Brianna is One

Technically speaking, Brianna isn't one until TUESDAY, but we celebrated in grand style on Sunday. It was a somewhat unusual, and eventful day.

We started the day at the hospital, to visit Walt's mother.

She seemed exhausted and at one point somewhat frantic, but Walt and Alice Nan say this is a huge improvement over when she arrived here. We stayed about half an hour and then went over to the beach to meet the party.

Brianna wasn't there yet, but Joe and Alice Nan were already in the Minnie Mouse spirit of the party.

Bri eventually arrived, wearing the outfit that her Uncle Lee had bought for her in China.

She's definitely a walker now. No more crawling for this independent little girl!

Mommy made sure she wore a sun hat, today adorned with her very own Minnie Mouse ears.

Her other Grandpa had brought her an Elmo doll and the two Grandpas had a good time playing with it with Brianna.

Laurel got the cake table all set up. I didn't notice the left side of this picture until I was resizing it for this entry. Be sure to look at the left edge of the picture!

The little cake at the top, in between the two cupcake tiers is the "smash cake" for later in the party. Laurel did a fantastic job on the smash cake and the cupcakes.

Tom and Joe, who have barbequing on the beach down to a real science, put together a gourmet hot dog BBQ.

While we were eating our BBQ, the hospital called Alice Nan and suggested that they should come back. She and Walt dropped everything and left for the hospital (about 20 minutes later, Alice Nan called to say their mother was OK and the Sunday nurses just weren't aware of her "spells." But she and Walt spent the rest of the afternoon at the hospital).

Eventually it was time for the "smash cake" and Brianna had her first taste of cake. After some tentative approaches, she decided that it was best to just dive into it.

She actually ate a little bit of it, and left an impressive mess behind.

Then it was time to tackle the mountain of gifts, but Bri seemed to find her shoe more interesting.

I asked Daddy to help her open the gift from us...for obvious reasons.

The outfit is waaay too big for her, but Tom says that's ok because it will take several years before the 49ers have a team worth cheering for anyway.

When it was all over, Bri helped Joe clean up.

It was a lovely party, all things considered. The cakes were a hit, Walt's mother was Ok after all, and Bri seems to have enjoyed herself.

What more can you ask for a first birthday?