really good job and Gabi had fun playing in her cake. We sang Happy Birthday to her and she just smiled and looked soooo proud as everyone was singing to her. I loved it. I put the cake in front of her and she just looked at it and starting gently poking the frosting. Quickly she dug her hands in and just started squishing it. She had a little frown on her face and just kept grinding handfuls of cake through her fingers. Finally Nick went put a little piece of cake in her mouth and then she realized she could eat it. She didn’t eat too much of it though….mostly she just kept playing in it and would take a little taste now and then. After a quick bath the adults worked on getting everything out of their boxes and the kids started to play. We had such a good time with family and friends! I think Gabi had a great birthday!

There are a couple of videos at the end of the post....if you make it through all of the pictures...haha!  Nick was put in charge of video duty against his will, and I don't think he'll be going pro anytime soon.  He only catches the last phrase in "Happy Birthday" and then sits the video camera in his lap still running.....so you can stop watching after you get a full screen of jeans.  :)

   

Gabi's gift from us - a tube maze/ball pit and silver name bracelet and jewelry box 

Here are a couple of pictures of her bracelet.  You can't see it very well, but it's sterling silver with "Gabrielle" engraved.  It can clasp anywhere on the bracelet, so it will fit her well into childhood. 

I found "Gabrielle" confetti at Party City and you bet I had to get a few packs!

The cake for the guests


Gabrielle's own cake!  Nick designed it!


7 1/2 feet of Subway goodness....

Aunt Mistye and cousin Landyn

Grandma Joanne with Great Grandpa Taylor in the background

Uncle Jason and Aunt Corinne


I love this picture of Grandma Billie!

Sweet little Emmett...always so happy!

Jess and Steve came too...even though Jess had to go straight to work afterwards


Jen and her nephew Tanner were able to come too

All of the kids were getting pretty antsy to get those presents open!

The only hard part was getting Gabrielle to stay sitting and keep making progress opening presents!  She liked to take off on me.

 

She loved her unicorn pillow pet!  It sleeps with Gabi in her crib now that she's a big girl!


Auntie Jess was so nice and took the pictures of Gabi opening presents!


The only family picture of that day...

Time for cake! 

I forgot to put Gabi's party hat on so thankfully Jen grabbed it for me before G was done with her cake!

Happy 1st Birthday our little G baby!

After a bath, it was time to play with everything!

Nick was hard at work putting together the kitchen

"Bye bye!!!!! Thanks for coming!"