birthday

It Happened With a Blink

- Mama 5 Comments

I want to show you guys a picture of me, one year ago.

I was incredibly sick. In fact, I very easily almost died. But there was one very special thing keeping me there (despite the fact that I was so out of it, to this day, I can barely remember the hours leading up to 4:00).

At 4:00, I got to see the one thing that I held on for.

At exactly 4:00, he came. I was able to hold him, to meet him, to cuddle him, and to realize that my life would never be the same, and that was totally okay with me. And somehow, in the past year, my little bitty baby has grown up.

When he was born one year ago, Zach weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Now, he is a whopping 22 pounds.

He still yanks off hats every time he gets the chance.

He seemed so tiny in that huge carseat when we brought him home. Now that carseat is too small– we’ve had to buy a new one.

All of his little baby wrinkles are gone.

 

In the past year, he has learned to sit, to crawl, to feed himself, to drink from a cup, to communicate with signs and words, to turn the pages of a book. He has become advanced in fine motor skills and social-personal skills. He has met every developmental milestone and exceeded many of them. He has grown at an amazing rate, staying consistent at each appointment. He has gotten such a personality, such a… Zach-ness about himself.

He loves Sid the Science Kid, and watching Sesame Street videos with his grandma on Youtube.

His favorite word is “wiggle.”

He loves books, especially his Baby Animals Sea Life book and his I’ll See You In the Morning book he got from Citrus Lane.

He loves his stacking cups, but not to stack them… he loves to knock them down.

His favorite food is watermelon. He also loves chocolate, vanilla wafers, crackers (especially Goldfish), pineapple, and many other fruits, vegetables, and noodles. He can eat an entire container of yogurt at once.

He loves to sing and make sure that you’re listening.

He loves to play with Echo, climbing him and petting him, and throwing toys for Echo to fetch.

He loves sand. Bathtime is the best. He likes to swim, especially if his uncle is in the pool.

He is just… amazing. And he has changed so much in the past year.

So many times, I say “Zach! Slow down! I want to rewind and see you in those first few weeks, few months… I miss you being a baby, a little bitty boy.” But honestly? I wouldn’t trade right now for the world. I want to enjoy him right this minute. I want to love each unique thing he does, each new thing he learns, each weird quirk and adorable habit.

I love him. I can’t live without him. He is the reason I’m here, the reason I held on through my illness last year. He is my whole world, and I can’t live without him. But he grew up so fast, and he’s still growing, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. All I can do is enjoy the right now of the whole thing… I can enjoy this minute, when he is standing next to his high chair, and letting go without realizing it. I can enjoy this right now, when he is crawling across the floor listening to Sid the Science Kid and stopping to stare every time they sing a song. I can enjoy this moment, when he is standing up on his knees, then slamming his hands against the floor and yelling “La la LA la!” I can enjoy this moment when he is removing all of the rubber ducks from the back of his truck and throwing them around the room, waiting for me to put them back into the truck so he can do it again.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvuxFdM3S58]

 

Enjoy it. They grow too fast.

Rubber Duckie, You’re the One!

- Mama 2 Comments

I hate admitting that my son is now almost one year old! The year since his birth has just flown by, and we decided to celebrate his birthday on Saturday. My sister is still in town from Germany, and we really wanted her to be a part of his special celebration!

So, you may have guessed by now that sometimes I am a bit out of my mind. For example, up until about 36 hours before my son’s birthday party, I was convinced the theme “Time Flies” was an awesome choice. The only problem? I could not come up with a cake idea that I liked. Or cookie ideas. Or enough clocks in the right colors to make my theme actually look cool. And, well, I may be a little bit of a perfectionist.

But by this point, I had already purchased almost all of the other items I needed in the colors of yellow and blue… which meant that whatever I changed it to needed to also be yellow and blue! My mother came up with the wonderful idea of having a rubber duckie party! At that point, my sister and I ran to Walmart (by this point, it was almost 10 at night!) and purchased every rubber duckie they had in stock– all seven of them.

The next 36 hours was a blur of baking, decorating, and pulling together an amazing party. I think if we wouldn’t have told people we had changed the theme less than two days before, no one would have known! Somehow, it all came together perfectly, probably through a lot of magic and a pile of help from my mom and sister!

I wanted to share all of the special elements of the party with you, as well as some incredibly cute photos of the birthday boy!

I am positively in love with these striped straws I scored from Pick Your Plum. They were my very first purchase for the party, and I can’t get enough of them. They’re gorgeous! I am also a jar-a-holic, and I knew that those straws would pair adorably with Ball jars I had purchased by the dozen from Walmart. To drink, we served lemonade and Berry Blue Typhoon Hawaiian Punch, because the colors paired perfectly with my yellow and blue color theme!

I baked and decorated a fun smash cake for Zach that coordinated with the larger cake I’d be serving to everyone. We also continued a tradition we started at his baby shower– inviting (or rather, forcing) every guest to sign a personal message in his book. We try to choose a book related to the theme of his birthday. Grandma was the hero- she finally found a book about a duck with only hours to spare! It is an incredibly cute book, too, called “The Duckling Gets a Cookie?!” I am totally in love with it, and now I want to buy the whole series of them!

Here is the coordinating cake that we served to everyone (since we figured they wouldn’t want to share the smash cake that his grubby hands were all over! Actually, his hands were clean, but that’s hardly the point!)

See those colorful paper chains in the backgrounds of the photos? There are 720 links in those chains altogether. I was reminded of that fact several times during the SIX HOURS that my mom and sister slaved over them. They turned out beautifully, though, and they helped settle my OCD mind (I was bothered by having a red wall behind a blue-and-yellow party!) My mother also hand-rolled all of the bubbles on the cake. Each bubble is made from marshmallow fondant (Jet-Puffed saves the day, again!), rolled into bubbles by my mother, and then hand-painted with a mixture of water and Wilton Pearl Dust to get that bubbly luster. I did three coats of the pearly mixture to make them extra soapy looking.

As for the inside of the cake, well, each person got a layer of chocolate AND a layer of vanilla in one slice, so then there wasn’t a need to decide which they wanted! The cake was moist and delicious, and I can’t wait to share the recipe with you!

Each guest got to take home  a treat back (also from Pick Your Plum) filled with yummy cookies… I just made some shortbread cookies and frosted them with royal icing so each person got a trio of cookies– ducks and bubbles! The ducks are my favorite– they even have a mini chocolate chip eye!

The table also had plates of cookies for guests to snack on during the party.

We went ahead and stripped Zach’s shirt off for the cake smash. If you’re planning to do a smash, trust me, you’ll want the shirt off! I couldn’t help but take about a million pictures of him really digging into his cake… here are a handful that I loved the most.

As you can see, I had a lot of trouble deciding whether I wanted black and white or color photos… the blue icing was so much fun in them, but some of the black and whites translate his expression better… I can’t decide!

His expressions continued to be exciting through the present opening, of course. It was adorable!

“Are you interrupting my present opening?”

The cards especially confused Zach. He kept turning the pages back and forth like “where’s the rest of my book?”

His reaction to the ball was especially hilarious… it was as though he had never seen a ball before! He was thrilled!

He had a great day, all in all. The party came together perfectly (with lots of help!) and he enjoyed the cake and presents so much! I’m glad that he had fun, and we loved seeing all of the friends and family that came to share his special day with us. We also missed those who couldn’t be there to celebrate with us.

Now, I have to adjust to the idea that my little boy is nearly one year old already! I’m not ready for that– he is growing up way too fast!