Be prepared for an enormous amount of pictures...seriously, consider yourself warned! If you don't want to see complete cuteness then turn away now. Same song, second verse, our computer died again. This time for good! We're in the process of deciding on a new one. Hence the super long break between blogging and I have A LOT of blogging to catch up on. Cate's birthday party was on June 23rd and we had it at our house (which I swore I would never do again but actually did do again). It was in the morning but so darn hot out!!! "You are my sunshine" is a family favorite as I'm sure it is with many. My parents sang it to me, Mark's parents sang it to him and so on and so on...but the words mean something special to me when I think about Cate..."you make me happy when skies are grey"...we have had a pretty grey first year with Cate, or at least that's how I think about it when I'm letting the devil think for me. In actuality, it's been a wonderful and amazing year and we've come out on top. Cate might have medical challenges and they are so maddening and frustrating but otherwise she is perfect. She is growing and developing and she lights up the room with her silly personality and zany hair:)
So our little sunshine celebrated in a big way and she had lots of fun. We kept the party small and our family and closest friends celebrated/suffered heat stroke with us that morning. Now one of the biggest things that bothered me leading up to her party is that she would not get to partake in the traditional smashing of cake. It's like a right of passage, right??? But it was not in Cate's future...you see, just before her birthday we visited the allergist and she was able to shed some light on Cate's feeding issues. All of Cate's intolerances/feeding issues have led the allergist to categorize her as having FPIES which stands for Food Protein Induced Entercolitis Syndrome...basically it means she has food allergies but with the gastrointestinal symptoms rather than the immune symptoms. And it also means there is really no testing to determine all that she is effected by. It's not black, it's not white...it's grey. Guessing really. And the only real thing we can do is what we've been doing...going really slow, proceeding with caution and continue to trial new foods. Whew! So back to the cake issue. No Cake for Cate!!! Her only safe foods at the time were carrots, squash and organic allergy free puffs. So Cate got a "carrot cake" with puffs on top:) And she didn't know any different. She had a blast getting messy and that's all that mattered. It was a perfect day!!!
On Cate's actual birthday, Avery and I took her to Monkey Joe's so she could see what all the fuss was about. Ironically, they closed down the next week. Oh well, we had fun anyway. We took Avery there on her first birthday so it seemed like the best thing to do so we could celebrate her actual day.
This girl amazes me everyday. I don't think we'll ever know what type of pain she's learned to live with over these last twelve months. Regardless, she always has the brightest smile on her face and our job as her parents is to make sure that that smile is always present. Happy Birthday sweet baby girl! We love you to the moon and back...and around again and again and again!!!
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