Mia's birthday weekend

Last weekend, we decided to go to LA for Mia's first birthday, or as Landon, Andrew and Isabel call her "cute little Mia". Andrew was thrilled to be able to spend time with his cousins again and we were thrilled to keep him busy. Since we had such a great time a few weeks ago, on Friday we headed back to Malibu for a day at the beach. This time my parents, Ryan, Mandy, Landon, Isabel, Mia, Lisa, and Taylor were able to come.

For a while Claire was content to hang out on the blanket with Mia. At first it looked like she was interested in Mia herself, but really it was about the food. Mia and Taylor were so good to wear their hats all day. Claire wouldn't touch hers.

Andrew, Landon, and Isabel had a great day running around, digging in the sand, and hanging out. They weren't too sure though when Lisa grabbed them and took them into the water. Isabel was the only one who didn't seem to mind.

A lovely family photo at the beach. As a side note, Claire will not look at the camera. It is so frustrating!

It started with just Landon getting buried, but soon they all wanted to be in the sand. Landon actually got buried almost all the way. He didn't want to get out of the sand to go home. We had a great day at the beach and it probably would have been better if we had reapplied sunscreen at some point in the day.

On Saturday morning we took the kids to the Los Angeles Zoo. We hit the children's petting zoo first. Andrew wouldn't pet the goats or the sheep, while Landon and Isabel really liked it. Claire was terrified the whole time.

We saw lots of animals including the zebras as in the picture above. We could not seem to locate the elephants though, which seems odd since they are quite large. For lunch the kids got animal lunch boxes which they loved. For the remainder of the weekend there were many plastic Cheetah fights.

For Mia's birthday Mandy planned a BBQ at a local park. There was just one problem - no BBQs. We decided to stay and play for a while though.

Mandy's friend brought a boomerang which Danny promptly threw in a tree. Danny started throwing sticks at it to try and get it down, but that didn't work. They finally got it down with a football, but it was pretty funny to see all of them looking up in the tree.

Lisa and Taylor hanging out at the park. We eventually went to Mandy's parent's house to have the BBQ and the main event - baby vs cake. Mia had a super cute cupcake cake all to herself and she loved it!!!

I don't know how she didn't get sick from eating so much icing! She just kept going until they finally had to cut her off. We had a great weekend with the family. Andrew told me later that he really misses Landon and that he wants to move next door to him. If life were only that simple. Happy 1st Birthday Mia!