WILLOW'S FIRST BIRTHDAY...

It is hard to believe that a year has come and gone.
This time last year... we welcomed this little princess

Willow when she was a couple of days old...

 My very first cuddle of Willow...

Taken on the 17th November, 2012

We have been so blessed to have had the last three months with Willow and her Mum...
Her Dad was to have been home for her first birthday, but they were delayed in the UK, as they had to do some recording before they could come home...
Her dad was devastated... He has missed his girls so much...
Still it allowed us to be able to celebrate Willow's first Birthday, and I will always be eternally grateful to her Dad for the wonder gift he has given us by allowing us to have his treasured girls stay with us for the past three months...
We actually celebrated Willow's first Birthday the night before as they were going to be travelling on her Birthday....
I had the day off work, as Sarah was not well and needed to pack, and Willow had been a little irritable and quite clingy with Sarah for the last few days....
It allowed me to look after her whilst Sarah tried to get organised and packed...
We had a lovely last day together, even managing to take Willow to Macca's for her first meal...

She had her first McHappy Meal of Chicken nuggets. 

Sarah was trying to break them up into bite size pieces for her, but she was having not a bar of it..
She was happy to eat her nuggets whole...

she would just take small bites and she managed to eat three of them,

With her nugget and water

Girls day out... wearing her beads

Time for a drink of water.... this is a different way to drink

Enjoying her Birthday lunch...

 After she finished eating, we gave her a little play in the playground... We had been here before so she knew all about it...

She is much more confident on her feet now...

 She wasn't interested in crawling up the stairs... Come on Mum I can walk up them now...

Walking up the stairs...

with a little help from Mum

And she was off.

 We actually had trouble getting her out of the playground...
She didn't want to leave....
It was raining pretty heavily, so everything was a little wet and damp, and it was really best her nap time....There were quite a few tears as Sarah tried to change her nappy to get ready to take her home and put her to bed....
She did manage to have a good couple of hours sleep, in the afternoon which was good, because dinner ended up being a little later than normal,
She was amazing....
She kept her party hat on all night...

Willow's Birthday dinner

 She had her first meal sitting at the table with all of us....
Normally she has her dinner around 5pm to 5.30pm which really doesn't suit the rest of us as mostly we are lucky to be home from work by then...
We held her out to 6.30pm so that we could all have it with her...
We had corn meat with white sauce and vegetables and she loved it....

Enjoying her first chocolate and sparklers...

 We weren't allowed to have a cake for her... As yet Willow hasn't had any cake, and Sarah wanted to keep that FIRST for when her Dad came home... We did however introduce her to M & M mini chocolates which she thoroughly enjoyed and wanted more....  Also although we couldn't have a candle on a cake, we did have some sparklers though to make it like a party, and she was fascinated by them also...

She had food from one end of her face to the other...

 We had left the present opening until after dinner....
She was hilarious with the paper. and so was Penny,  she was so keen to help Willow rip it off her presents, that she would grab it in her month and run with it so that it would rip.  We weren't sure who was the funniest...
Just goes to show how much this little princess has her Poppy around her little finger.  He must love her to have worn this party hat with her all evening....

Present opening time...

Chloe helping Willow open the present from her....

 Oh my goodness she LOVED LOVED LOVED it...
Her own little couch....
She was really hilarious as she wanted to sit on it and bounce bounce bounce..
I can also tell you that there was no way she was sharing it with anyone.....

WOW her own little seat...

She was happy to sit on it all night...

 She was so funny that we managed to get some great video footage of her on it....
In fact she had to sit on it whilst she opened the rest of her presents....
Even when it was time for her to have her bottle just before she went to bed, there were no cuddles for us tonight as she wanted to sit or lay in her couch and drink her bottle...

Having her last bottle for the evening whilst sitting on her couch...

Tired after a very busy day....

We are feeling a little flat tonight.... It is our last night with the girls...
They leave in the morning for their long haul home...
Bless Chloe, she has taken the day off so that she can head down with Sarah as a second set of hands..
We have looked forward to these three months all year, how could they have come and gone so quickly...
Two more weeks until we head down to see them again and celebrate Willow's birthday again at her first Birthday Party.....