Birthday pictures and festivities

(Daddy's collage)
Yesterday we had a fun filled and busy day of Birthday festivities.

We met up with some friends (Alicia and her boys, Tony and his daughter, Erin and her son, Erin's mom, Brittany and her family). We had a great time looking at all the animals at the zoo! Needless to say Brylee was tuckered out after her trip to the zoo, and fell asleep right away when we got to the car. The weather was quite WINDY!!...so it kind of made us all tired I think.

In the afternoon, Brylee began opening our presents (yes, I said began)...it was the first of 3 opening sessions. She played with some of the toys we bought her and opened her Little Mermaid car from Nana and G'pa Jim. She had a blast playing with that.

We then, left around 4:30 to head to the Rainforest Cafe at the Mall of America for our 5:00 dinner reservations. My family and Darryl's brother, Eric and his family came. We had 12 people! Lots of fun...Brylee didn't cry or get scared and we had a great time.

After dinner everyone crammed into our place for more presents, cupcakes for everyone, and Brylee diving into her cake! She was very gentle at first and just poked her fingers in the cake, but then she dug in and we had a huge mess to prove it. We ended up moving her into the kitchen so at least the clean up was better since we have tile floor in there. Mommy was quite stressed out by the mess!! But, I got over it!

Brylee got to bed around 8:30 last night and boy was she exhausted!! She made it through the day without a nap (which we did attempt between the zoo and dinner, but failed!) and no tears! What a trooper!

Thanks to everyone who came to the zoo, sent gifts, a card, etc.

It was a very special day for our special little girl.

Now of course.....some birthday pics.

Enjoy!

(my birthday morning!)