Birthday Pics and More

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I promised birthday pics, so although her birthday party was a week ago, here they are. I posted a couple of her so you wouldn't have to wait to look through the slide show. Since her actual birthday is the first day of spring, we had a "springy" party, although I didn't include pictures of the decorations, we had butterflies, flowers, bright springy colors, a butterfly cake and I served "caterpillars" on a stick, buggy mac and cheese, and cheesy "cocoons" (see if you can figure all of those out.) Amelia loved eating her birthday cake, much more than Isabella did her first birthday. She jumped right in! She was so cute and of course the slide show is mostly of pictures of her eating her cake. :) She got lots of cute presents, but wasn't extremely interested in opening them, except she loved the stuffed lamb Noni and Papa gave her. All together, I think she had fun and of course the other kids had a great time playing together, I think Amelia is ready to be up and running around with them.

All of last week was really busy. We had the party, 2 nights of special services at church, Thursday night Kenny's sister and family were in from Michigan so they came over to visit, Friday night, Kenny had an all nighter with the teens (for which the girls and I stayed late, but not all night!) then Saturday we went shopping with Noni while Daddy slept and then we were given tickets to the circus, so we went Saturday night. AND let me tell you, THANK GOD the tickets were free, because I can't believe what a money maker a circus is. If you're wondering why one of us isn't riding the elephant with Isabella, it's because we weren't "monetarily" prepared for the circus. We hadn't thought about breaking the bank and bringing a ton of cash with us. They had the slide, the elephant rides, a polaroid picture with a tiger in a box ($10, no thanks!), some jumping thing, the toys, the food, etc. etc. We weren't total grinches, she just had to pick wisely what she wanted. :) She loved riding the elephant and she also got to slide down the big slide. As you can see, she's our little daredevil, going down head first. I think she had fun, although I have learned that I am not a big circus fan. Maybe it was just this particular circus, I don't know. I liked some of it, but not my favorite thing to do

And the BIG news of the week: Thursday night, Amelia decided to take her first few steps!!! Out of the blue, we were all sitting around talking, she stood up next to Daddy and was standing there for a while (which that's nothing new) and then all of a sudden she took one.... two....three steps. We, of course, grabbed the video camera and she refused to do it for the camera. I think Kenny might have gotten her to take a step for the camera, but once she sees the camera she is more interested in getting over to the camera than trying to do anything else. So, I guess I don't have long until she will be completely mobile!! I think it will be so cute when she starts walking, but I definitely don't push it or worry about it because I know that will just prove that she really isn't a baby anymore. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. She'll go from being my baby to being my big girl that rides elephants by herself, slides down the big slide head first, ...... and I know that happened WAY too quick with Isabella.