Bella's First Birthday Party!

I had plans for a great outdoors birthday party in a pavilion at a great local park surrounded by huge trees...you get the picture. We were going to have a dinner in the evening - leaves are changing - lights hung all over the pavilion - dinner by sunset - perfect weather - lots of great friends and family - a very happy birthday baby...but, the big day had COLD weather (action taken by the parents of the birthday girl - Move the party indoors to our house and subsequently make sure everyone was crammed, ahem, cozy), no leaves, no hanging lights, no dinner with the sunset in the background, and no happy birthday girl! Bella cried the ENTIRE time - poor thing. There were lots of faces and she had missed her afternoon nap (I know you other moms out there just said "oh no" to that fact.) The one thing that remained constant was the presence of great friends and family in celebration of our sweet one-year-old Bella! And, celebrate we still did!

We decided to do a Read-Around-The-World theme. I originally wanted to decorate each picnic table with a different country theme...but, I combined them all in one table (aka. our dining table!). So, we had the world in one place which was fun. I found some great children's book to decorate with from various parts of the world. We also had a global menu of Tunisian chicken and couscous, Mediterranean spinach dip, Indian spiced tea, "Scottish" oat bread, Houston chocolate chip cookies (Grammy's special recipe), Dutch double chocolate cookies, and Bella's birthday cake decorated like a world (well, kindof. I did my best. Maybe it's Pangaea...)Either way, Bella was not having any of it! What you can't see is her screaming and what you can't hear is everyone singing happy birthday.A fun fact about the table is there were numerous items given to us or Bella from around the world. Camels, elephants, giraffes, bowls from Rwanda, Tunisia, Kenya, Ethiopia!

We asked people to donate to the Room to Read organization instead of giving gifts to Bella. I first read the book about that organization and loved what they were doing, particularly with supporting underprivileged girls around the world obtain an education. So, through the gifts of everyone we were able to support one girl for a year and a half through school!!!! So neat! And, thanks everyone from the Smith Family!
I found this great book I asked everyone to sign which teaches you how to say "hi" from various countries around the world. This page is teaching "hi" in Swahili!

Where's the birthday girl? Not here! She's in her room being rocked/bounced/sung-to/rocked/bounced/cooed/talked-to/bounced by her mom, dad, aunt, grandmothers...

Some of our great friends who came - Kristen, Sarah, Suzanne, Jodie, Aunt Alli, Mike, Louis, Alan, Joell, Holly
Friends from the Onion in Waco!!
My grandmother was also able to come. Thanks to my aunt and uncle and mom and dad!! Isn't she beautiful!
Sweet Frances from our Milano church. She bought Bella a book that sings "Jesus loves me"...I may or may not have cried nearly every time I sing this with Bella!
Precious AD and Ruth Lagrone from the Milano church! They made Bella a cute castle birdhouse ("Since she's a princess" - Ruth) and gave her a $2 bill, which is a tradition for their family. We are glad to be a part of that!
We ended up having a great time with our great friends and family. And, guess who perked up after everyone except the family left! You guessed it...the birthday girl! Little stinker!
"Where did everybody go? And, why is mom playing peek-a-boo?"
"Phew, hard night...I'm still cute in my pre-bath glory though! Mommy said she had a good time too after she got over being disappointed. I think I flashed my sweet grin and she was ok! Glad I could help..."
Mom - "What about the world cake now?" Bella - "Nope, i'm laughing at Brad, Allison and Granddad"

The next day we had another party with just the family...To be continued....