Makena's Sesame Street Themed 1st Birthday Party!

My mom bought this outfit, and while it's cute, we had already bought a perfect Sesame Street shirt for Makena to wear to her party. Also, we wanted to focus on the whole Sesame Street group, and not just Elmo. Makena loves this though, and she always wants to hold her Elmo doll when she wears it! lol. But in this photo she's happy with her new straw cup.


On Sunday January 23rd we had Makena's birthday party. We used a rented clubhouse that cost $100 which is fully refundable. Perfect! We needed to find somewhere indoors, because last year it was cold and rainy when Makena was born. But, of course it just happened to be warm and sunny that day!

Here were the invitations, each one was personalized with the name of the guest in the sign-

And this is what the party room looked like after a few hours of decorating and help from my mom and Kansas' moms (who were visiting from Fresno)!

The street signs are my favorite part, I'm sad I didn't take any photos of the ones outside that were strategically taped to lamp posts to lead guests to the party location!

There were Sesame Street books, Sesame Street stuffed animals, even Sesame Street cars for the kids to play with! At the last minute Pam bought a goldfish and appropriately named her Dorothy, just like Elmo's fish!


There was a CD of Sesame Street music playing the whole time, and we even had songs that were personalized and had Elmo singing Makena's name during them!

A close up of the cake I made:

And the cupcakes that Pam made!!

Amazing, huh?!

We also had this awesome Sesame Street ball pit, and it was a huge hit with the kids!

A colorful parachute added another level of fun to the party!

We even played Pin the Nose on Elmo! I wasn't sure if this would work for a group of 6, 11, 12, and 14 month olds... but it did!! The tried to pull it off the wall a few times, but Makena totally stuck the orange oval right onto Elmo's arm! (Her thumb is pushing the sticker down in this photo.)
We also had games for the bigger kids (Makena's cousins)/adults. Some trivia questions about Makena, and everyone got 4 right except for my mom who won with 5 correct.
And a cookie guessing game:


There were 162 cookies in that jar, and Nickel got to take them all home! I asked every guest to sign a page that will some day be in a scrapbook of Makena's birthday parties. :)
Then we had cake:

Makena wasn't too interested in the cake, but she loves the figurines on top! And, as an unexpected bonus, they tasted pretty good too!
She picked the cookie out of his mouth, took a bite, then tried to feed it to Cookie Monster again. lol!
Time to open presents!

The goody bags that we handed out as everyone left. They had a package of Goldfish crackers, a rubber duckie, bubbles, and a crayon-

And before each guest walked out the door we had them take a polaroid photo with the birthday girl!
After everyone left, Makena took a long nap in the car as Pam drove around. I started the clean up and then when she woke up she got to play with the balloons and run around and play with her new Elmo's World pop up play tent!

Later after she was in bed at home, I tooka photo of all the gifts she got. My mom took a photo of my gifts from my 1st birthday. And here, for a comparison:

My gifts, in August of 1983-


And Makena's first birthday gifts. Amazing what a difference 28 years makes!

The party was a huge success. :) It was relaxed yet fun, and Makena had a great time which made all the stress of planning it totally worth it! I'm so excited about all the fun parties I get to plan for her! Can't wait to see what next year brings!

Birthday and 1 year stats!

I'm sitting here eating a slice of cake. A slice of cake from Makena's 1st birthday cake. Oh man, it actually happened. She's ONE YEAR OLD!

On January 20th we woke up all together in our family bed, and went into the living room. Makena had two unwrapped gifts waiting for her on the couch. I asked her "Where's the baby?" and she saw her brand new baby doll and ran over to it and gave it a huge hug and very slobbery kiss!

She also got a little plastic tea set. The teapot is so cute, it sings and teaches manners in a hilariously adorable British accent. lol. But I love how much she loves the baby doll. I couldn't wait for her first birthday to give it to her! I knew she'd love it. I wonder what she'll name the baby some day when she's older and talking...

Then we left the house and dropped Pam off to her class and Makena and I met up with my mom at Hobee's for breakfast. Makena ate scrambled eggs and toast and had a fun time walking around. Then we went to Diddam's party store to grab some last minute supplies. We picked up Pam, and Makena was napping in the car, then we drove to Santana Row to go to to afternoon tea!

The tea parlor didn't have any high chairs. Oops. So Makena mostly sat on our laps. Wait, correction- She mostly wandered around because she refused to sit and wanted nothing to do with the food. Not even her ice cream sundae! Oh well. The yearly tea tradition has started!
We had wanted to buy a little teaspoon from the gift shop, but then at the end they brought us one and said "Happy Birthday!" which was perfect.

Then we killed some time at the book store and Makena found the Sesame Street section...
And had a great time playing with everything. We left and rushed to her 1 year doctor check up.

She weighs 23 lbs, and is 30.5 inches tall. We told her Dr that she had 10 teeth, and as he looked in her mouth he found a 3rd molar, making it 11 teeth!! He said "And here's number 11, wow!" Poor baby has been in teething pain for SO long now, she's always got her fingers yanking at her mouth. We've given her tylenol a few evenings. I brought up to the doctor my slight concern about Makena's lack of verbal skills. Not even a true concern, because I know that some babies focus on either gross motor or fine motor or language skills, and sometimes they lack in the other areas. So I'm not worried, I know she'll talk some day! But it's an observation I've made based on other children her age that I've worked with.

She doesn't "talk" or babble much. Pretty much she communicates by grunting and clapping and then pointing. lol. It's effective, because we respond. His only advice was to talk to her more often and that she'd catch up soon.

Then we stopped at the park on the way home and she played for a while.



And we learned an important lesson. Just because Makena is so advanced in her gross motor skill development, and can walk (and even run!) and climb so well, that doesn't mean we should let her do things that she's too young to do safely. Like go down the slide by herself. She went down about 4-5 times and was having a blast, but then on the last time she tipped to the side and banged her face into the side of the slide on her way down. :(
Luckily it wasn't her eye, but it was a close call! She screamed and screamed and cried for a long time. When she finally calmed down we didn't want to buckle her into her car seat to drive home just a few blocks away, because she would get so upset all over again since she HATES the car seat more than anything else, and all that crying on her birthday just isn't fair. So Pam just held her in the back seat while I drove us home very slowly.

JUST KIDDING! Omg, we would never.

Pam walked home with her and I drove home. :)

For dinner we had plans to go to dinner for another friends birthday, and so Makena took a nice late nap and then we went out to eat. She was a trooper, it was such a long busy day! Went home and fell asleep.

And that's how she spent her 1st birthday! Up next, her birthday party! But she's awake now and wants to play so I must oblige!

2 days till she's 1!

I'm feeling panicky about her birthday. My baby's about to be one year old. It's like this huge important impending date that has all these different feelings and emotions attached to it.

Excitement, joy, disbelief, anxiety, relief, guilt, bewilderment, sadness, anticipation, awe... some of these are obviously much stronger than others, but I do have hints of all of them!

At this time last year I was in labor, and thought I'd have the baby before morning. Little did I know I still had quite some time. I couldn't wait to meet our baby. I wondered if she'd really be a girl after all. I was so worried about believing that the 2 ultrasounds were correct! I had no idea what we'd name the baby. I constantly thought about what she'd look like.

And now she's here, and it's been almost a year of getting to know/falling in love with her. One day she'll be turning 5. Then 13. And some day she'll be 29, older than I am now!

But she's still a baby for the time being.

Quickly learning!

Makena is picking up so many new things!

Tonight we finally got her to say "Mama." She's said it kinda in the past, but never enough for us to fully believe she meant it. Even tonight I don't know if she said "Mama" meaning either Pam or I. But we had been saying it over and over and finally she clearly repeated us.

She will repeat SO many things, and is constantly surprising me with something new.

While sitting on my lap and watching as I uploaded video clips of herself to the computer, she heard my voice in the video say "Aww, give me a kiss!" And she turned around and gave me a kiss for real. She melts me!!

When the video was over she put both hands up and said "uhh!" As in, "What the heck? Why'd the video stop?!" It was so funny and cute.

At the park today, Pam was at the bottom of a slide and I was at the top, and I was about to sit Makena in my lap when she scooted forward and went down the slide all on her own. !!!! She's 11.5 months old, and went down a slide by herself. And not a little baby slide either! This was a high slide, taller than us, on the 5-7 year old section of the playground!

We're always amazed by what she can do.

She will lay down on the changing pad (okay, more often a towel or blanket on the floor in our case) when you pull out a new diaper. If it's a disposable diaper, once you roll it up she will throw it in the trash can. (Pam taught her that trick.)

I was in the kitchen yesterday, and Makena was playing in the livingroom. I kept checking on her every so often, but mostly I could hear her making noise with her toys so I wasn't worried. Then it was silent for a while so I looked at the livingroom but she wasn't there. And I went through the baby gate (which had been open) and checked the hallway but the doors to the bathroom and bedrooms were closed. I walked back into the livingroom, and then noticed she was sitting in her rocking chair that was in the kitchen. Just sitting there, looking adorable and so grown up, just rocking herself, hanging out in the kitchen. I was flabbergasted! She came into the kitchen and climbed up in her chair all without me noticing. lol!

Her birthday is in 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS!

The invitations were mailed today, and they came out great. We are so excited for this party!!