First Birthday Party- Uno Theme!

Let me just say that sometimes Pinterest sucks-- you see these people who go ALL OUT for a first birthday, so makes us normal folks feel like real slackers!  Anyways, I did get my idea from Pinterest, but kept it pretty simple.  The theme was Uno...as in the card game....as in Uno means One in Spanish.

Here were the invites (I had these made from Etsy seller NvitationsByRachelle):

We just invited over family and sent the invites by email.  For decorations, I bought latex balloons in Uno colors (red, blue, green, yellow, and black).  We also just taped some uno cards to the patio door/window which was behind Lachlan's high chair.  I'd definitely recommend this theme cause it would be really easy to do a lot of decorations by just buying things in the color scheme which you could probably find at the dollar store.

I made sugar cookies that looked like little Uno Cards.  These turned out pretty good and were surprisingly easy.  I used pre-made sugar cookie dough.  I couldn't find my rolling pin, so I just put some flour on the counter and patted it as evenly flat as I could.  Next, I took a knife and just cut out something that looked like a rounded rectangle.  Baked according to the directions on the package.  I made some icing following this recipe, but used Lemon Extract in place of the Almond.  I began by painting a white oval in the center of all the cookies-- I used just regular watercolor paintbrushes- the cheap kind you would buy your kids.  By the time you get to the last one, the early ones have already dried.

 So then I divided up the icing into little bowls and colored it.  I then painted around the oval with the desired color and the number one on the oval.  Lastly, I had saved a small amount of the white icing and used a toothpick to paint on really small number ones in the corners.  It took a little bit of time to do the painting, but not too bad.

The cake I spent a little too much time on, but I always remembered the huge excitement of our birthday cakes growing up and what a big deal it was...so I just felt like I owed this to Lachlan and want him to be excited each year for a cool cake.  I had scoured the internet for Uno birthday cake photos and found some cool ones, but ultimately decided I would just do a rectangular cake and make it look like a large uno card with the number one on it.  And to take it a step further, I was doing a version of a rainbow layer cake, so that it consisted of 4 layers- one of each of the uno colors.  I used 2 box white cake mixes and just tried to divide up the batter evenly once mixed.  I used the gel food coloring cause read that it was much more vibrant.  I lined my pan with wax paper and sprayed it with nonstick spray before pouring the batter in.  I baked the cakes and let them cool.  Once cool, I laid wax paper on the counter and flipped them out of the pan and then turned them over again, so they were back to how they were in the pan.  I used a bread knife and tried to cut off any excess of the tops of the cake to make them flat...that was harder than it seems and I didn't do a very good job, but oh well.  Next, I made icing with this recipe-- and it took a TON in order to go between my layers and ice the outside of the cake!  I put my first cake layer on the platter and tried to spread a thin layer of the icing.  Repeated that until my cakes were gone.  I then iced the top and sides fairly generously so I didn't have any cake poking through.

It wasn't looking too glamorous at this point

 Now it was about an hour before the party and I still was trying to figure out how to decorate the cake to make it look like an uno card!  I had all these icing supplies out and was seeking advice from my sister.  Finally, I think I came up with the idea of-- what about if we used some paper to make a stencil and use some blue sugar to just shake/spread on in order to create the look of the uno card.  So my sister was awesome and jumped on the task doing the whole thing and I think it turned out great and only took maybe 10 minutes to do.

Lachlan was comfy napping while my sister and I were frantically finishing getting things ready for the party.  Dustin was unfortunately not feeling well, so he was resting up.

Another simple thing we did was hang all of Lachlan's monthly pictures so we could all see how much he has changed and grown!  Dustin says he peaked around 3-4 months with his cuteness...I disagree.

Lachlan was not in the best of moods, but I think was just a little overwhelming to have so many people in the house.  He usually wanted mom or dad in sight at all times.  He enjoyed the cake, but didn't go crazy loving it.

The layers looked great once we cut into it!

After the cake, we opened gifts.  Lachlan was interested in the first few presents, but then quickly was more entertained by looking out the window, examining the xmas tree, etc.  He has completely enjoyed playing with everything the last couple weeks though!!

We got him a mini chair from Land of Nod- he liked it more than I thought he would!

Lachlan - ONE YEAR!

Wow- how can it feel like this year just flew by, but it also seems like soooooo long ago that we were bringing him home from the hospital at this time last year?!  Just crazy, but absolutely the BEST year of my life :)  I will do a separate post for his birthday party, so I didn't include any details or pics here.

 



I also took his pic sitting up in his new chair and think I'm going to continue the monthly pictures with using this chair...he just looks so big here!  And I think he looks really similar to me at this age.

He celebrated his first thanksgiving....and it was awful.  We were visiting one of dustin's high school friends that was in town the night before thanksgiving.  Lachs was very whiny and not himself....after about an hour we figured out why when he projectile vomitted everywhere!  It was so embarrassing and I felt so awful for him.  He threw up a lot in the carseat on the ride home.  We put him in the bath once home and he was happy as could be like nothing happened.  I called the doctor's line and she said I could give him some pedialyte or just small amounts of formula and diarrhea would probably follow.  We couldn't believe it and he slept through the night, so we thought maybe it was just something he ate.  So we went to thanksgiving festivities...then about 6:00 at Dustin's relatives he threw up again.  Then the diarrhea started the following day.  Then I ended up sick over the weekend and Dustin was out of town.  So it was just a huge mess....hopefully next year goes better!

He got his first haircut- See previous post!

He has 7 teeth- 3 on the bottom and 4 on the top. He is wearing primarily all 18 month clothing.

Fine/Gross Motor Skills

• Loves lifting flaps in books
• Loves pointing at things
• Still just cruising...does not stand on his own or want to use walker
• Loves hiding behind the curtains for us to find him or play peekaboo
• Has waved bye-bye a few times to me

 Verbal/Communication Skills

He has definitely figured out that the both arms in the air will get him held and uses that A LOT!  He is repeating words after us-- some are easier to understand than others, but you can definitely tell he is trying.  His most clear word is Duck.  He has started babbling mamamama a lot more.

We know he is understanding some of what we say, but is hard to tell how much.  Usually just as we think he understands, then he throws us for a loop and will get it wrong.  We quiz him a lot on where is mama and where is dad and we think he knows.  I think he knows a teddy bear ornament on the tree when I ask him where is teddy.  When I say where is lachlan, he will usually start to play peek a boo (if he feels like it).

He is really into pointing to things lately and uses his little pointer finger.  It cracked me up the first time I noticed it cause we were reading a book together and I always point to things on the page and he started to mimic me...it was as if he was mocking me!  He LOVES pointing to the ornaments and lights on the tree.  He will point to pieces of food on his tray and I'll tell him what it is.

I have been wondering if he recognizes himself in the mirror or just thinks it is a friend.  He always smiles at himself in the mirror and will usually try to kiss the mirror.  I read on the internet that a good test is to gently put an object like on his head and then see if when he sees it if he'll reach up to his own head or reach to the mirror....well he knew to reach for his own head.  So I think he understands the concept.

Eating
We are basically done with formula....woohoo!  We had started transitioning in milk in the sippy cup, but still doing formula in the bottles.  The kid loved his milk and didn't bat an eye.  Then we got to end of the formula supply, so I put milk in his bottle but just room it up a little so it isn't super cold.  Again, didn't bat an eye!  He is trying all sorts of new foods and very interested with what is on our plate.  He seems to like flavorful things rather than the more bland things.  I bought meatballs that were chicken, pineapple, ginger, and garlic...I can't get them on his tray fast enough for him to eat!  Last night he loved some goat cheese I had baked with pasta sauce.

Sleep
His night sleep is good- pretty much sleeps 10.5-11 hours each night.  Naps are still a struggle at daycare.

Favorite Things
All the same as 11 months...but is even more clingy.  I call him my shadow cause even 6 inches away from me is just too far!  He likes sitting by himself in any of our chairs that rock or spin...I rock and twirl him around and he just giggles.  Loves snuggling with his gray afghan in bed...I'll watch him on the monitor and he will reach for it and pull it in close to him.  It is really the only thing that he seems to have taken to.  Still loves hair-- last week he was taking his night bottle and had one hand combing through my hair and his other hand reached up feeling his own hair....ahhhhh, heaven.

Typical Day at 12 months:

• 7:00- He has started waking up a little later, boo-yah!  I give him 4 oz of milk warmed a little in a bottle.  He has not seemed overly interested, so I think we will start to phase this out.
• 8:30- Breakfast (Prune Juice plus food: 1/2 waffle, pancake, french toast stick, oatmeal, etc)
• 9:00- Nap
• 11:30- Lunch and  4 oz milk in sippy cup (Normally eats mostly the school food, but depends what they have)
• 1-1:30- Try to do afternoon nap
• 3:00- Snack and milk in sippy
• 6:00- Dinner and 4 oz milk in sippy cup (Has been LOVING meatloaf, meatballs, and my roasted root veggies)
• 7:00- Bath every other night (We have tried to move this up a tad earlier due to him sleeping so late)
• 7:30- 4 oz. bottle of milk (cut this down since is so close to dinner and he was leaking out his diaper so much at night)

Random Pics
I just plain suck at taking good pics indoors.  Luckily the weather warmed up quite a bit, so I got some outdoor pics in.  We went to a park and he just LOVED the leaves.  I have about 50 pictures of him playing in the leaves!

This one I took the time to edit and just love it...he refused to look up at the camera cause he was just so amazed by the leaves!

Lachlan's first haircut

The weekend before his first birthday party, we decided to take Lachlan to get his hair trimmed up.  It had been driving Dustin bonkers for at least the last month that he needed a haircut.  It really was just the sides that I wanted cut so it wouldn't be going over his ears and then the back trimmed a little so no one confused him with having a mullet.

I took him to Elle Salon & Spa here in Eureka which is where I go.  I thought about taking him to a special kids place, but there wasn't one close by and just seemed like a lot of effort...and I've known some people that have been disappointed with using them. 

I thought he was going to have difficulty sitting still, so I had a bottle and books prepared to distract him.  I couldn't believe my eyes and was like we had someone else's well-behaved kid.  He sat still 90% of the time and only cried briefly towards the end. 

I wish I had good before and after pics, but with a squirmy kid and my crappy photography skills, I didn't get that.  Here are a few pics to capture the event:



Just relaxing on my booster seat

Ummmm...why is this cape around me?

This lady has my dream job...she gets to feel hair all day

So far, so good

OMG, this is awful...get me outta here!

Calmed down after he realized how good he was looking

Lachlan - 11 months

Wow- exciting, but kind of sad that this will be the last "monthly" post and he will be 1 YEAR OLD next time! Argh!  My BIG BOY...

As usual, this post is late, but this time we were on vacation in Iceland (post coming later about that) during his 11th month birthday.  We were away from him for an entire week while he spent time with some of the grandparents.  I knew it would be good for him to have a change of routine and be around different people and it really showed cause he learned so much in that week we were away! 

He attended church for the first time this last month and I thought there was zero chance of him being well-behaved and he was an.....ANGEL!  He has a little girlfriend at daycare named Mya- the teachers really have a good time with it joking around calling them husband and wife.

He had his first Halloween, which you can see in the previous post.  We also did a corn maze that was about a mile from our house.  The maze was ENORMOUS and we definitely got so lost in there that after an hour we had to cheat and cut through corn stalk walls just to get out of the thing!  It was fun cause they had Cornundrums (aka pictures that were a play on words) located throughout the maze to find.  So you'll see us here at this one....do you get it??

He has 5 teeth as of 11 months- 2 on the bottom and 3 on the top.  He is wearing primarily all 18 month clothing.

Fine/Gross Motor Skills
Here are some of the new things he does:

• Will put his hands in front of his eyes and play peekaboo.  It's really cute cause he always does it with his palms facing out (so kinda backwards)
• He will put his arms up when you ask how big is Lachlan.
• He will move his hands/arms for "swish swish swish" when singing wheels on the bus
• He still claps a lot (mostly randomly)
• He is very interested in turning pages of the books.  Most of the time he is turning them backwards, so not sure if he is wanting me to reread those pages or he was trying to go the other way.

He started cruising 10.5 months!  He first did this while holding on to our sectional sofa to chase after a piece of paper that I kept moving around.  He is pretty tentative and will just do a few steps- he had already taken a few steps by the time I got my phone camera rolling.

Verbal/Communication Skills
I think he had his first instance of being so tired that he was just slaphappy.  He was in the bathtub and wanting to chew on the side of the tub and I told him that was "Icky icky icky."  He died laughing so hard that he fell over backwards and just could not stop.  Another time he thought was hilarious was when I sneezed.  Definitely finds certain things really funny.

He babbles a lot.  When he starts to get really upset he sounds like he has a stutter.  He'll just go something like "di-di-di-di-di"

I'm learning a few ways that he is communicating with us. I believe when he wants more food cause his high chair tray is empty he bangs on it to get my attention and more food. When a book ends he will stiffen up with his legs shooting straight out and slightly off the ground and he'll put his arms out- I think this means he wants the book again. He will put both arms in the air when he wants to be picked up.

Eating
Shortly before turning 11 months, we started transitioning more of his bottles to sippy cups and he seemed to do great with that.  Our new plan was 6oz bottles first thing in the morning and before bed.  He would get 6oz in sippy at lunch and dinner...or do 4oz at meals and 4oz with afternoon snack.  We also keep trying to introduce more foods to him of what we are eating, but this is easier said than done since most of our dinners lately are not too healthy, so I have to make him something separate.  He really enjoys feeding himself, so its hard to do a meal that is all purees.  We also give him his own spoon (empty) to "use" during meals.

Sleep
His sleep is good- pretty much sleeps 10 hours or a little more each night.  His naps are awesome at home-- usually 1.5-2.5 hours in morning and 1.5-2 hours in afternoon.  At daycare, he naps HORRIBLE.  There are too many days where we get there and he only has ONE nap or has been up since noon.  Then he falls asleep in the car and is super cranky the rest of the evening.

Favorite Things
Favorite things to do are reading books, pulling the books off the shelves, following mom around, crawling around to play "chase", crawling around corners to play peekaboo, crawling across the sectional, Fisher Price Laugh n Learn kitchen, finding CORDS to try and chew on, also loves remotes, phones, laptops, etc.  And lastly, is borderline OBSESSED over feeling hair.  When I give him bottles, he will not go more than 30 seconds without feeling either his own hair or mine.

Typical Day at 11 months:

• 6:30- Wake up and 6oz bottle in bed with us or will take at daycare if he is up later or we're short on time
• 8:30- Breakfast (Prune Juice plus food: 1/2 waffle, pancake, french toast stick, oatmeal, etc)
• 9:00- Nap
• 11:30- Lunch and 6oz sippy cup (Normally eats mostly the school food, but depends what they have)
• 1-1:30- Try to do afternoon nap
• 3:00- Snack and formula/juice/water
• 6:00- Dinner and 6oz sippy cup (Normally he is not super hungry here.  I will give him something like a turkey meatball and a fruit or veggie.)
• 7:15- Bath every other night
• 7:30- 6oz. bottle (lately do more and more of these out on the sectional vs. his room)

Since I already posted for our pumpkin carving and Halloween, I don't really have many other good pictures from this month to share! 

Rockin the tuxedo onesie I found at Wal-Mart
 

Happy boy for his school pictures!

Loves loves loves books

Loves looking out windows

Loves to play with our paper blinds




Lachlan's First Halloween

Lachlan's first Halloween was rather uneventful, but I'll take that as a positive sign!  I originally bought 3 costumes to decide between: Sock Monkey, Garden Gnome, or a Pumpkin.  And then I switched and got him a Care Bear costume...and even found Grumpy Bear, which is fitting since he can be quite the grumps sometimes!  I found this on eBay, so it was great that it didn't cost a lot...however, the hood really sucked at staying up on his head so you could see the face well.  I thought about trying to fix it, but then decided it was not worth my time and hassle- it is what it is.  We mainly just stayed at home to pass out candy, but took him to 2 houses.  He was in a good mood and didn't mind the silly costume at all.  He enjoyed checking out all the activity at our door and trying to figure out what was going on.  It was funny when a group of like junior high girls came and oohed and aahed over the care bear.  Some little 3 year old came and told Dustin it looked like the grass really needed cut!  Here's a few pics: