Labor Day Adventures, Part V...First Birthday Adventures, Part MCDLXXII

After a very busy 9 days of travel, our last full day in Chicago arrived- always bittersweet. We hosted a small family party for Little A's first birthday at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Joe's house.

Aunt Kathy and I had braved Caputo's the day prior to get ingredients for sausage and peppers. Uncle Mikey ordered some chicken from Spizzico, and we made some accompaniments.

We threw up a few Hawaiian decorations for the party:



Sassy spent the first half of the morning counting her monies. She is starting to learn the differences between the coins, although she covets the pennies because she likes their color:



Our food was delish- pierogies, Asian slaw, fresh bread, taco salad, sausage & peppers, and chicken. Yum!



Sassy had several wardrobe changes throughout the day. She decided she wanted to take of the cupcake shirt and wear a dress like Auntie Kelli and Auntie Kaitlin. Never mind the fact that I was wearing a dress, as well. She didn't want to be like me, that's for sure...



We started a bags tournament, and Uncle Joe and I were up against Tyler and Mike first. Meanwhile, Kelli entertained my girls and Randy hijacked my camera:





Sassy thinks Auntie Kelli is the bees knees:



Nana was able to spend some one-on-one time with the birthday girl, as well:



Uncle Mikey snuck some kisses in:



Sassy enjoyed playing in the pool with F & K:



Aunt Kathy, Kelli, and Kaitlin were amused with Little A's splashing feet:



Uncle Mikey gave Little A a new hairstyle to try out:



We had to please every one's varying tastes with cake this year. for Little A's cake, we did white cake with fresh strawberries and whipped icing:



We also got a Happy Birthday Graycop/ Go Bears! chocolate cake with banana custard and butter cream frosting:



Let is be noted that, under normal circumstances, I would rather die than order a cake with whipped icing. However, a certain family member who happens to be 12-weeks pregnant requested such a cake, so I felt obligated to order it.

Let it also be noted that said cake was actually quite delicious.

Sassy had high expectations for these cakes:



Little A was so excited:



However, she became a bit spooked during the singing (quite possibly because my family is crazy and sings not one, but three birthday songs...) and wanted nothing... NOTHING to do with her smash cake.

After yet another outfit change, she perked up for her mound of gifts:



She had great concentration during this part of the party:



Sassy also lucked out and received a few gifts. Among them was the sparkliest, princess-iest sweat suit known to man. Needless to say, she ♥'s it!



Kait and I took a quick pic before she had to leave for her bus back to Normal:



The rest of the evening was spent eating really yummy, extremely unhealthy snacks and watching the Bears play get wiped up and down the field by their opponent.

We set off for home at 4:00 am Monday. We made it home in just over 12 hours, which is a really good trip for us, considering the stops we typically have to make with the girls.

Little A was all smiles at a rest stop:



Sassy just had to have me dig my camera out of the trunk to take a picture of her next to Ronald:



We had a wonderful trip, and we look forward to the next one already!