Carsten's 1st Birthday Party!

Yesterday had several families from church come out to Egg to help us celebrate Carsten's 1st birthday. It was a beautifully sunny day with temperatures in the low 80s, which was great because then we just played outside in the little park outside our house. Carsten had a lot of fun playing and running around, and for about the first time in a while, he came and found me a few minutes before everyone went home and did NOT want to be put down - and he even yawned! - so I think we managed to wear him out pretty well :). Apparently balloons are a big hit with kids, so it's lucky that we happened to have quite a few on hand!

Carsten enjoyed his first cupcake, but he really wasn't that messy about eating it, probably because I elected not to make frosting from scratch. Speaking of baking, I had a few issues with making the cupcakes. First issue: German instructions that I managed to mess up for batch #1 (don't worry, batches #2-#4 were done correctly :) ). Second issue: our oven routinely seems to burn the bottom of baked goods before the top is done, and I have no idea why (we even turned down the temperature quite a bit). Perhaps it's good that I do not bake very often :). Andy was very sweet and cut off the burned bottoms before we served them to our guests. Also, just a note that if you haven't ever used silicon cupcake pans, I'd recommend them!

Another side note, we got to finally use the hook-on high chair that we brought with us when we moved from the states. We ended up getting a glass dining room table, so we couldn't use it as our regular high chair like we intended to when we asked for it. It was really nice to have for for the picnic table outside though! Carsten also seemed to enjoy it and seemed a little puzzled when we turned him around in the seat.

Allrighty, now for what you've all been waiting for, pictures!

Carsten in his nifty high chair!

Our 1 year old boy.

The spread.

We're ready to party!

Carsten enjoyed playing.

The crew!

Carsten plus chocolate cake.

balloons!

It was fun to have company!

All in all, we were thrilled to have so many people show up for Carsten's party, and we enjoyed chatting with everyone who was there. It was a great day!