The Makings Of

A Christine Entry:

A lot of people say, "One-year-olds don't even remember their birthdays. There is no point in putting that much effort into it." To this I responded, "How dare you? This party is not for him, it's for ME. I survived a year!"

Of course I am only partially serious. But I do maintain that this party is for the parents as well as for the child. We have been looking forward to our child's first birthday for a long time. You only get one first birthday and it's our BOY. It meant a lot to us to celebrate with our family and friends. Naturally, it was going to be special.

I fully realize this makes me sound crazy...but planning for Nolan's birthday was equally as fun as celebrating his birthday.

I almost cried every time I told someone Nolan was going to be one. You hear it from everyone, "Time goes by so fast!" There is a reason cliches exist...they are true. Our baby grew into a toddler faster than we could imagine.

What I would like to do right now is describe, at length, what it was like to hold my little newborn Nolan. What it was like to watch Jon interact with him each and everyday in the most adorable way possible. How Nolan made me feel an indescribable feeling of true mother-son love everyday since he made his appearance. I will spare you. :)

We decided on monsters for the theme of his birthday. My (awesome) mother-in-law bestowed a gift upon me that could make these monsters happen...wait for it....the Cricut machine. Cue orchestra music.

I (extremely happily) spent hours cutting out cute little monsters for Nolan's birthday party. I was a monster making wild animal and I had a creepy smile on my face the whole time. A large portion of my monster making hours were lovingly accompanied by my mother-in-law and my neighbor. She knows it, but I'll say it again. I heart my neighbor. We chatted and laughed over our glasses of red (or Jubelale in my neighbor's case) and several paper monster parts. They were super sweet to help me so much and we had a great time! Or at least I did. :)

In the end, we had a "Happy Birthday" banner, a monster banner and lots of little monster favor bags. (I am pretending like all of the families that took home these bags did not recycle them after they took their treats out.)