The first order of business? Fluff up the tissue flowers and paper lanterns.
Or you could wear them as hats, too (hi, Beth!).
Distractable baby is distractable. :)
I don't know how many photos I have of miss Sophie eating, but paying more attention to the camera than her food. It's so adorably her!
Bath time- too cute!!
Back to the party prep...Darren hung the big bunches of various paper thingies (yes, that is a technical term) from the ceiling fans for me.
While I rushed around baking several different desserts (with Beth's help, thankfully), and setting up all the food.
I love, love, love setting up party buffets. I went for a huge tray of fruit in addition to my usual platter of cheese and crackers.
I also love baking and decorating cupcakes, and I stuck chocolate chip cookies and brownies in pretty wrappers, just for good measure.
I thought these little paper umbrellas made adorable cupcake toppers.
We also had a veggie stand, just so the whole thing wasn't completely unhealthy.
And here's a shot of the whole spread. I'm kind of in love with the big serving tray set on the right. I picked it up at Sam's Club while I was getting the rest of the food, and it really came in handy!
Poor J was recovering from mono.
And at this point I was so pooped out from setting everything up and cooking all morning (at this point it was around 7 or 8 in the evening) that I didn't have the energy to take people photos, so I handed the camera over to Darren and asked him to do it for me.
My cousin, Jake, texting.
My uncle Mike.
And the birthday girl herself opening her gifts. That was one of the things I got for her- a stuffed elephant (she loves elephants) from IKEA.
And a W00t shirt with an elephant on it, as well (it's obscured by the gift bag).
And here's one advantage of handing the camera over to someone else- I'm actually in some of the photos!!
Sophie is a seriously cute little monkey baby who loves to climb, especially on people...and she's very good at sticking her foot directly into a vital organ on the way up (as documented on this scrapbook page I posted last week).
Beth and Jon gave Mom some fabric she'd been eying for a while.
While Sophie continued to dance on my spleen.
The next day the guys all went outside to work on Jon's other gift to Mom- a Pergola in the front garden.
And then right before everyone left, Darren and I cooked up a bit of Indian food for everyone to try. I can't take credit for anything except the rice and chapati (and oooooh, am I ever going to be making that recipe again- so good!).
Sophie wore us all our walking around the house. Here's Dad taking his turn with her.
Shortly before leaving for home I decided that I just had to have a 50mm f/1.4 lens for my Nikon (indoor shots at night on my f/2.8 had been driving me batty), so I did a quick check on Craigslist to see if anything was available. As luck would have it, someone on our route was selling one, so we met with him, checked it out, bought it, and then rejoiced that his condo was only a couple of miles from Chipotle.
And thus ended another little family adventure. And two weeks after that I was back to do it again for Father's Day...but more on that later. :)