Throw the Party of the Month, Nah the Party of the Year

Bonus points for anyone who knows the song those lyrics come from.

 As I said the other day, we celebrated Sadie's birthday on the 24th. She opened a few presents from us first thing in the morning. I would have cropped this picture, but you can see Louie signing "more" in the background. She could care less about presents- just give her the food!

Sadie could not wait for her party. Now that she understands presents it is all she could talk about. For the party we invited a bunch of our friends to meet us at the splash park in Highland. It has wide open grassy areas all around so we set up a canopy and brought a bunch of food.  For the first half hour Sadie would not stop whining and asking for presents. I finally threatened if she whined one more time about it I would throw them away and she went to play in the water. 

I am so mad at myself that I didn't get a picture of all the little attendees. They varied in age and gender, but the beauty of the party at the splash park is that they all could do their own thing if they wanted to. 

Daniel's cousin Megan got this adorable shot of Sadie and her second cousin Jack. 

I told Sadie once the water turned off again (it turns off at the end of each hour) that we could eat cake and open presents. 

She came running over all excited to announce the water was off. She posed with her cake and then we sang happy birthday. The wind was blowing too hard to get the candles to stay lit so she pretended to blow them out. I'm pretty sure she didn't care at all. She was just eyeing the presents.

Hillary, Ben, and Diane (my cousin) created these masterpiece cakes. Ever since Claire Sullivan's party where they had a Barbie princess cake Sadie has been asking for one. I asked Hillary if she could make the cake and in typical Hillary fashion, she made two. The Cinderella Barbie cake was a strawberry cake and the Ariel cake was carrot. Everyone was impressed. They achieved the ultimate in baking- delicious and impressive looking. The only casualty was the Barbie- they had to take the legs off to make her fit and then her arm fell off later and Daniel couldn't get it back on. Shhh- don't tell Sadie her triple-amputee Barbie is in the trash now. 

Then it was on to presents.

 Alicia and Bryce got Sadie this set of paper magnetic Disney princesses. Sadie has played with them every day since. 

 I love how excited all the kids, no matter the age, get about present opening. 

Elise spent the entire party grazing and stealing food off plates people left on the ground. She ate almost 2 whole pieces of pizza this way. Everyone laughed at her. 

And probably my 2 favorite pictures from the party:

 Sadie and her second cousin Elly. Elly was our favorite kid during our pre-kid stage of marriage. She is still awesome. That Dora birthday crown was a present that Sadie and Elise fight over daily. 

Ben captured Daniel's favorite activity- throwing his girls. And Elise happily posed for him.

Thank you to all of you who made it to the party and for your generous presents. Sadie is set for toys and art supplies for the next year. 

We sure love our Sadie a whole lot.