ONE

On September 17th our baby turned ONE!  

It was a special, heartwarming day with family and friends.

What a full, fun, wonderful year it has been!

My brother and sister-in-law have four kids, and she always makes their birthday cakes, and they are ALWAYS adorable.  So... delegating this was a no-brainer!  Kate did a fantastic job creating this baby girl alligator for Allie's smash cake.

My friend Emi runs a cupcake business to raise funds for their international adoption, so this was a no-brainer as well.  And how absolutely BEAUTIFUL they turned out!  Not to mention some of the most delicious cupcakes I've had in a lonnnng time.

My bestie Carolyn made this Allie banner, which now hangs in her room.  Luke put together a video collage to loop during the party.

Do you know how easy (and cheap) it is to print your Instagram pics at Walgreens?  Very!  Loved this small touch, which was my sister-in-law Kristin's idea.

So let's get real.  Probably the only semi-negative thing about this day was that Allie was teething HARD.  While she was a TOTAL trooper for such a big day, she just really wasn't herself.  Smiles and laughs were few and far between.  The one above cracks me up because it's like she was really trying to force a smile to please us.

Her outfit came from a friend of mine whose baby girl turned one a few months ago.  It pays to have lots of baby girl buddies in your life!

We discovered our daughter is in fact a girly girl.  She took a few dainty two-fingered bites of her cake, then Daddy stuck her hand in it, which resulted in a good cry.  Bless her, she just didn't want to get messy.  I love that delightful expression when she first checks out the icing, though.

"I'm ONE, everybody.  And this joker is kissing me again."