Naomi's 1st Birthday!

Naomi Elizabeth Benavides

Born: 10-19-2006

6 lbs 12 oz

21 inches Today she is...

18 lbs 13 oz

29.75 inches

So 1 year, 12 pounds, and almost 9 inches later, we are still as much in love with her as the day we brought her home from the hospital. And as the Doctor put it, there isn't a thing about her we would change!

On her birthday we went to Moe's to celebrate. She loves Mexican food!

I wanted to make a birthday cake for Naomi. I decided to try and make the rolled fondant that makes the cakes look so smooth. For my first try I was really happy with the way the cake turned out. Here I am cutting the pieces.

Davin didn't get much studying done that night. I guess it was too distracting. He said it was like having a food network cake challenge right in our own kitchen. For those of you who don't know what our apartment is like, Davin's "office" is right next to the kitchen table. Like 3 feet away! He is such a good sport. I am a night owl, so while he is studying I am usually running around working on projects, and cleaning.

Here is a picture of the finished cake.

We decided to keep Naomi's party small. We invited our families and Davin's cousin Kenny and his wife Erin. Kenny just arrived home from Kuwait! What a blessing to have him home.

This is the table scape for Naomi's party. My dear neighbor Meg Smith came over the day before and helped me dip the strawberries and pretzels in chocolate. YUM!
Okay, so seeing the previous pictures of Naomi devouring an Oreo cookie and smearing it all over her face, I thought for sure she would be covered in cake. But as children do, she totally surprised us! She just nibbled at the cake and wanted "Da-da" to feed it to her.


Here she finally warms up to the cake and smears a little bit in her hair. She is so funny. At dinner time she will pull her bow out of her hair, hand it to me, and then rub her dinner all in her hair.
At least she is conscientious about keeping her hair bows looking pretty!
Here is our "birthday princess"- that is what Hudson has been calling her. Her sash says "princess"


This is a photo of me, Davin, Kenny, and Erin. Kenny and Erin are from Texas and moved out to North Carolina while he was stationed at Fort Bragg.

Naomi, with a lot of help from her big brother, opened her presents. She got several new outfits and some sweet books. Naomi loves to look at books. It must be a girl thing, because at first I had to make Hudson sit with me while I read to him. Now he loves books, too!
This is Naomi opening her first baby doll. How sweet! She loved on her doll and while she was holding it she said, "tickle, tickle, tickle" How cute is that!