The Youngest shows herself party worthy

You didn't think all the kid parties were done for the year, did you? SUCKER!! We merely took a month break between Mr August and Ms September here!

The youngest niece, often lost in the shuffle of tween chatter and preschool whining, has now reached the big bad ass age of ONE! Now that she is officially on her feet, the following life changes will occur:

* Her chance of being stomped on by marauding kids flying through the playroom will lessen dramatically.

* Her reach will extend from "carpet fuzz in front of me" to "windowsill where mommy keeps her Starbucks".

* Shoes will take on much higher importance as feet pound from carpet to grass to cement in no time.

* Her crib bars will become great levelers for her climbing stunts.

To celebrate such milestones, the family gathered to shower her with gifts, cake and photo ops:

Here is the cake I convinced my sister to get:
(it tasted as good as it looked...although the whole eating of fondant is beyond me. Kids seemed to like it though). Some people, I WON'T SAY WHO, seemed a little pissed off at the attention shift:

While guests and cousins and family and dogs hung around the following present and cake display, I snuck the guest of honor out front for a few first birthday photographs:
The following represent the best shots I got, gotten despite the constant interruption of kids running through, dogs running through, a rambling toddler standing behind, on and on top of me, and several outbursts from the mother at the kids and dogs running through the shots:


Occasionally, the older sister would make her presence known:
then it was back to the star:



Here she is showing off her new found standing and walking skill:
Finally, after some 50 plus shots, it was time for the star attraction to pay homage to the pile of gifts awaiting her destruction:
Someone, I WON'T SAY WHO, discovered a Dora the Explorer wrapped gift and naturally assumed it was for her:


The star attraction was completely entranced by the box hidden under the Dora wrapping paper - never mind the cool kitchen play set inside of it:
Eventually she got around to opening more of her gifts:
Meanwhile the "old kids" were dying of boredom and entertaining themselves in many different ways:

Little Miss One would occasionally wander back to her favorite gift, "empty box", and have to be pulled back into the gift pile to resume her unwrapping duties:

there she goes again:
After a brief rest period with daddy, the star attraction was ready to check out the cake:

Bravely she tore it apart (a little bit) and tried it:
a little unsure of it:
She never really destroyed it, as many of the others had - perhaps she had already been to too many kid parties in her year of life? Here is a final image, my favorite shot of the day:
and a quick video montage of the party:

3 more kid parties to go!