Anna's 1st Birthday Party

Anna must have known something was going on when she awoke on Sunday morning. It is not every day that your Mummy comes skipping into your room singing 'Happy Birthday' quite loudly and dancing around the nursery with you. Imagine Anna's even greater surprise when we went downstairs to find rooms filled with balloons, shiny banners and a huge pile of parcels. She kept looking around thinking 'This isn't how I left it last night'. Feeding Anna her breakfast took ages because she kept having to look round to check she as still in her house.

Eventually, we got to the presents. Now, I think it is fair to say that I went completely overboard on presents. (The photograph is just the presents that James and I gave to Anna). There were 12 parcels all together (I wrapped up her 7 musical instruments separately). By present number 3, Anna was bored as my voice tried to sound more and more enthusiastic until I was very high-pitched and incomprehensible! I'm not even sure if Anna saw what the 3 opened presents were. Predictably, she was far more interested in the wrapping paper and boxes. We decided to leave the other presents until later!

At 10.00am, my parents (Anna's Nanny and Grandad), nan (Anna's great-nan) and Uncle Phil came which Anna loved. There were more presents to unwrap and I'm pleased to say that Anna did take a little more interest in those. The boxes were bigger so Anna thought it was great fun to climb on top of them! I then went into panic mode about cooking the buffet so mum calmly guided me into the kitchen and, thankfully, took control of everything. All I could do was read my little spreadsheet that I had devised showing cooking times and temperature settings. Luckily, after 28 years of having to put up with me, my mum is used to this so just let me get on with it while she did the important stuff. (Thank you so much Mum - I couldn't have done it without you!)

At 11.30am, Anna started to rub her eyes so it was time to get her party dress on. As I was still wandering around like a lost sheep, James got her dressed (on the condition that I would lay everything out for him in the correct order of how it should be put on). I almost cried (not for the first time that day) when Anna came back downstairs. She looked even more beautiful than normal. I thought it would be a good idea to try and get Anna to have a nap at this point. Anna was having none of it. If there was fun to be had downstairs, there was no way that she was going to sleep. In fact, at 4 different points during the day, I thought she looked tired and tried to get her to take a nap. All 4 times saw me going upstairs after 2 minutes to retrieve Anna who was jumping up and down in her cot.

At 12pm onwards, everyone started to arrive and the house quickly filled with people. It was a little mad! Of course, Anna was loving every second of it. This was her idea of heaven.

Another moment that saw some tears was when Grandma Lynn and Grandad Flob arrived with the cake. I was lost for words. Thanks to this blog, Grandma Lynn had read that Anna loves Kipper stories and so, the cake was Kipper! It was amazing and I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never seen such a fantastic birthday cake. The hours spent on it must have been incredible as everything was iced. Kipper's basket looked perfectly weaved and every fine detail was 100% accurate, right down to his old slipper! (Grandma Lynn also did our wedding cake. To give you some idea of how perfectly everything is done when Lynn decorates cakes, the staff at our reception thought that the roses made from icing were actually real roses). Thank you Grandma Lynn (and Grandad Flob for having the brave job of carrying it!), Anna is so lucky to have such a talented, and creative Grandma.

The buffet went down well I think. I would love to say that it tasted wonderful but I actually never got a chance to sample most of it! I was too busy racing around like a headless chicken. The problem is that there really was no need as everyone seemed to be enjoying it and have everything they wanted but I did it anyway! My nan's (Anna's Great-nan) sherry trifle's went down very well and they tasted lovely. My nan said that she had cut back on the sherry to make them this time but I'm not convinced. We had to warn everyone who had it, in case they found themselves over the drink-drive limit. Thank you Nan B!

As it turned out, we did have enough food for the buffet (surprise surprise). In fact, most guests went home with a doggy bag (or tray in this case) with a 10-pack of sandwiches and various other goodies. Even if they didn't want it, it was handed to them as they walked out of the door (it was too late to protest by then as they were walking away!)

One of my favourite moments of the party was everyone singing Happy Birthday to Anna and blowing her candle out on the cake. I had to swallow back the tears again. I suddenly realised that my baby girl is growing up as she looked around her at everyone singing Happy Birthday and basking in the attention. This was Anna having a true Diva moment!

At 9pm, the last guests were leaving and the tidy-up operation began. Thankfully, my brother and his girlfriend (Uncle Steve and Auntie Carolyne) had bagged the spare bed so they helped with the washing up and packing away. If they were not here, I think James and I would still have been doing it now. Thank you!

I am just completely over-whelmed with how everyone was so generous towards Anna. We now have a living room full of toys as well as money to deposit in her savings (one kind friend said it was to put towards her future dreams, which is just a wonderful thought!) James and I are now contemplating an extension, just to store some of these toys although the tent, that was amongst her gifts, is big enough to house a family of 4!

Thank you so much to everybody who was so kind and who made Anna's 1st birthday so wonderful for her.
Anna is so fortunate to have such lovely family and friends and she sends you all a big kiss (she has learnt to give kisses in the past week so she is more than happy to give you all a kiss any time you wish!)