April 2014: Happy 1st Birthday Olivya!!!

Well, it's official. Olivya turned 1!!! What a blessed and crazy year it has been.

The night before Olivya's birthday, we headed to the cities in anticipation of our Carmack/Texas family flying into Minneapolis to celebrate. After picking them up from the airport, we checked into a hotel for a long weekend, took a quick swim in the pool, and then headed to my parent's house for a birthday dinner for Olivya, complete with her first experience with an ice cream cake!

(I had to take it away for a second to slice her a piece so the rest of us could enjoy some cake too, and this is the reaction that I got...)

But she calmed down quickly and waiting in anticipation as she got her cake back...

Finally!! My cake!! Yum:) 

The Saturday after Olivya's birthday, we lucked out with a gorgeous day for her birthday party!!! We held her birthday party at Teddy Bear Park (and had a Teddy Bear Picnic)  in Stillwater, and it was a great day celebrating this wonderful girl...we were so blessed by our amazing friends and family who came out to celebrate...

After some great playing and enjoying good food and company, we realized that we forgot the candles at home!!! (You can't have a 1st birthday without the birthday cake experience)! So luckily, we have some pretty amazing friends who went on an adventure downtown Stillwater to find some candles and matches (thanks SueLynn & Aaron!!), so that we could all see how Olivya would react to her 1st birthday cake experience...

Contemplating...

Testing the cake...

...And going for the kill! 

Success!!!! Olivya fell asleep shortly after this cake experience, so of course Dada had to come to the rescue and help her out...

And Adelyn made sure to get her fair share too...

Happy 1st Birthday to this sweet, loving, cuddly, and determined little girl!! We love you Olivya and are so blessed to have you in our lives!!