Karis' 1st Bday Party

So Jared posted a few pics from Karis' Bday party in January, but we thought her 1st bday deserved its own post. Karis' Bday is 1/7/9, so we celebrated the first week of January with the family members who were able to make the trip. We decided on a farm animal theme since one of Karis' favorite things was a big pop out book she has on farm animals. In fact, one of her very first words was "rooster," which she said several times around 9 months old, along with her attempt at "cock-a-doodle-do," and to the dismay of her parents, has not repeated it since.

My mom, known as "BB" to the grandbabies, made Karis' first birthday cake, a barnyard cake complete with silo and farm animal cupcakes. She also made Karis' own little pig cake to eat/destroy. In light of the cold January weather, we served homemade chili with chili dogs. We also made little party favors for Karis' mini guests, her cousins Andrew, Eli and Ethan. Their party favors were in little silver farm pales, lined with a bandana. Inside the pale were animal stickers, an animal coloring book, crayons, animal crackers, animal stensils and party blowers.

Karis decided she was sleepy just before cake and presents, but we were able to somehow distract her enough with the festivities to stay awake. As a result, she was a bit more stoic than her usual personality, especially considering all of the people who were in her house watching her eat cake, open gifts, and play. Of course, she became wired just as all the guests started leaving and as she realized those gifts weren't leaving with them!

Here are some photos of our fun night with our baby girl, already one year old!!
(For some reason some of the captions did not turn out right- sorry, Jared's computer and I do not get along!)

Karis Olivia Blankenship, born January 7, 2009
[caption id="attachment_325" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Karis\' personal (pig) cake"][/caption][caption id="attachment_326" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="K\'s first candle and cake!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_327" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Andrew convincing Karis to dig in!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_328" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Guess it worked!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_329" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="What a fun mess!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_330" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cleaning up the aftermath"][/caption][caption id="attachment_331" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Time to spoil!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_333" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Ethan digs in head first!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_335" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Is that a pig cupcake?!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_336" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Eby Family"][/caption][caption id="attachment_337" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Karis with 2 sets of great grandparents!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_338" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Karis with \"BB and Bop\""][/caption][caption id="attachment_339" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Karis and Papa Ted"][/caption][caption id="attachment_340" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Karis and Aunt Marina"][/caption][caption id="attachment_341" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Party Pooped"][/caption][caption id="attachment_342" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bday kiss"][/caption][caption id="attachment_343" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Loves her bday barn!"][/caption][caption id="attachment_345" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Our little peanut one year ago..."][/caption][caption id="attachment_346" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="My how she\'s grown in one year! (That\'s her sock in her mouth instead of on her feet, which she prefers.)"][/caption]