A little over a week ago it was your birthday and your very first birthday party! I probably made it a bigger deal than I should have, but I was so excited to celebrate you and your life! These are the pictures I took the day of your birthday. You refused to cooperate so this is really the best I could do.
We had some of our closest friends and family come to the party to celebrate with us. You were excited to see everyone and even more excited to see the kids that they brought along with them. Especially Jackson and Scarlett Clonts who used to help babysit you while I was at work when you were super little. I'm not sure if you remembered them or if you were just happy to have kids to play with, but it was really cute seeing your face light up around them. I wish I had gotten a picture of you with them! Oh well.
I planned the party for at least 3 months straight and I went back and forth between so many different ideas. I'll probably use those ideas for your other birthday parties so I wouldn't consider it a total waste of time. I decided to use the "Woodland" theme for this party but found out halfway through that most of the things involved with that theme are very cartoon-y and boy-ish, neither of which I wanted for your party, so I had to get somewhat creative. We mostly decorated with floral and woodsy decorations and I'm pretty in love with how they turned out. For refreshments we had donuts labeled "Do-nut feed the bears", some small round chocolate candies labeled "Deer droppings", carrots labeled "Rabbit food", long round chocolate filled cookies labeled "twigs", strawberry shortcake cups labeled "Forest berry cake", lemon/lime water labeled "Morning Dew", and Bug Juice...which is this gross juice but it was free. Long story. Anyway, we also played a slideshow of pictures from your first year of life. It is crazy to see how much you changed throughout the first year. Seeing you with tons of dark curly hair, to no hair, to red hair, to super blonde hair long enough to put in a ponytail! But the one thing consistent in almost all of your pictures was your smile. Oh, that smile. I love your smile! This is a picture of the refreshment table.
You got soooo many gifts for your birthday and you're totally obsessed with them. And I'm obsessed with you being obsessed with them. Weird how that works. Anyway, you weren't really sure how to open a gift and even when I showed you how you just weren't sure about it. Funny how you never have any problems ripping apart things and taking things out of bags until we tell you to go for it and then all of a sudden you freeze. Hahaha I didn't mind though, It was so much fun sharing that moment with you for the first time. I also hope you stay entertained with these new toys and books because I sure do get a lot more done around the house when you're busy playing with them!
We baked you a small little strawberry cake (which ended up looking huge in your pictures but it was smaller than the size of my palm) and you weren't so sure about it at first. You pretty much just poked at it and ate the frosting, but it was fun to see you eat cake for the first time.
I am really looking forward to this next year with you. The older you get, the more fun we have together. Today, you tooted while we were eating breakfast and we both just started laughing really hard with each other. I love having moments like that with you! It's one of those moments where I'm like oh my gosh, this baby is a human that is starting to understand humor. Another thing that has been happening lately is you've been letting me cuddle you to sleep! That literally hasn't happened since you were like 7 months old. It might be because you haven't been feeling well (the transition from formula to milk has been a little rough for you) but I am loving it. I could just cuddle you 24/7 and be content. You are the coolest kid. Thanks for being mine!!
Love,
Mom
