First Birthday Party

Last weekend we celebrated Karsten's first birthday with a party, of course! We kept it small, and had a "family only" party, which was perfect. There will be plenty of time later for bigger parties, so the low key party was great.  And fortunately, some of Karsten's birth family was able to come, which made it even more special.

The party theme was Cookies & Milk. Big thanks to my mom who made dozens of cookies for the party. :) We had chocolate chip (of course), snickerdoodles (my favorite) and chocolate oatmeal (my grandma's recipe).  I made Karsten's cake, and originally wasn't planning on making anything else cake-wise. However, Kate realized that the cake was only for Karsten, so I promised to make some cupcakes for the party too.

Our best attempt at a family photo before the party started. The struggle is real.

I was excited to see how Karsten reacted to the cake. You just never know how a baby will respond. Will they dig in? Will they even touch it? Will they smash their faces into it? Who knows!

But before we got to the cake itself, we sang "happy birthday" to her.  Honestly, I think this was her favorite part of the party. She loves music and she loves to hear her name (well, usually).

Then it was cake time!

And I should have known. Karsten is such a little lady. There was no digging into the cake for her.  No face smashing.  I had to actually feed it to her at first!

Then she figured it out and very carefully took a taste.

She definitely played with it more than she ate.

And then she flung the cake against the wall and that was the end of the cake experiment.

Opening gifts went pretty much the same way.  I mean she is one so she didn't really have any idea what was going on.  She wasn't really into opening gifts, and like the tissue paper that was thrown on the floor the best.

She LOVED this little bunny that a friend at church gave her.  She has been carrying it around our house for the past week.

And she loved this stuffed bear.  She is such a little momma. She loves baby dolls and stuffed animals so much. 

This one had fun but definitely struggled at a birthday party that was not HERS.  For 3 years, she was our only child. She was almost always the center of attention. This past year has been a huge adjustment for her, and while she's definitely still getting used to it, she has done so well. She loves her baby sister.  She just doesn't love sharing the attention so much. :)  

We definitely had fun celebrating our ONE year old. I still can't believe she's one. She has brought so much joy into our lives.  We love her so!  Happy first birthday, Karsten!