The Pope Kiddos: It's her party and she'll cry if she wants to...

Lily was a very agreeable baby. She'd let anyone hold her as most babies do. In the past two months or so she's started to resist this a bit. She's very aware of strangers and cautious. If someone comes up to her while we're out, she'll stare with her big beautiful eyes but she won't crack a smile at all. She's loves to be out watching other people (especially young, rambunctious kids) but she likes to do this slyly. So what does this have to do with her birthday? She was a bit overwhelmed. Usually when she sees someone she doesn't see every day (even people she knows like her grandparents) she takes a few minutes to get warmed up. But in under 5 minutes, she's your new best friend and will bring you book to read her and puppets to play with. On her birthday there were over 40 people that she doesn't see that often. Plus she didn't get a morning nap before the party. So she was a little unsure about what was going on. For the first hour or so she just wanted to be held by mommy or daddy. And she completely refused to show off her new walking skills! Thankfully lunch warmed her up a little, and opening presents brought out her regular self (she's a spoiled little girl already).

It was a wonderful party. Despite running a little late, we managed to get everything set up and the food out pretty much on schedule. Thanks to my mom for keeping an eye on Lily while she was "resting" and getting her dressed in her birthday attire and to my dad for carrying supplies up and down the stairs, manning two grills for a while and washing every last dish from the party after I crashed on the couch. Thank goodness my parents and Anna arrived a couple days before the party because I would not have been able to do it all on my own. Simple things like running to Costco to pick up the last of the perishable items is so much more difficult after getting home at 5 and having to get a little girl fed, bathed and in bed by 7:30 PM. Thankfully my dad picked up the slack on that one and got the last of the food for the party too.

It was a great day though. So busy that I didn't have time to feel nostalgic about how big she's gotten so quickly. We were so glad to be able to share our joy over the past year with all of our friends and a lot of our family. This is the only birthday Lily will celebrate before we leave so we were glad that so many people were able to come, hang out, and eat. It was wonderful seeing so many of the friends we've made here in one place.