The One Year Comparison Post

I have done two prior "comparison posts" -- one when the babies were 3.5 months old and one when the babies were 7 months old. Now that the babies are one, I felt as though it were time for another one.

To go ahead and answer your probable question, yes, the stuffed animals in the old pictures are the very same as in the more recent pictures. It is hard for even me to remember that our babies were once as small as they were, but that is why I am so glad that we have these stuffed animals and these pictures so that I can remember. . . .

First, here is Piper at 6 days old, followed by Piper at 1 year:





And here is Henry at 6 days old followed by Henry now at 1 year old:






And last but not least, Rosemary at 8 days old, followed by Rosemary at 1 year old:





The babies seemed to enjoy themselves during this photo shoot. . . .




Piper especially enjoyed herself when she rounded up everyone else's stuffed animals!!

The Big First Birthday Party!!

The babies' first birthday party was from 1:00 until 3:00 this afternoon. About an hour before the party, we started setting up and getting ready and all dressed up for the party. . . .










We had a lot of great family and friends show up for the babies' first birthday party. . . .









Before we could eat cake, the babies had to wear their birthday hats. Due to the difficulty in getting Rosemary to wear a bow in her hair, I had predicted that she would be the one who freaked out when we tried to put on her birthday hat. To my surprise, she was the best baby as far as wearing the hat. Piper, on the other hand, hated the hat. . . .






Next, it was time for the cake! At first, the babies weren't sure what to do with the cake. But, as you watch the progression of photos below, you can see that the babies got more and more into the cake as they ate it. In fact, Piper liked the cake so much that at some point she was distracted enough that we got her birthday hat back on her head!












At about this time, Gary walked over to me and said, "Rosemary sure has eaten a lot of her cake. Think we should take it away from her?" (For the record, I said no.) Rosemary definitely must have overheard that, because she then took the cake-eating to a whole new level:





Piper worked her cake over pretty good:



Henry seems to mostly like the icing on the cake:



And it's no surprise that, of all the babies, Rosemary clearly ate the most of her cake:



The birthday cakes aftermath. . . .



My dad has been wanting to feed the babies sweet things for a while now, particularly banana pudding. But banana pudding has egg whites in it, so I haven't let Dad give any to the babies. Now that the babies are 1, they can have egg whites (thus the birthday cake). Dad was very glad to see that we're letting the babies have cake. He also really enjoyed introducing Henry to ice cream (and as you can tell, Henry enjoyed it a lot himself):




The last thing we did at the party was open gifts! Gary and I each helped Piper and Rosemary open their gifts, and our friend Lindsay helped Henry open his.
















Piper was the first baby to give out, and we put her down for a nap first. Rosemary was next, followed by Henry. Henry was so sleepy that he was almost falling asleep while he was playing with his toys! Then he'd get a second wind and keep going. . . .

We had a great party. The kids had a great time, Gary and I had a great time, and I hope our guests had a wonderful time, too!