Alice’s First Birthday

Alice turned one yesterday and we had a little birthday party in her honor. I was trying to keep things simple: cake and ice cream + next door and across the street neighbors. Minutes before we were expecting our friends I was applauding myself and taking pictures of Alice’s cake. I was so pleased with how it turned out and feeling grateful to Real Simple magazine for both the chocolate sour cream frosting recipe (amazing) and the idea to decorate with strawberries – beautiful yet easy – one might even say “real simple.”But oh how the mighty fall! I thought I saw a few bald spots on the cake and started slipping a few more strawberries in and then I got frosting on the cake dome and as I was trying to wipe it off my slick strawberry juiced fingers fumbled and the dome slipped and smashed onto the table, making a deep scratch on the table and shattering glass onto the cake and strawberries. Our sweet little birthday girl, who already on edge because it was close to bed time, burst into tears. Norah, who had been waiting all day to eat cake also started to cry when she realized the cake had been compromised. So while both kids were pretty much hysterical Bryan and I cleaned up the glass and scrapped off all the frosting on on the cake. Mercifully, I had left over strawberries and Real Simple had quite the generous frosting recipe so there was enough to re-frost the cake. We let Alice/Norah open a present to cheer them up and all was right in the world. Harper and Willa adore Alice and came over to wish her a happy birthday. They told us many times that they were “so glad Alice is finally 1” and “don’t call her baby Alice, she’s not a baby anymore.” Oh they crack me up! You might remember from past posts that Alice is not allowed in the playroom with them for safety reasons. I’m always getting after them for hugging her too tightly and telling them to be more gentle and I think they were hoping now she’d allowed to play with them. . . not going to happen. I know they love her but the temptation to put her in the doll crib is too strong lol.Alice loved her cake, especially the strawberries, and tried to eat it with a fork. She’s been insisting on using a fork lately and even tries to pick up her cheerios with a fork.And here she is in new birthday jammies with her shopping cart and dolly. She is really enjoying her birthday presents and Norah has been very good about letting her play with them first.Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes yesterday. I was really touched and gave Alice extra hugs and kisses on your behalf.

Alice's 1st Year Recap

Thanksgiving

Bryan’s entire family got together in Virginia for Thanksgiving this year. Norah did lots of baking while we were there. Here she is making green bean casserole with Courtney, orange rolls with Mimi and pumpkin pie with me.Susan invited Ashley, Matt and Louis to join us for the feast. We had beautiful weather so we headed outside for some pre-dinner playtime at the park. Norah insisted on playing tag and chased us around – I caught Matt using Ashley as a block.Guy busted out his Red Ryder BB gun. He acted like the red rider had been in the closet since we were all together last Christmas but we think he may have been secretly practicing because he nailed the target.Of course it is always fun to see these two togetherRemember this blog post? That was about 8 months ago – look at them now!

Not pictured but greatly enjoyed were several delicious meals by Susan, youtube video watching, black Friday shopping and TWO trips to Zinga for frozen yogurt! We can’t wait to visit Bryan’s family again.

Alice Photo Shoot

Alice is almost one and, in my opinion, at the most beautiful and ephemeral stage of development. I think learning to walk has increased her confidence and curiosity and I can see her excitement when she makes discoveries. She shoots me glances that seem to say “did you know these pots were in here? And did you know they made this sound?!” or “did you just see me reach that, pull it off and shake it without falling? I’m so awesome!” She is delighted by everything and everyone. We were playing at a park the other day and a lady said to me “She is so cute. How do you stand it? Do you just film her all day long?” It really is such a conundrum - do you just savor the moment or try to document every second you can? I find that at the end of each day I regret not doing more of both.

Visiting Grandma Lorraine

Norah, Alice and I went to Denver November 5th – 10th to visit Grandma Lorraine while she recovered from surgery. As a bonus, we were able to see Ashley and Louis in the airport for about 15 minutes before they headed home to D.C. Alice seems to have finally out grown her separation anxiety because she immediately reached for Ashley and wanted to be held by her. Louis didn’t mind me holding him but he definitely preferred to be allowed to walk around and explore. I was mid blink in this picture, but I wanted a picture with Norah in it and if you can believe it I look better in this one than the other oneI unfortunately didn’t get many pictures while we were in Colorado but I did at least get one of my mom with each girl

Things I should have taken pictures of: My mom and Norah making necklaces with beads, Norah meeting Santa Claus (in November!) at the Cherry Creek Mall, and Norah dressing up as a Snow Fairy and leaving a trail of glitter from her costume everywhere she went, Alice playing with some of my old toys including my baby doll “buddy.”

Halloween

This year for Halloween Norah was a cow girl and Alice was a cow. We owe a special thank you to Bryan’s mom who made Norah’s costume and bought Alice’s. Despite her expression in this picture Norah was very excited to go trick or treating. I’m not sure why Alice was so excited but she was VERY excited. We persuaded Norah to smile for the cameraI made Jack-o-lanterns with Norah during the day. We haven’t gotten around to carving pumpkins with her the last three Halloweens (her only Halloweens) and I wanted to make sure to do it this year. She has been pointing out every Halloween decoration she sees out her car window all month to me: “Look mom,  a spider” “I see two ghosts” “Look lots of Jack-o-lanterns at that house.” I kept waiting for a quiet evening when we could carve pumpkins with Bryan but no such evening came so after a month of procrastination we set to it as soon as she came home from preschool. She was a little frustrated that she didn’t get to hold the knife but she really enjoyed cleaning out the pumpkins. This pumpkin with two bottom teeth was inspired by Alice Norah went trick or treating with Harper and Willa in the fancy pants neighborhood of University Park. We were told that we’d moms sipping martini’s and dad’s with wine glasses while taking their kids around and we really did! If only I had a picture to prove it.

State Fair: Where everything is Big and Bright

This post is over due – Thursday October 19th we went to the Texas State Fair. The state fair is held every year in “Fair Park” which is this big complex of museums, the Cotton Bowl Stadium and the iconic Texas Ferris Wheel which is the largest in the country. The stadium and all the museums are all art deco gems. Norah and I became pretty familiar with Fair Park this summer when we sought refuge from the heat in the museums and it was impressive to see the transformation for the month long fair – it was hard to believe everything they had set up was temporary.

 

The first picture I took at the Fair was of “Big Tex” who burned down the next morning. I thought he was kind of creepy looking – like a giant ventriloquist – but I still felt bad when I heard of his demise. I’m glad we we got to see him the day before.We saw “The Amazing Chinese Acrobats”We ate Corny DogsAnd Fried ButterJust Kidding – Bryan tried Fried Jambalaya – which won best fried food or whatever this year so how could he not?

Do our pictures look strangely crowd free? We got there right when the fair opened and  accidentally went on Seniors Day  . . . so the rides didn’t start till noon. We made sure to stay long enough to let Norah go on plenty of rides though.By the time we left it was getting hot and poor little Alice was sooo thirsty (and probably hungry too). This water bottle was about 3/4 full when we gave it to her.