Joel has changed so much in the past year and I'm not just talking about his hair color. He is coming into his personality, and I feel so blessed that God has allowed me to be a part of his life. I have three amazing children and I am so grateful for the precious gifts God has given to Joe and me.
Wednesday and Thursday Joe and I worked on stuff for Joel's birthday party and Friday was the big day.
Joe got to pick out the theme (I thought it was only fair since Joel is a boy), and Joe picked dinosaurs. I ran with it, and I think I/we did pretty good for this being our first boy party.
We had dino-dogs on a stick (corn dogs), stuffed dino eggs (deviled eggs), herbivore treats (veggie tray), stegosaurs spikes (cheese puffs), dino teeth & spicy lava (chips & fiesta ranch dip), Rex (watermelon carved like a dino with watermelon & grapes inside his mouth), dirt cups (oreo pie with gummy worms) fossil cups (orange jello with a sweedish fish in it) and cupcakes.
Of course Joel had his little smash cake made by Joe:
We decorated with lots of green and plants:
And as you walked up to the front door this is what you saw:
As you walked in from the front door to the kitchen you passed the goody table~ Dino masks and dino ducks:
And when you got to the kitchen you found the birthday boy!!
He learned to say "cheese" that day. You can see him saying it here:
We had coloring sheets and balloons to keep everyone occupied until everyone was there:
Once everyone was there I explained the egg hunt game to them. Momma dinosaurs had come to help me decorate and left colored dino eggs on the front lawn for the kids to hunt. Here I am explaining that everyone is only to get one egg of each color:
Look how well everyone is sitting and listening:
Let the hunt begin:
Look at all the dinosaurs that came to Joel's first birthday:
Next it was dinner and dessert. I love watching the kids dig into their first birthday cake:
After a quick bath in the sink and wardrobe change it was time to open presents:
All in all I think the party was a great success even if almost every kid there had a meltdown at some point :) Thank you so much to everyone who helped pull the party off, thank you for the gifts, and thank you for your love and support of Joel in this past year.
After the party Joe took the kids home and put them to bed while I stayed and cleaned up.
Saturday morning we took it easy. It had been a long, long, long time since we had been able to do that and it was so nice. We did take a walk to take some boxes to recycling. We went out to lunch and headed up to Joe's grandmother for a visit with some relatives we have not seen in a while. The girls got to feed Uncle Lynn's horses and went fishing with Joe. The most exciting thing of the day was when Joel took his first steps. He has taken a few since then, but pretty soon he will be running right along side his big sisters. We had a good afternoon and we got home in time to watch most of the Alabama game.
Sunday we had church and then the girls went home with Other Mama. This was a much needed break and we can not thank Other Mama and Pap-paw enough. We had just been talking about how we had not had a date since May, and so we went to lunch and had a semi-date (we still had Joel.) After a very yummy lunch we went home and took naps. That was the best sleep I have gotten in a while. We got up just in time to meet Other Mama at New Home with the girls for Awana.
This week is an exciting week for the girls at school. Jolie has a field trip to the Clanton Pumpkin Patch and Josie gets to wear pjs to school one day.
This weekend is a huge weekend for our church. We are celebrating the church's
175th birthday. We have activities all weekend long. At lunch on Sunday Joe were talking about how neat it will be to be around for the 200th birthday celebration. By then hopefully we will have four generations at First Presbyterian: My parents, Joe & me, the kids, and at least some of our grandkids. It is was neat to us when we thought about it that way. We are all part of something larger and we are blessed for the life we have.
