birthday madness

...here she is, the lovely little one year old...our very own cadence joy! this is on the way to her birthday party on saturday...we'd rented out a fieldhouse at a park in glenview, which is the suburb where my mom lives...it was only $10/hour to rent for glenview residents, so that worked out...

...well, we survived the birthday party, but BARELY...like what were we thinking inviting 250 billion people? it was quite overwhelming, really...i was touched though that so many people showed up...we had like 60 people there counting the kids...my best friend josh flew all the way from CT to be there, and ted's cousin connie and her husband ben and son perry drove all the way from iowa for the party...

...cadence was pretty much an angel for her party, which was surprising considering she hadn't had her morning nap...she got so exhausted halfway into her party that she fell sound asleep...her cousin mackenzie had to tickle her awake so we could do cake before all the guests left...

...cadence was pretty stunned and not quite awake when we all sang happy birthday to her, and she looked around at everyone wondering what in tarnation was going on and why all these eyes were so fixed on her little body...she had very little interest in her cake, even though grandma had prepared a little smash cake just for her...no smashing going on here...a little thumbing, maybe, but definitely no smashing...

we definitely could not have pulled off the party without the help of our families, esp. ted's parents, my mom and brother, and ted's twin siblings jason and lauren...ted and i were so stressed out...i mean, there were more people at this party than at our wedding...i hardly took any photos at all, and i was lucky to get a few bites of food in me...i didn't get to taste the cake until we got home that night...

anywho, there are a few more photos here on my flickr account...not much...

now you'd think that we'd just call it a day, or a weekend even, and crash once we got home...but no...we got back in our car and drove out to edison park (far NW side of chicago) to have dinner with josh, connolly and chris, and another friend from high school named jen roberts whose birthday we were celebrating...we ate at a mexican restaurant called don juan, and they sure had kickass food there...the sangria was yummy too!

so that was cadence's very first birthday...