Anna's 1st Birthday Party!

Anna turned one on Friday! How does the time fly by so quickly??? I can't believe my baby is already one. She had such a good b-day party. Her grandma, grandpa, and aunts and uncles (Dan's family), all came out from Utah for the celebration. We had some other friends over as well. We had a bbq, then a pinata for the kids, followed by cake and presents. She was in such a GOOD mood the whole time. She napped really well that day, so she was so happy the whole time. We had bought some sidewalk chalk and there were 4 other kids at the party, and they all loves playing with it. Naturally, Anna wanted to be with them. It was so cute, she kept following around these other little girls and just wanted to be around them. She finally caught on to how to use the sidewalk chalk.

Loving the chalk!

I think this is my new favorite picture of her. Absolutely adorable!

Me, helping Anna with the pinata. She started laughing every time I hit it with the stick.

Anna's new hat!

Singing happy birthday to Anna while I bring out the cake.

I made her, her own little cake. At first she just kind of poked it. I put some frosting in her mouth and once she realized it was good, she dug right in.

She was loving it!

Presents! This other little girl, Sadie, wanted to open presents too. We had to keep giving her empty bags to play with. :)

I love it already, Mom!

Overall, it was a fun party. I was a little stressed out earlier trying to make her cake. I made one, and the frosting was a little too thin and the whole thing just looked awful. It looked like Anna made it, no joke. So I ended up making another one and it looked much better.

We had fun with Dan's family. They all adore Anna and she was loving the attention she gets from them.

On another note, Anna is now weaned, so that meant that today was my first fast Sunday in almost 2 years! Plus, I got a sore throat yesterday, so needless to say, it was a hard fast Sunday. But, in a way, it was nice to be able to fast again.

My new kitchen find

Here is my new decoration find for the kitchen. I think they're really cute. AND I got them for really cheap. I bought them at Kohls. I was sent a $10 gift card in the mail, so I went there to see if I could find anything. They were having a sale on home decor items, 55% off! These were originally $10.99, $4.99 with the sale. I bought three, used my free $10 and ended up paying $4.61 or basically $1.50 each. Not a bad deal if I say so myself.

For some reason, in this picture, the last one's background turned out almost a light gray instead of a dark purple color.

I liked them to begin with, but now that they're up, I like them even more. I think they're perfect for my Italian themed kitchen. The only down side, is the background color is similar to the color of the kitchen walls. I would eventually like to either put them in a darker frame, or add some kind of background to them, to give some contrast, so we'll see what I can find for them.

These next few pictures are sad, but cute at the same time. The last few days we've been trying to get our backyard cleaned up, and she's been playing in the dirt a lot. So, last night, she was on the patio and ventured onto the dirt for a bit. She had a runny nose, then wiped her face with dirt and it stuck to the snot and this is what we got. She started crying because we wouldn't let her go near the garden. It was close to her bed time as well, so she was tired. We thought she looked so funny with all the dirt on her.

Poor little thing.