Penny's 1st Birthday January 26th 2010

She is just gorgeous and funny and such a good baby. She is active and healthy and loves to eat all sorts of food. She is a miracle and an answer to prayers. She is on the earth because Heavenly Father made modern medicine such as Invitro possible. We couldn't and wouldn't ask for a better baby girl. We had such a fun time celebrating her first birthday yesterday. We had both sets of grandparents...an aunt and two cousins stop by to help with the partying. I made a crockpot tortilla soup, my mom did a cornbread casserole. We had a great dinner. We opened presents and had our cake. Parker spent two days helping me sort and plan all the details for the party...especially cleaning the house and decorating. He was up in the middle of the night fretting about the party and how well it was going to go down and if the guests were going to have fun. He wanted to make sure the house was clean so that the guests wouldn't laugh at me. He just kept saying all day...."I want this to be a perfect birthday for Penny." And it was....with his help and love...we pulled it off and she had a great day in which she will not remember, but hopefully will enjoy through picture, blog, and video. I bought this outfit at Babies R US....because I'm spoiled and because it was darling. It has a birthday cake on it and beads....as if she was a pretty princess. The tu tu is attached to the onesie....just cute cute cute.

My mom made this perfect adorable cake. She went to a lot of work....even tinted coconut green to look like grass. I just love that she does these cakes for my children and hope to some day follow in her footsteps...if only a touch of her talent.

Here she is opening her first gift from Parker James. It is a tub toy. And in true Penny fashion...straight to her mouth for a chew. She loved it.

......enjoying a tag from some clothes she got. Couldn't care less about opening anything...but really into this tag.

She loved the books she got from her Aunt Rachel, great grandma Rowan and Cousin Craig and Michelle. She loves to turn all the pages and talks at great length about each page.

Here she is enjoying her activity table from Grandma and Grandpa Rowan. Parker of course enjoying it too. He was never away from her side.

Checking out her new dollhouse from her Granny and Papa.


Walking to her cousin Craig. She has such a crush on him.

....................and in more true Penny and 1 yr. old fashion....not happy about the hat we put on her. But I spent money on it and darn if she wasn't going to wear it.





Stunned after the first few attempts at getting the hat on. "Mommy...what the heck?"

a little happier with the hat....everyone was singing and talking to her to distract her.



it didn't last long though. She quickly remembered.

It was time for cake. She was bored....caught her in a yawn. She just didn't understand what all the hubub was about.




And time to dig in. And she did. She grabbed with both hands and stuffed it in there good. But didn't make that much mess.

Ran out of cake....and her hands were sticky. Poor thing.

see...not too bad of a mess. Parker was sitting next to her with his cake.....I had to get the vacuum out due to the mess he made.



So.....our biggest news from her birthday is that she is walking! She's been trying and practicing for weeks now,but yesterday she just took off all over the room and house and she was quite proud. It was even cuter in the tu tu.



It was a great day and shared by people we love and that love this little girl. We our on our knees daily for such a blessing as her and her brother.

Happy 1st Birthday baby girl!