Our Little Birthday Buddy

The rumors are true. Nolan has turned one. (Pause for effect). I'll get to the party details in one minute. First, however, you're going to have to indulge me in a little sentimental reflection.


I'm continually amazed by the differences in my children. Perhaps it's the girl vs. boy thing. Perhaps it's the first child vs. second child thing. Perhaps it's just the BAILEY vs. NOLAN thing. Whatever it is, I feel lucky to have children who bring different personalities to the table. Nolan, in many ways, still seems like a baby to me whereas Bailey seemed "grown up" by the time she turned one. With her, because she was my first child, I wanted her to walk and talk and say her ABC's as quickly as possible because I was so eager to experience the new and different stages of childhood. While I am certainly not the kind of mother who wants to baby her baby a little too long (you know the kind I'm talking about), and I've never been a hovering kind of caretaker, I do feel that internal pull to just hold Nolan in that tell-tale cradle hold of infancy as long as he'll let me. And, I won't lie, this week's transition from the bottle to the sippy cup might even be accompanied by a few tears.....mine. But, the reality is that my sweet baby is going to become a sweet little boy, and his first birthday was a defining moment in that progression.


Okay, now I can get to the fun stuff!

We held Nolan's birthday party on Saturday after Thanksgiving, which also happened to be the OU/OSU game day. I didn't know that in advance, but I probably would have still had the party that day because the next Saturday would have been too far AFTER his actual birthday for my taste. But, the timing just meant that some of the standard partygoers of the family and circle of friends couldn't attend. We had a smaller-than-usual group, but I think this was kind of nice in terms of having some room to spread out in my house.


Bailey and I decorated the table and house - we had a Monkey theme. This theme was really just dictated by the invitation I chose, but turned out cute with the cake, plates and napkins I found. I didn't go overboard because, well, he's one and doesn't know the difference. HOWEVER, he was pretty darn interested in the balloons. He wouldn't wear one around his wrist as Bailey did at her first party...he was much happier to just grab one when he wanted to.


Here are some pics of Nolan greeting his cousin Joseph (they are about 4 weeks apart in age). It's funny how little people recognize other little people!

And Bailey and cousin Anna getting into the festive mood.

And my ONE YEAR OLD playing soccer in the backyard with Bailey, Anna and my friend's little boy, Brody. If we can just get rid of the bottle, he'll be able to concentrate on his form.

Present time!! He didn't seem all that interested in opening his presents. But, he really didn't get a chance to develop his taste for it because his sister and cousin stepped into the role of present openers pretty darn quickly and enthusiastically! Oh well, at least he gets to actually play with his gifts......oh wait, maybe not. His sister thinks those are hers, too. Well, maybe next year. Smile.

This is my friend who was trying to get Nolan to wear a party hat.....he made it clear that this was not on his list of things to do. He liked looking at her wearing it, though!

If he's not a soccer star, perhaps we can turn him into a b-baller. Is that even the right terminology....perhaps I shouldn't try to use any hip lingo. LOL.

As for the cake-eating portion of the party, Nolan was a little tentative at first. He actually needed a fork to really get into the action. How very civilized of him.

I told folks at my office that it never occurred to me that the cute monkey cake with brown frosting would yield pictures that look like he's eaten mud (or worse, but I won't be gross)!! It's frosting, people, frosting.

While he did pretty well on his cake at the party, the real good stuff came on his actual birthday when we let him get into the cake again.

I think that's called cleaning your plate. No wonder he needed a bath!

Finally, I leave you with a couple of family pics we took at the conclusion of the party.

Peace...