Grant turned one on March 23. It made me sad approaching this day, since he is most likely my last baby and turning one seems to mark the end of the "baby" phase, they turn toddlers so quickly after they turn one. But, I also remember that when Emily turned one it made me a little (a lot) sad because she was still so much of a baby-she wasn't even rolling over when she turned one, and I saw all these other babies learning to stand and walk and didn't know if I would ever have the chance in this life to experience a child doing those things. And now I've had three chances, with lily, lance, and Grant! I'm so lucky!
Which brings me to why birthdays are a big deal. There was a post going around about "I'm done making my children's childhood magical" and while I understand some points of it-you should do things for you, not because there is an expectation that things be perfect-I like making a bigger deal about birthdays. Because I had a child who never made it to her next birthday, each birthday my kids make it to is a big deal to me. I have major emotional attachment to the fact that they made it to another birthday. Maybe it's not normal but it's part of losing a child for me, I think.
That being said, I only do what I am comfortable with. For Grant's birthday I had the inspired (seriously, it was inspired-lily needed to feel needed) idea to let lily plan his party. I showed her how to make a board on Pinterest for Grant and how to look at ideas and pin them, and we then went back through her ideas and she decided on the theme, seseme street. Once she decided on that we found more pins on seseme street, and then I helped her pick the ideas that I could execute without losing my mind.
We all had so much fun making this #1 poster of Grant's first year.
Lily decorated his high chair.
She also drew seseme street characters on the paper plates and hung them from the light .
She also drew this Elmo to play pin the nose on Elmo.
Grant are tons of frosting and made a good mess.
And Janica's family came which was a lot of fun. I love my little one year old!7
