1st B-day Fun in FL! :)

Well, as you can see I'm as far behind as ever on posting pics :) Here my baby is already 14 mos and I'm STILL talking about her 1st b-day! LOL! But, since it was a belated b-day party in FL last month I guess it's ok :) And by posting these pics you can guess I might be finally getting around to showing off our AWESOME cruise pics!! :) But, first....our lil' Gritz family b-day get-together at Nina and Pops in FL. I saw this cute "party hat baby" on the Wilton site months ago and thought it'd be an easy cake for FL where I knew I wouldn't want to be knee deep in cake decorating. Little did we know that it'd take half the day to make the precious pink-hatted baby. But, she was still cute and yummy :)
Here's our birthday girl! Pops always gets the BEST pics of her...I stole this from him :) She loves, loves, loves to smile for him (or is she sticking out her tongue at him)! :) Either way, she likes him! :)
This was early morning...to once again show off the joint "labor of love" that mama and dada put forth for their sweet baby Ash's cake :) Nina actually baked the cakes, daddy made the fondant and mama decorated. We should all go into business...what do you think?? :) It was the fondant that took so darn long this time. It was a funny bronze color and then it wasn't stretching correctly and it was all a big pain in the rear to be honest! I think Nina and Pops thought we were crazy for putting forth all the effort...but oh well. You know me and my cakes...once I get an idea in my head we CANNOT quit! :) Thank goodness daddy is a good sport and rarely complains about the cake drama I put him through! :)
Here we are with our splotchy baby cake (aka "the labor of love") :) It was my fault that the fondant "skin" got spotchy. I dabbed too much with the wet paper towel. Poor baby with an acne face :(
Ash gets her first look at her cake (thanks to Auntie Mary) :) She's probably thinking..."Is that splotchy baby supposed to look like me??" :)
Opening some gifts with mama :)
Aunt Mary helps open the gifts too. Ash is clueless about wrapping paper....we made the mistake of wrapping all her actual 1st b-day gifts in bags back in Sept...poor girl! So, all the family had to help her in FL with the real paper! She got the hang of it quickly.
Ash is trying to get some wrapping assistance from great-grandma G. :)
She even talked Nina into unwrapping her goodies :) This ball thing was a BIG hit. We actually had it when Shelby was a baby, but it broke so Ash got a new one. She (and big bro Dylan) love it!
And books...we LOVE books in the Steg family. Here's a neat "baby Bible" for Ash from Auntie Mary and Great-Grandma. She loves paging through books and pointing at things in them.

Like father like daughter! Every girl needs her own pink laptop! :)
Cousin Celyn even helped open some gifts :)
Ok, check out Celyn's tongue. I guess that trait (tongue hanging out) is apparently not only on the Steg side :)
Then it was time for dinner...Ashley's fav--Pizza! :)
And apparently the pizza didn't fill her up...she had a little booger dessert as she waited for cake :)
Somehow great-grandma scared her....or maybe she interrupted her boogar-picking session? Either way Ash was not happy :)
But, then she saw her cake again....she was very inquisitive
until mama put that darn hat on her head....why would mama do that again? Hadn't we gone through all this in Sept?
Then she warmed up to great-grandma again...and great-grandma showed her how fun it is to wear a b-day hat :)
then she decided she wanted to try it on herself.....
so she did (and she smiled!) :)
and then she picked another winner as she waited for cake!

Finally Celyn came around singing with that lit up cake! Ash was super excited!
I love this pic. I think Nina took it? It looks like she's sniffing the candles! Or maybe she's thinking about picking her nose again!? LOL! :)
And a few cake eating shots....gotta love those....esp. with the tongue hanging out.

stuffing our face...a common daily occurence for Ash! The girl loves to eat.
She didn't much like the cake this night....but she definitely liked the big ball of vanilla ice cream on her plate!

A shot of the Gritz/Steg gang trying to fight their way into the kitchen to get cake and ice cream! :) ...and below is where Ash lost it. It was late and she was tired and dirty and wanted to go to bed...she was DONE with cake.
Celyn helped clean her up...and then Ash showed Celyn "shredding paper towel" trick :)
And Nina gave her a nice warm bubbly tubby bath :) I love this shot (though I can't get it to post the normal way!)....Ash just leaned in and snuggled with Nina. She loves her so much :)
And then she snuggled with mama :) Can't get enough of that!
Look at that happy girl. Again, Pops always gets her to smile! (he took these last two pics)
We came out of the bathtub to find this on the ceiling. I'm not sure who the culprit was? Pops or Eric? Gotta love static electricity! Ash was fascinated by it and REALLY wanted her balloon. She just stood there and pointed at it...daddy didn't seem to notice...
thankfully Celyn did and helped her up!
After that Ash decided she wanted to go home with Aunt Terri and family. And before the night was done we saw (skyped) the rest of our gang back in IN. The party just wasn't the same w/o them there. We missed our other 3! :)
So, there's a few FL pics to tide ya' over. More to come and hopefully cruise pics by next week. I need to reminisce of those warm Caribbean times as I'm stuck in this frigid weather!

Anyway...thanks again to Nina and Pops in FL for hosting the party and to all the fam. who joined us and celebrated Ashley's big 1 one last time! :) Before we know it she'll be 2. Golly, time goes by too quickly!