Cousin E's Birthday Party

Where does the time go?

I can hardly believe it's been a year since our beautiful goddaughter, E, was born.  Okay, well, it'll be a year tomorrow, but her party was this Saturday.

This generation of girls, with The Princess being the oldest and E the youngest (so far), well...they amaze me.  I love seeing how they interact with each other and assert their independence in their own little ways.  It seems like their personalities are ingrained almost from day one, and it really is a joy to sit back and observe them.

E, the Birthday Girl, showin' off her bunny ears.

K helping E out with the cake...E really wanted to see what she was doing.

The Princess and Nana

The more of these parties we go to, the more comfortable The Princess is with the huge rowdy group of folks we're lucky to call our family.

And, though I don't like to dwell on the negative, I've kind of felt as though I've been missing out the last few years.  The last big party we had for The Princess was at her own first birthday, for what should be fairly obvious reasons by this point.  I freely admit to my crying jag last year when I realized I wouldn't be able to throw a big party for her fifth birthday.  Five is one of the big milestone years in my family, and it broke my heart that I couldn't have the party, but it was more important to me for her to be comfortable.

Now, seeing how well she is interacting with everyone and self-regulating when she needs to, I'm starting to think there may be hope yet.

That's right.  We're going to have a birthday party this year.  Lord help us.  We'll probably ask everyone to sing in whispers, and she likely won't last more than a minute or two opening gifts, but we're gonna try it.

Here's hopin' there are half as many smiles that day as we saw this weekend.