Part Time Party Planner

It's been a few weeks since I've updated my blog, but that's because I've been terribly busy planning a first birthday party! That's right.. our baby boy is ONE years old now. Wow, that was a FAST year. It's like I blinked and now it's a year later. I was thinking yesterday, though, that one year ago to the day (on 2/19/08) Alex had his first set of casts put on. Now we're a year into his cf treatment and potentially only have a year to go! A coworker told me yesterday, "Remember when he was born and you said you can't believe you have two whole years till he doesn't have to wear his braces? And now you're halfway through it!" There's a lot of controversy out there on whether the braces should be worn for 2 years, or 4 and our dr seems to be more on the 2 yr fence, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I think it will depend on how his feet look by then. So far they look fantastic and he gets a glowing approval from the dr every visit! So fo far so good!

Now, back to the birthday party... wow, what an exhausting day/weekend! Not to mention the weeks leading up to it. Why do parents put so much into a day that the child won't even remember?? That's right, it's so WE as parents remember it. Our original plan was to only have parents and close friends. Then when we decided to invite our close friends that have a baby Alex' s age, I thought, "oh, we should also invite so and so because they have a baby close to his age.." and then it snowballed from there. I think we ended up with 20-25 people there. I bought way too much food and decorations. But I'm always of the mindset that I'd rather have too much than not enough, and I definitely succeeded in that area for this one. Oh well. He will only have one first birthday party, right? :) He got lots of toys and clothes. He got 3 different Little People sets -and loves ALL of them. They play music and have these little "people" that are plastic and he prefers chewing them vs actually playing with them at this point, but hey at least they're not just sitting in a toy box collecting dust.

Speaking of chewing.. we now have FIVE teeth. That's right, those boogars just keep popping out every time we turn around. Guess he's making up for lost time! Poor thing has been so fussy because of it but hopefully he'll get a break soon.

And he is now officially on whole milk - YAY! No more formula. AND we were able to switch him to a forward facing car seat - double YAY. He was getting way too big for that infant carrier, not to mention too darn heavy for us to carry him in it! He went to the dr on his actual b-day and he weighed 22 lbs, 3 oz and was 30 inches long. When he was born, he was 7 lbs 2 oz and 18 in long, so my baby boy is definitely growing! lol

Here are some pictures from the party, and also his "official" one year pictures. He's such a handsome little boy! (not that I'm biased or anything... ) Anyone that knows my husband always says, first thing, that he looks just like his daddy. That's where he gets his handsome-ness from. :) Every once in a while I see a little of me, and he's always looked like my dad (imo) because he arches his eyebrow and that is my dad 100%.

Anyway, happy birthday, Alex! Here's to hopefully only one more year of sleeping with braces. Every single day of his life, minus the first 7 days, he has slept with either casts or braces on. He won't know what to do to be "free" at night! :)

Good morning, birthday boy!

He wasn't a fan of the party hat..

He was, however, a fan of the cake (more so the icing)

By this point, I think he'd had enough cake... :)

My cup runneth over

Wow. Today I experienced something that I have literally waited for my entire life. (How often does one get to day that?)

See, when I was a little girl, if anyone had asked me the usual question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" My answer was always, without a single doubt, "A mom!" I have finally reached that goal and have two beautiful children in my life.

Alex has been saying "dadadadadadaa" for a couple of months now and we assume that he's actually speaking to/about my husband, because a lot of times he says that when he's either looking for Dan, or sees him (or a picture of him.) Secretly, I have been very envious wishing that I would hear my sweet baby boy talk about me one of these days, but I knew I needed to have patience. Well, that day finally came today, and it literally brought me to tears.

The last few days he has been saying "mumumumum" off and on, but not directly to me, but I figured, "we're getting close, right?" This morning I was taking him to school, and when I opened up the back door to get him out of his car seat, he looked directly at me and said (very loudly, I might add), "MAMA!" Oh my goodness. I started laughing and crying at the same time. I picked him up and gave him the biggest hug, and loaded him with kisses, and told him how much I loved him. Then I couldn't stop smiling. After I'd left him in his classroom with his friends and teacher, and got back to my car, that's when the emotions took over. I kept thinking, Wow. I have waited my entire life to hear someone call me mama, and it just finally happened. And it was SO much better than I ever could have dreamed.

I feel so full of love right now, that my cup literally runneth over. (To the Hope Floats fans out there, I know you know what that means.) My life is so blessed. I have such a wonderful husband and family, and I wouldn't trade one minute of this for anything in the world.

Subject changer...

So last night we went to our good friends' house to watch the Superbowl. I am in amazement to watch Alex and their little girl (who is 3 months older than Alex) interact. Those 3 months have always been such a huge difference, and now that they are getting "older", that 3 months isn't so different anymore in the developmental world. They are closer in size, and the only major difference is that Alex doesn't walk yet, although he is standing and pulling himself up on everything still. But I know it will be awesome to watch them "chase" after each other - look out!

Alex has had lots of "firsts" the last few days (besides saying "mama"!). He has tried lots of new foods - a slice of American cheese, a banana, crackers, colby jack cheese. And he loved all of it - yay! I am so looking forward to being able to give him more table food. Since he doesn't have any teeth yet (still just the top 2 front ones that just broke through a week and a half ago) I haven't given him many table foods, because he hasn't done very well at gumming/chewing food quite yet. But he did great with everything new he tried, and I'm looking forward to trying even more things!

Now I'm off to work on planning his birthday party.... at least I got the cake ordered this weekend!