Happy Happy Birthday Paige!

My rambling thoughts...skip ahead for a birthday celebration breakdown:  During the days leading up to Paige's birthday, well really the hours leading up to it, I was overcome with memory from those same hours last year.  It was all I could think about and the memories were so thick and so all encompassing that I started to write them down because they were demanding to come out in some forum or another.  I wrote them all in a series of posts that I did not publish because I was undecided.  Still am.  I never really got a chance, with her birth being a little traumatic and all, to share my labor and birth story here like I had intended...so who knows.  Maybe one of these days I'll post it, but all in all it was a very surreal couple days for me, remembering what happened to get this little daughter of mine here one year ago.

To start of the celebrating we went to JCW's with my family, a favorite place of Paige's.  Here she knows she can eat fries, sample ice cream, and chew on as many plastic spoons as she can get her hands on.

After that, we headed over to our house for the cake and gifts.  It was a joint party with my brother and sister, who have birthdays the same week as Paige.  See the little pink cupcake?  That was Paige's cake.

She opened gifts, but I must admit, I think it was a little funner for me than for her.  She did get herself some Woody loot.  The girl has a thing for him.

And finally, cake!  She got stripped down for this part since lately she likes to smear her food all over herself and I wasn't sure how the pink frosting would fare on her white cardigan.  She was mesmerized by the candle and she actually ate a good amount of her cupcake.  And we managed to fit it all in before nap time.

She's the light of my life and I can't wait to be with her everyday.  I can't believe I get to have her around and be her mom.