Kaki's FIRST Birthday DAY!

Kaki is ONE... officially...TODAY, June 27th! WOAH! To say that this year has been the FATEST of my life would be quite the understatement. I am really not so sure where it all went, but I know that I cannot imagine this little girl being with any other family but ours. She is a blessing beyond all blessings to our family. We love her so very much and don't quite know what we'd do without her goofy grins, sweet smiles, deep throaty grunts and her love of adventure. She certainly spices up an average day and makes any dark spot seem not quite so! She is one of kind... she's our Kaki Lou!

Today, started off a bit earlier than I had anticipated... life with kids, right?! Especially those who are sharing a room... so the adorable Minnie Mouse pancakes I had dreamed up in my head to make turned into an early morning run to Shipley's for some donut holes... who could resist that?!

Kaki! That's who! She was not a fan! :) She licked the icing off of one and nibbled on it, but by the time we got home (had to drive through Starbucks for a Mommy treat too) she wanted nothing to do with them... so I fixed her favorite apple cinnamon waffles (and yes they are of the frozen variety...). So it turned out to be just a normal day for Kaki-pants... despite my best efforts! Okay, so my best efforts would have been to suck it up and make the pancakes... so we'll say despite my efforts, fair enough?

For some reason I had made TWO appointments for myself today... on her birthday! And needed some help from Nana! It didn't dawn on me until a few weeks ago that it was going to be on Kaki's birthday... aren't I awesome?! BUT, it was actually pretty special for Kaki to have some extra lovin' and a surprise balloon or two! And let's not forget the cupcakes! Thanks Nana for coming to spend some time with us today! I know the other grands were jealous that you got to see Kaki on her big day! :)

Oh how could I forget... Caden and I gave Kaki her very own cell phone this morning. She got the rest of her gifts at her party on Sunday, but she had to have something for today! She has been making calls ALL day long... I hope VTech Wireless has a payment plan! :)

After her afternoon nap and before our big night out on the town celebrating I attempted to do one last picky sticky photo shoot with Kaki! Of course I didn't want to dress her up in the onesie so I thought we'd try having her hold her sticker and show me her BIG number 12!! It didn't quite work out like I thought it might... but we still got some cute pics of our sweet girl in one of her new birthday outfits... isn't it CUTE????!!!!

Of course when you give a girl a sticker you can hardly expect her to look at the camera! 

And then she'll just get mad that she can't get it off of the paper! 

So you say, fine... let's put it on... which of course means she'll try to pull it off! Kind of like the bow and clip we tried to keep in her hair for the pictures... impossible today for some reason! :)

Alright... how about the wall? That will be cute... unless of course she's covering it with her hand in her attempts to peal it off...

Her bottom??? Maybe...

Let's just stick it back on the paper and forget about it... Happy 12 Months Kaki! 

Picky sticky or not...

We had the HARDEST time deciding where to go to dinner tonight. Kaki isn't too opinionated in the restaurant department and probably would prefer my mac n cheese or black beans to just about anything else in her dinner option menu... but we finally decided on our stand-by... Mighty Fine! This time we'd thought we'd spice it up though and let Kaki have her first milkshake... strawberry flavored of course! :)

Kaki does love a good french fry... 

And she can say that "she's one!" while eating said french fry! :)

Or maybe she was pointing for Mom to keep shoveling that milkshake in her mouth... either way it works! (Man I sure was focused in this pic... don't spill the milkshake... ha!) My mouth may have also been a bit numb from my filling today too! Hehe!

I had to get a pic with my girl... milkshake face and all!

Once it melted good Kaki decided to go "big girl" on it and slurped it on up! I think it is safe to say that she'll like milk... at least that's my prayer since we have NO MORE FORMULA in the house right now... but a freshly bought carton of MILK!! :)

Once we got home we had Strawberry Cupcakes and sang to our precious little! Candle and all!!

She got all bashful when we started singing... loving every second of it...

And she was excited about the fire...

And couldn't wait to get her hands on it...

Come on Daddy... bring it on in...

Wait for it... BLOW!!!

YAY Daddy... hope you made a wish!

Time to chow down!!

Um... you expect me to eat that?!

Hmmmmm

I'll try it... BLAH!

Not your best work Mom...

I'll take a cracker instead... two if you can spare them! 

And so that's what she got... birthday crackers... a girl after my own heart... I'd take a salty carb over a sweet carb any day of the week! Sweet girl!!

And last but certainly never least... the girl and her boy... who also begs to be celebrated today. He has been a brother and a great one at that for one whole year!! Congrats Cade-man! And he has clean hands! :)

What may have seemed much like an ordinary day was EXTRAORDINARY... celebrating a year in the life of our sweet Lou Lou! Happy Birthday Kaki! We love you to the moon and back... and back again! We thank God for you EACH and EVERY day!! Our hearts are full! (and our quiver too!) :)