The Big Oh-One

Too many hours of planning and obscene amounts of money culminated in a first-rate first birthday for Abbie on Monday afternoon. We, and by “we” I mean “mostly my very helpful father-in-law,” grilled hot dogs and burgers in our communal park on a beautiful Memorial Day. We actually managed to serve an appropriate amount of food, as we had a manageable number of leftovers. Especially popular was my Oreo Fluff ™.



Here we see my dad filling Abbie with nutritious formula before we filled her with not so nutritious hot dogs and birthday cake.



Here you see Abbie with her new rubber duck. We gave all of the kids rubber ducks as per the party’s theme, and Abbie got her own personalized duck. Abbie is showing her appreciation in her own special way.



Here are a couple of the character balloons we bought. Ellie found a whole bunch of these balloons on the internet, so we can unfurl a brand new Sesame Street balloon for every one of Abbie’s birthdays until she scolds us for treating her like a little kid.



Here you see the authentic Mexican piñata we, and by “we” I mean my late mother-in-law on a trip to Mexico, found for Abbie’s birthday. As luck would have it, our neighbors have experience in piñata operation and knew how to pull ropes to make it dance while singing the piñata song. Abbie gave it her best whack. She did not break it.



Here’s the piñata in its last moments of life. Only one child was hurt in the ensuing scramble.



Here’s the last we saw of one of our beautiful balloons. Apparently cheap ribbon cannot hold a helium-filled balloon. The idea was to deflate the balloons after the party so we could reuse them for future parties, but I guess it’s a good thing I took a picture when I did.



Here’s Abbie being very frightened by the singing of Happy Birthday.



Here’s the beautiful cake my wife made pretty much by herself. I would have helped more if she would have asked.



Here’s another picture that will likely turn up again at some potentially embarrassing point in Abbie’s life.

All in all, I have to say it was a pretty darned good party. The memories will last a lot longer than the frosting sugar buzz did, and even longer than the sunburn will last.