The day started early as you had a scheduled debut. You were going to be evicted from your snugly abode. And we were excited. The day also started with snow, in March in Oregon, a very rare thing to happen. We called the hospital to see if we could come in early so to make sure we didn’t get stuck on our hill or on the hill up to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and they were ready for us. We got comfortable in our room and we got to listen to your heartbeat and your kicks as you kicked the monitor.

In the operating room it was strange for mommy, because with your big brother it was such a shock to be in there that I remember very little of being in there. But then I also got sick this time. Don’t know if it was nerves, not eating, just being more aware, the constant morning sickness that never went away or the spinal.

But then you were in the room with us, complaining about leaving your nice warm home for this bright cold world. Daddy got to watch you as you got weighed and monitored and then I got to see you.

In our room we got to have you near in the hospital’s funny little plexi-glass bassinets. And for hours on end you laid all swaddled there and in my arms, humming. You almost sounded like you were singing to yourself, trying to sooth yourself. I loved listening to you, to the first sounds you made.

Your brother adored you right away, running into the room to see the baby. And everyday he loved coming back to see his brother. And on your first car ride together as we tried to figure out how to shuffle you both to the car we tried taking Zane out first. He ran to your car seat and started dragging you along with him.

Now you have learned so many wonderful and spectacular skills. I love to watch you “run” up and hall. I love when I catch you playing with your brother.  I love to listen to your little babbles as you try to learn to talk. But even without words you are learning to communicate. You hold out your hand and give a little motion to tell me “give me”, “I want”, or as I like to pretend you are saying, “Please”.

We cannot wait to see what the Lord has prepared for your life. To learn more about you and your unique personality. To watch you grow and change. To see how you and your brother grow closer and become bonded together as brothers. We love you so much!

Table of contents for How to Plan a 1st Birthday Party

1. How to Plan a 1st Birthday Party: Choose A Theme

This month Zarek is turning one year old. For Zane I planned such a great birthday party. I wanted to make sure that Zarek’s birthday is just as grand as Zane’s was. I will be sharing with you my plan step by step to make the Perfect First Birthday Party.

Choose Your Theme

The first thing you need is the perfect theme. This can be the most fun part of the planning or the most frustrating, but it’s all in how you look at it. There are some great websites to give you ideas. One of my favorite’s is:

Birthday Party Ideas

Think about some of your little one’s favorite things or your favorite things to do with your little one. Obviously a one year old doesn’t tell you in words what their favorite things are. But think about their favorite food? Do they have a favorite toy or stuffed animal? Do you always read the same book to them every night? Or you can do a theme around a color, the theme of their room, or just something fun.

Some Ideas For You

Some of my favorite themes:

• Balloons (Zane’s first birthday theme)
• Camouflage Green or Pink
• Bubbles
• Prince/Princesses
• Cupcakes
• Bugs
• ABCs
• Animal Crackers (do everything in animals)
• Fishy
• Butterfly
• Nursery Rhymes
• Circus
• Trucks/Construction
• Cowboy/girl
• Dinos
• Dr Suess
• On the Farm
• Winnie the Pooh
• Rainbow
• Rubber Ducky
• Stars and Moons
• Star Wars
• Sunshine
• Tea Party
• Train Party
• ABCs
• Robots
• Pirates

Be creative think outside the box.

Six Categories

Write down 3-5 of your ideas for themes on the top of a piece of paper.  Write these six categories under each theme:

1. Invitations
2. Decorations
3. Games/Entertainment/Craft*
4. Cake
5. Food
6. Goodie Bags

*With a one year old you may not play games but you may want your guests write notes to your little one or have trivia about your little one or about the theme.

Brainstorming

Now it’s time for you to brainstorm for each theme you are considering. Write down quick ideas for each of these categories. Just write basic ideas down later on you will expand your ideas once you have chosen your theme. What you want to do is see if you can fill up each category and see which theme you start to get excited about, that sounds the most fun.

Zarek’s Example

Zarek is going to have a Cheerios themed birthday party. Here is a rough draft I created to plan his party.

1. Invitations: Modify a picture of a cheerios box with the party details
2. Decorations: Yellow: yellow balloons, streamers,  plates, etc.
3. Games/Entertainment/Craft: String Cheerios on a necklace, slide show of the year
4. Cake: I’m thinking about making a round cake to look like a big cheerio
5. Food: Cheerio Rice Crispy Treats, Donuts, Cheerio Chex Mix
6. Goodie Bags: Single Servings of Cheerios, Cheerio Cereal bars, Spoon and bowl

This is all about having fun with your theme. Don’t feel like everything has to match. Your one year old will never know that they didn’t have all yellow balloons. Or that the cake wasn’t perfect. Take the stress out of the planning, just have fun!

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, all about party invitations and decorations.

The boys are testing my mommy skills and I’m getting to my limit. If Zarek is not throwing up on me or I’m not changing a icky diaper, Zane is having alergic reactions to who knows what having us run to the ER. And I think he must like the ER because he decided this morning to eat 1/2 box of benadryl.

It was mommy’s fault for leaving the benadryl out but I’m also running on almost no sleep. Saturday night (1:30am) Zane awoke just inconsolable.  In the next half hour we were rushing him to the ER with head to toe hives. You know it’s bad when the nurse tells you if he starts having breathing or swallowing pull over and have an ambulance take him the rest of the way.

We stayed at the hospital till 4 or 5am got a shot of steroids and some benedryl. We got home and I stayed up with Zane to watch him and make sure he didn’t scratch. But after staying up I just couldn’t get myself to go to bed. So I got a whole 1 1/2 hours of sleep on Saturday and Sunday.

And it didn’t stop with the weekend. Monday I screwed up not looking at my schedule. I was just too tired Sunday night and I’m always scheduled at 10am.  Nope I was scheduled for 8:30am.Which threw off my whole day.

I have a family member who has been arrested for some nasty stuff. So glad that we rarely saw them anyways, maybe once a year. But it’s been hard just wrapping my mind around the whole thing.

On the good news though business is really picking up for me on my graphic design jobs. It’s been amazing some of the great jobs that have been coming in. I’m going to be having a huge site reveal in the next few days which is very exciting.

Poor little Zaney isn’t having a very good night. We are struggling with potty training after getting sick last weekend. So far tonight he has fallen out of bed (hard), wet the bed, and had another accident. I would put a diaper or pullups on him but he just takes them off.

So here we are in the middle of the night, early early morning with him on the couch and me on the big chair. Hopefully he will feel like going to bed in a little  soon, so mommy can get a little sleep before Zarek wakes up.

Sometimes it’s hard being the mommy. Always worth it but hard.

Print out some mommy cards for the next time you have your little ones over for a playdate or just meet a mommy you want to meet up with again.

I forgot to mention that I was featured at The Frugal Homeschooling Mom, I got together with her and made a coloring sheet. I will be making more in the near future so stay tuned!!

Yesterday was the Chinese New Year and now we are in the year of the Tiger. So I have created a fun little note card for you to be able to print and write a note to a friend!

• Lace Tea Lights – Found via One Pretty Thing this is a great tutorial on making a pretty little tea light for a friend or maybe just for you.
• My Last Minute Valentine’s Jars – Another find from One Pretty Thing! I’m going to start saving up my jars. What even a great idea for a quick b-day present or christmas or maybe for May Day! I always love giving my neighbors little things now and again and this is a great idea!
• V-day Sweet Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte – Okay I want a real Black Forest Cake, it sounds so yummy!!
• Bakerella – You have to take a look at Bakerella’s awesome vintage valentine cookies!! So, so cute!!
• Valentine’s Day Door Hanger – I’m so mad I didn’t see these earlier. I (actually my hubby) just took down my winter wreath. So my door looks so blank, this would have been perfect!
• Valentine Candy Cones – What a great idea. Again I could use this for all kinds of things. Maybe I will do it for St Patricks day!!

And for all of you out there who hate Valentine’s Day:

• February’s Depressing… here’s a playlist… –

What have been some of your Super Surfing Valentine finds this week??

Oh and I can’t forget, one last Valentine’s Day Freebie!!

Check out some of the other freebies from earlier this month and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the upcoming freebies the rest of this month!! Some great items like mommy cards, Chinese New Year  (Happy Chinese New Year, I will post that freebie tomorrow!), and more!!!

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Hope you have some great plans for tomorrow. Why not bake some cupcakes and decorate them with some fun cupcake toppers? Check out some of the other freebies from earlier this month and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the upcoming freebies the rest of this month!!

This is going to be short and sweet, maybe even a little literally. These are candy bar wrappers. Print them out, trim them and wrap around your favorite full size candy bar or there is one for mini candy bars. Great little personalized sweet treats for your sweetie.

I will have more freebies this month so don’t forget to subscribe!

On the rainy, blustery days that fill December and January here in Oregon there is one thing that Works for Me on a little 2 year old with cabin fever…the trampoline.

We have a small garage, we can fit the car into it but it’s a pain to get out of the car once it’s in there. Plus we lost the remote to the garage door, so we just don’t use it. Until we got this trampoline for Zane’s birthday.

Now when I just can’t stand Zane making another running lap around the kitchen bar I send him to the garage to burn his energy on the trampoline.

One reason I know this is a good idea is that my neighbor came over with her 4 year old and when she saw it she ran out and bought one to put in her garage also.

We also have a huge power wheels in the garage, that doesn’t work. That Zane loves to play on when he gets bored of jumping. We have also considered putting a swing in the garage also.

So if you live in an area where you get stuck in the house for months on end, consider converting your garage or part of your garage into a little play area. (Just make sure you childproof your garage if you are going to leave your little ones unattended.)

Don’t forget February is Freebie month here at Pepper Scraps. You can find all kinds of free printables throughout the month! Check out my previous post for play doh labels that you can use to turn little mini containers into valentine’s for your little one’s (or for you to hand out to your friends and co-workers).

We have had so many big milestones hit in our house, it’s so amazing and joyful! I love my little boys they are such a blessing and everyday is a reminder of this.

Zane decided two weeks ago that he wanted to go potty in the potty. From there on we have been going potty in the potty 90% of the time. Just today he decided to start taking himself with no reminders into the bathroom and go potty on the big potty.

He did really good until he tried going #2 on the big potty and missed. I was on a chat with a new client and had to drop everything. He came out of the bathroom with toilet paper streaming all around him saying he needed to clean up. LOL I went in and helped him clean up and just tried to explain to him it may be better to go poo poo on the little potty.

Zarek has been making his own big steps this last week. Literally. He has started walking. He had taken a few steps here and there a few weeks ago, but this week he started taking more and more. And today I am pretty sure he walked more than he crawled. You could tell he was thrilled with himself as he would giggle as he walked around the room.

It has also been a great week to watch the boys interacting. Zane is starting to have fun with Zarek. He is starting to look at him more and more as a playmate. They run/crawl up and down the hallway. Zane calling out behind him, “Come on Zarek, let’s go!” And Zarek of course is thrilled to be included in the games and is happy to chase after Zane. Earlier today Zane started getting really upset that Zarek was taking his nap because he wanted to play with him

February is Freebie month here at PepperScraps so here is another fun valentine freebie! These are labels you can print, sign, cutout and tape to the lids of play doh to make some really fun Valentine’s Day “cards”. Click the links below. Choose All Sizes. Choose Original. Download and print.