1st Birthday Celebration, Baptism, Big Planes

Last week our youngest turned the BIG ONE and I wrote her birthday tribute post HERE.

We celebrated her birthday with family last Wednesday, July 30th, her actual birthday date.  We left the next day for PA to visit friends and my sister's family for my nephew's baptism.

Here is my Mom giving our Cupcake #5 the stuffed animals that my Mom knitted for her granddaughter.  My Mom is super talented and I so want to learn how to do this (in my "spare" time-Ha!).  My Mom said this teddy bear, frog, and skunk were not that difficult to make.  

Here is the cake I made for our big ray of sunshine..turning one and having fun with our sun(shine)!  The chocolate cake mix was from the Hershey's Cocoa container and then I made a homemade cream cheese icing tinted with yellow and orange food dye. 

Here's a short video of our family, my in-laws, and my two brother in-laws' families singing "Happy Birthday".  ( I always have technical difficulties downloading videos, so if you can't see the video below, sorry about that and maybe it will download the right way magically somehow!)  I have to explain the knife throwing part, however.  It is a family tradition to "throw" the cake knife into the cake and wherever it lands that's where the cut cutting begins.  This is highly supervised and great fun as you hear my mother-in-law in the background telling my husband to basically be careful by repeating his name more than once. :) 

She enjoyed her cake so much and so did her hair!  :) 

After our birthday girl got all cleaned up, I snapped this sweet moment that she was sharing with my father-in law.

The next morning, Thursday, July 31, we left bright and early (as in 5:15 AM) to travel to PA (about 10 hours) to go stay with friends and visit my sister. My sister's little baby boy was baptized this past weekend and I was the Godmother, while my brother-in laws good friend was the Godfather.  During a cookout prior to the day of the baptism, my sister had another cake and ice cream sundaes ready to celebrate our girl's 1st birthday.   Here are some pictures of the fun weekend!

I gave my nephew and Godson the baptism candle holder where I had his name engraved in it with his baptism date.  I did not make the cake.  :)  The christening gown hanging up was made by my great grandmother on my Mom's side and it is 70 + years old.  This gown was worn by my Mom and her brother during their infant baptism, along with all my cousins, siblings, and my children.  Our little Cupcake #5 wore it as well last year.

My "Cupcake" Crew

On our way home from PA on Monday we stopped in DC for a family field trip.  What an amazing place the National Air & Space Museum is to visit!  Free admission, but parking is $15 :/   It was "plane heaven" full of such wonderful aviation history!

I overheard a tour guide say that the Blackbird" plane above cost $85,000/day to fuel it!  WOW!

The kids got to operate a plane's steering wheel and we learned more about he Enola Gay, that dropped an atomic bomb on the military port of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

This was great to see the Discovery space shuttle up close.  In the front of the shuttle we could see how much insulation was used on it to prevent it from melting as it went to space and back down.  Just amazing!

It was a blessed weekend with family and friends! Thanks for stopping in!