July 20

We celebrated our sweet Baby Rainbow with a rainbow birthday party today! My mom and Ryan came over while Chris and the kids were at church, and we spent the whole morning and early afternoon preparing for Lily's big bash. It ended up being so much fun!

I may have gotten a little bit carried away with the rainbow theme. We had:

rainbow crepe paper

rainbow lanterns

rainbow flowers

rainbow veggie tray

rainbow fruit tray

rainbow cheese plate

rainbow sangria

But it was fun!

Our sweet birthday girl.

I think this one is my favorite birthday party picture. Her cake was a gluten-free rainbow layer cake made with food-based dyes. Really. And her cupcakes also had rainbows inside!

It was warm, but not oppressively hot, so we spent most of the time outside. Lily and Jace (who turns one in two days!) enjoyed hanging out.

Thinking of all of the dads and boys who would be present, Chris set up sports stations all over the yard. I loved looking out and watching all the boys playing baseball!

Then it was time for cake. 

All we had to do was set the cupcake in front of Lily, and she got upset. We weren't even singing yet!

After we sang, Lily calmed down. It took a while, but she finally tasted her icing.

Can you tell she's thinking, "Hey! This is delicious!"?

And then she gobbled her cupcake up.

(I know it looks like she's eating a green cupcake, but I promise it was rainbow layers.

Then, with much trepidation, I cut into Lily's cake. I spent hours and hours working on this cake, and I was terrified that it wouldn't look good. But when I removed the first slice, I think I heard angels sing. It was perfect!

Baby Rainbow's rainbow layer cake! It was worth all the effort. Maybe.

We had punching balloons and rainbow bubbles for all the kids.

Sara was there when Lily was born, so we were especially glad she was there for her first birthday!

Goodness, we love this girl!

Our neighbor Mary brought over these awesome sunglasses, with flashing lights across the top. Caleb put them on and declared that he was a police officer. Get it? He has flashing lights like a police car? I thought it was pretty funny.

After everyone left, we opened some presents, ate some dinner, cleaned up a little bit...

And then Chris took Lily on her first bike ride! 

It was almost bedtime, so they only went out for about five minutes. But she loved it!

Happy birthday, Lily Clare!