Ani's 1st Birthday Party

We had Ani's party this past Saturday at our stake center. So this past week has been pretty crazy. It is always a lot of work. We had so much help from family and friends. We really couldn't have done it without all of them. Thanks for all the help. We really appreciate it. My mom and dad really helped me out with all the food. They bought and delivered it to the different families that were helping us. Thank you mom and dad. (Get ready for a lot of thank you's in this post!)

We had a bouncer (thank you Clark family), a professional balloon artist, and a chinese dragon as part of the activities. Dane wanted to pull more of the asian side for this party. He looked really hard for a dragon. He found one for a pretty good price too, considering the options he found. When the group of people for the dragon showed up at the party everyone noticed that none of the people were asian. Dane said that it was extra for the asians. :) Some of the kids kind of freaked out, but Ani and Bray were had seen it before at Maile's party so they were more intrigued than scared. You can view the pics from the party below.

Ani's 1st Birthday Party

All of Dane's siblings and parents came into town to help celebrate Ani turning one. It was a full house but it was so much fun to have them here. They are so great. They just really step up and help out with things such as making dinner, breakfast, lunch, or cleaning, helping with the kids... It is so nice to not have to worry about those things. It was really so helpful cause I was starting to stress. Thanks guys! Brayden really enjoyed spending time with all of them, especially his cousin Maile. Since Maile and Brayden would always leave Ani behind, she started taking steps this past week. She finally realized that it is more fun to be walking and she has a lot of rug burns to prove it (one in particular on her nose). The family also helped dane start our deck in the back. (I know, with everything going on, they still had time to start our deck) We have been thinking about putting one in so we can enjoy it during the summer and next thing you know, they are renting a truck and unloading it onto the grass. They were even working in the hot, hot sun. Thank you Ty and Daddy Ing. They did the hardest part and it is going to look great when it is done.

I have been having such a hard time getting Ani on a sippy cup or even drinking from a straw. She would throw her head from side to side whenever I tried. I was worried that she would never want to stop breastfeeding. This afternoon I didn't feed her in the morning and by lunch time I decided to try the sippy cup again. I don't know what it was, but she started to drink from it right away. She drank alot too. I was pretty excited. Tonight she drank from her sippy cup and went right to bed. Yay! I'm especially happy because Dane and I really wanted to go away for at least a night this weekend for our 5th Anniversary. Chances are looking really good now.