First Birthday Party

Last Saturday, we celebrated Caden and Caroline's first birthday. Amy picked a barnyard theme for the party. She did a great job planning the party and decorating. She even made most of the decorations herself.
Here is Caroline sporting her party outfit. She has her checkerboard shirt, jeans, bandanna bib, and cowboy hat. She is sitting in her birthday gift from Grammie and Poppa. Caden doing the same.Amy's mom made a bunch of food for all the babies. It was quite the spread.
Here is a Caden enjoying some of the food Grammie brought. It's his favorite--Cheerios.
Amy put all of these napkins together including printing out the animal stickers.
Moooooooo
This popcorn went fast...though I'm not sure why anyone would eat pickle popcorn. Yuck!
This was my favorite piece of decoration Amy came up with. It is a bunch of pictures of family members when they were one. It was really neat seeing who looks like who. Caden is a dead ringer for me as a baby. Caroline looks very much like Poppa (Amy's dad) and Ella.
Amy made all the cupcakes for the party from scratch and I mean, from scratch. The cake was made from ingredients, not a box. The same is true for the frosting. It did not come from a plastic cup. Everything Amy made was delicious. She even made the little animal decorative toppers.
Amy also made the kids individual smash cakes. Caden's cake is the one on the left with the blue "1".
Neither of our kids were super excited about the cakes (which came as no surprise to Amy and I). Caroline ate some but not a ton.
Caroline did enjoy playing with the cake (once Amy and I stuffed her hands into it).
Caden mainly cried during cake time. In general, he is a bad eater and at the party, I think he was tired and there were just too many people watching him. These pictures of Caden are actually from the next day when Amy and I tried the cake thing again. He did better when it was just the four of us.
Here are most of the kids that made it to the party. It was a good group. Grandma (my mom) made reversible bandanna bibs for all the babies at the party as party favors. From left to right in the top row, it is Grammie's leg, Caden, and Caris. In the bottom row, it is Weston, Joshua, Hannah, Caroline, and Braden.
Here is a picture of Braden. Braden had his first birthday about a month before.
Caris
Weston
Asher sporting both the bandanna bib and a cowboy hat.
Braden and Caden playing in the motorized John Deer tractor. Grammie and Poppa bought this for the Baker kids awhile ago. Now, Grammie and Poppa decided they would rather keep it at our house. Good thing we have a three car garage.
Mommy and the birthday boy.
Caden hanging out with Grammie. Caroline and Grandma
Russell and Becky sporting pink and blue. I bet they did this intentionally in honor of Caroline and Caden.
Aunt Angela and Caden making silly faces.
Jenny and Alicia. I think Alicia is holding some of that addictive popcorn I mentioned earlier. Jenny's little guy, Jon, was sick so he was at home with his dad, Jack. Jon turned one and had a party the Saturday after our kids party. Sadly, our kids were sick and missed Jon's party.
Braden and Heidii
Chris and Braden
Caroline playing with one of her new birthday presents--Tickle Me Elmo. Grandpa and Peggy gave the twins Elmo and they love it. Caroline gives a big fake sounding laugh when Elmo starts going. It reminds us very much of how cousin Ella laughs sometimes. When Elmo starts rolling around laughing, silly Caroline likes picking him up, hugging him tightly, and licking his eye balls. :)
We had a lot of fun at Caden and Caroline's first birthday. I bet mommy is already starting to plan their second birthday party.
PS: My birthday present to the twins was a swing set but I didn't put any pictures of that up here. Amy wants to devote a blog post to the swing set later. Expect that to come later.