Celebrating...

Ava Kate's 1st birthday fell on a Thursday so Josh and I decided to take the day off  and celebrate with Little Miss!! We started the day off by spending the morning in our pjs, making blue berry muffins, playing and singing "Happy Birthday" a million times!!  Ava Kate may not have known it was her birthday....but she KNEW she was the center of attention and she LOVED every minute of it!! 

let the celebration begin....

a little birthday muffin to start the day....

 Ava Kate could have cared less about the birthday candle....she went straight for the muffin!!  Luckily Owen came to the rescue and blew out the candle before she did too much damage!

After breakfast, we moved on to presents...

Ava Kate was most excited about her new baby doll! We couldn't get it out of the box fast enough....

She loved on that baby, rocked the baby...

....hugged, and hugged, and hugged the baby

gave her a paci (when she wasn't trying to take it herself)....

She was soooo sweet and loving with her new baby.  Her favorite thing to do was...rock her and say "awwwwww" over and over!  It was so cute!!

posing in her adorable 1st birthday shirt designed by Beema....

Owen was such a big helper!  He helped Ava Kate open each present and then would say "look Ava its a..."!  Little did he know, we had a "good" big brother present of him too! He was so excited when he saw that it was a fireman imaginext!  

 me and my sweet baby girl....

After Little Miss opened presents and we played for a while, we took Owen to daycare so Josh and I could spend some one on one time with the birthday girl.  Apparently the morning wore her out, so she took a little nap in the car to get refueled for her afternoon with mommy and daddy.  

The birthday girl woke up hungry so we headed to The Green Submarine for one of her favorites.... a grilled cheese sandwich!

We had originally planned to spend the afternoon at the park, but it was a gloomy day and it looked like it could rain at any minute so moved the afternoon activities indoors.   And what better place to go with a one year old on her birthday than....Toys R Us and Barnes and Noble!  

Ava Kate was so funny at Toys R Us.  She spent the first little bit just looking around quietly UNTIL.... we turned down the princess and baby doll isle.  All of a sudden, she started pointing and saying "dat, dat, dat" to every princess and baby on the isle!  It was so cute! After her LOVE for ALL the princesses and babies, there was no way we were getting out of there without one.  So, her choice of the day was a "petite" Cinderella doll!!   

We tried to put her down and get it on video....it's cute but it just doesn't do it justice!

It was quite an exciting day and baby girl was more than ready for a nap after all the festivities.  After nap we picked up Owen from daycare and headed home for a birthday dinner and some more presents from Beema and Papa Joe!

Another one of Ava Kate's favorites...Chicken Parmesan bake

 ....And strawberry frozen yogurt with fresh strawberries for dessert

playing with her "petite" Cinderella....such a girly girl!!