But all that's in the past and it was time to party. I tried to convince Clara it would be a par-tay, but she insisted that wasn't right and it was in fact a party. I guess that's what I deserve for trying to get her to speak correctly.

It was your usual one year old's party. Lots of her parents' friends came and a couple of friends for her older sister. We ate lots of things she couldn't or wouldn't and unlike most kid-friendly parties there was plenty of alcohol to dull the senses and obscure the noise in the room with all the toys. You wouldn't have thought so few kids could make so much noise.

Luckily, the weather turned decent for a short while so we headed outside to play on the swings and run through the "gungle" (jungle). Amazingly, nobody got hurt or even too dirty. Until the cake, that is.

Lilly got her chance to destroy a cake, but opted instead to be a bit more on the reserved side. She played with the frosting and found it tasted ok. She even skipped using her hands for a short while and went face-first into the cake. However, she stopped short of actually getting to the cake itself. Why bother? After all, the frosting is clearly the messiest part of the deal and that's what we were all there to see. (Happily, QFC gives you a kid cake and a real cake for one price so we didn't have to cut around Lilly's damage.)

After a quick bath presents were fun with all the kids participating. Lilly probably did the least, though she clearly loved the new toys. Amy loved the clothing Lilly got, especially one piece that nearly brought down the house. (It's a family website so I can't really decribe what happened, but feel free to ask Amy.)

All that sugar helped keep both kids up later than normal and cleaning kept us up a little bit, but not too much. Since the party was actually the day before Lilly's birthday we went to sleep remembering how different it was a year ago and marveling at how lucky we are to have two special little girls.