The Best Day Off

Well the time has gotten away from me AGAIN and I am behind on blogging...how does that happen?  Anyhow, I couldn't let Charlotte's birthday come and go without a post of her actual birthday.  Jim and I both decided to take the day off and all hang out together. 

We began by meeting Jesse and Cheryl for breakfast since they were still in town.  We met at Mimi's, one of our favorites.  From there we headed to pick up a couple of things for Charlotte's pictures!  We got her one year pictures taken the afternoon of her birthday and although it took a long time, they turned out good (some better than others) and you can see them all here.  The password for you all is Charlotte.

After all of the picture taking fun we came home for a little bit.  We played some in the yard where Charlotte enjoyed the taste of a tulip.

And we took some family pictures...cause that's how we roll.

This is the same time we took the picture of all of us in front of the house that is on the previous post.  We seriously set up a ladder and pressed the timer and VOILA!  Picture perfect!

For Charlotte "birthday dinner" we headed to Spaghetti Works mostly because we wanted to eat there!  We enjoyed ourselves immensely and so did she.

She colored...

Showed us that she's one...

Drank the last of her formula (before switching to milk!)...

And chowed down on garlic bread.

The longer we were there the more worked up I got.  You see, I had been in denial ALL DAY that she wasn't one yet.  After all, she wasn't born until 6:26 pm and it wasn't yet 6:26 pm.  I teared up a couple of times sitting at dinner and finally set my alarm on my phone so I didn't miss it. 
Shortly after we finished up it was ALMOST time.  We were down town and headed to a set of bautiful trees.  The alarm rang...and again we took some pictures.  This is our EXACTLY one year family.

There really is no one better than this girl.

After wrapping up we headed back tot he house, picked up Odie and went to a walking trail through one of Des Moines most beautiful neighborhoods, Waterbury.  We ooohed and aaahed over the gorgeous homes, dreamnt of our furture, and had the most perfect ending to our day.

Happy Birthday Charlotte Harper!