Guess what tomorrow is? Mr. Allen Juicy McGoosy’s FIRST BIRTHDAY!! I am so excited for him to be one year old, but sad at the same time. It’s the beginning of the end for his babyhood. Sigh…

I’ve been trying to capture some of the many faces and moods of Allen in honor of his big day. I’ll hopefully do a full-blown photo shoot tomorrow or Sunday, but in the mean time:

And just to catch up from last weekend, we were very busy. Marie came to visit!! WAHOO!! I was bummed that everyone who loves Katy couldn’t be here to finally meet Marie but we had Mom, Jerry, Kathy, Jake, Hillary and just a hint of Karli. I guess any more than that may have overwhelmed Marie’s little family, anyway. Plus, since Marie was visiting her nearby sister, I have a feeling she’ll be here again in another year, or so. Marie’s hubby Ben plus her boys (Miles and Baby Ethan) were here, too and the visit was just great! Once again there were no tears or drama, just lots of laughs and love. I told Marie that Katy had the best self esteem of ANY little girl I have ever known. Marie promptly asked Katy if she was a pretty girl, to which Katy nodded and said, “Yes” as seriously as could be. We died laughing! Just before they had to leave Mom took some group pics for us, in addition to the little gems of goodness that I caught. Katy found my lipstick and was quite pleased with herself. She did pretty well considering she was operating without a nap!

Katy and Allen were also invited to be a prince and princess for a birthday party last Saturday. The little neighbor girl has he same birthday as Allen but she is one year older, so just between my two nuggets. They had a blow up jumper and “wots and wots” of cake so it was a huge hit!

Recently there has been an occasional “Running of the Diaper” when we’re getting ready for bath time. Katy will pull off the tab on one side of her diaper and then she starts giggling and running away to let the diaper shimmy down her other leg and get left in a crumpled heap. While this is less than sanitary, it does crack me up. I guess it’s more to remove a diaper that way. And I’m only talking about diapers with #1 in them, not nasty ol’ #2…that would be over the top.

OK, it’s really late and we have a huge day tomorrow….morning photo shoot for Karli, Jason, Hillary and Jake…plus party prep…plus Allen’s shoot…plus the party…then Hillary’s graduation party…whew! We are going to be partied out!!