Kaylee's Very 1st "Bird-day" Party!!!

FINALLY!!! The birthday party pictures and details!

We were able to have Kaylee's birthday party on her actual birthday, October 18th. It's funny because Kaylee and I have the same birthday but it totally did not feel like my birthday. I actually kept forgetting that it was my birthday too! Weird! I can remember when I was little and how excited I would get for my birthday and I didn't even remember it was mine too!

Above is the cake that I made with helpful suggestions from my mother-in-law. It was a lot of fun making the perfect colored icing and discovering that you can dye coconut too! I went through many batches of icing trying to perfect the color! I made a really yukky looking color that my father-in-law enjoyed eating.

Mom and dad K came up on that Friday to help out with Kaylee and the party planning. I had a lot of little last minute things to get done.

About the party: When deciding what theme to go with for her birthday party it just came to me... a "bird" day party. Since Kaylee was very little we have been calling her variations of the word "bird" (i.e. birdy, K-bird, bird, baby bird, etc). I think we came up with this from the noises she used to make when she was tiny. Also, her Halloween costume just so happened to be a chicken last year. I randomly bought the costume the October before because it was so cheap. I had no real reason to buy it but I must have somehow known that we would have a little baby bird that would need a costume the next year. I had a lot of fun making the invitations for her party and I made a lot of decorations that I didn't end up getting to use. BUMMER!

Mom K made taco soup and I made chicken noodle soup (for the first time ever) for the party. We had dirt pudding with worms in it. Robin's egg pretzels (melted chocolate on a pretzel with a robin's egg on it, bird shaped cookies, jelly beans, chips, dip, and all that other regular birthday party food.

Above is a picture showing off my feather headband. When I saw this I knew I had to have it for the party. I seriously searched high and low to find a bird shirt and almost got one from the Teen section of Target but it just didn't look right. The only size that fit me somewhat I think was meant for an obese 12 year old.

HUGE BIRTHDAY SURPRISE:
Just 2 or so hours before Kaylee's party she walked for the very first time. She walked from her daddy to her grammy and then back to her daddy again. She took about 5 or 6 steps both ways. What a great birthday surprise! I had said that I thought it would be great for her to be walking by her first birthday, especially with us having it outdoors but never did I expect for her to take her actual first steps on her birthday! We were so excited. My best friend Michele took this picture of Josh holding Kaylee up in the air right after she had just walked to him. We were so happy we just kept cheering and praising her as if she just walked on water or something. It was a proud mommy moment. Hehe!

Kaylee has not stopped trying to walk since. She is now walking full force. These past 3 days she has been walking the majority of the time. She will crawl every once and a while but we think that she just forgets that she can walk and that is the reason for the crawling. I am certain that by Thanksgiving she will not be crawling at all. She is on the go doing laps around our house. She loves standing and playing with her new letters on the refrigerator. She will press the button on the fridge that makes music start walking away and then when the song is getting close to the end she will turn around, come back and push the button again.
She also is now a giant to Jordan. She follows him around the house. She goes wherever he goes and today I was just watching her on all fours watching Jordan eat. She was staring intently for about 2 minutes straight. Josh and I think she might think she's a dog. I was worried that she was going to crawl over and eat like him. I did find a piece of dog food in her mouth today. She was sucking on it (that's when Josh was supposed to be watching her. haha!).

Grammy is a good playmate and kept Kaylee entertained while mommy was doing crazy prep for the party.

Above: Kaylee is making her grand entrance to the party. All her friends and family were there waiting for her and then her coach arrived. I had planned to wear cute bird leggings under her tutu with a bird shirt but it was just too chilly out. I insisted on her still wearing her tutu that I had decorated for her with sequins and pom pom hairbands that I converted into just pom poms. Haha. She of courses had to wear her jeans with the fur and sparkly shoes. Daddy picked out the hat.

Above: Cupcake "tree" and cake. The cupcakes were supposed to look like little coconut nests with peep birds in them or icing eggs. On that same table I had two guessing games. One was for people to guess how many feathers were in the glass and the other was to guess how many tablespoons of birdseed were in the mason jar. Prizes were bird houses that Josh and I had hand painted. They were kind of crazy. We also had fuzzy bird pens that I looooved. They were bright pink, blue and purple, fuzzy and were wearing crowns! Super cool! We played a bird scramble game, a bird crossword puzzle and a How well do you know Kaylee game.

Above: Grandma and Ms. Sade, Kaylee's teacher, hanging out with Kaylee. It was so chilly that I had to bring blankets for people to wrap up in.
Below: We were trying to get Kaylee to walk to me. It didn't happen!

Above: Kaylee opening gifts. She loves buttons!
Below: Kaylee giving her boyfriend Aidan a birthday kiss. He wasn't feeling it! Haha!

Kaylee liked the wrapping paper I think. Look at the cool bird pictures that our friend's Jenn and Benn got for Kaylee. I am going to have fun doing her playroom!

Above: Kaylee's Princess Potty. Every princess needs a "throne" to sit on. Hehe! As you have probably seen from my last post, Kaylee has already tried out her potty.
Below: Kaylee loved this glittery card from her (great) Aunt Jody. She liked it so much that she decided to lick it and see how it tasted. She got pretty upset when I had to take it from her! This might be my favorite birthday picture.

I love the picture below too! So sweet! My two lovies!
Luckily she got this nice warm hat from Aunt Jan to cover her cold little earsies!

Kaylee was starting to get cranky/tired so Uncle Kenny and cousin Audrey came over to cheer her up! (Doesn't Josh look so cute above?)

Above is the doll that Uncle Kenny got for Kaylee. It looks just like her!
Below is the cool hat that Aunt Karie got for Kaylee. It is sooo Aunt Karie!

Below: This was our birthday gift to Kaylee. Josh said that our gift to her was "life"! haha! I had to get her a little something though and I just always loved my little cabbage patch baby so I had to get her one. I of course have a story that goes with purchasing this doll:

So I was trying to find the perfect doll for Kaylee. I wanted it to look like her (blue eyes and a blond hair). I looked high and low for this perfect baby doll and it was so much harder than I had anticipated. I was also going to try and find one that had either the same name as her or same birthday or close to it. So I go to Toys R Us for the second time and they had new stock. There were many choices but only one doll that looked like Kaylee- Aileen Monica. I didn't think that the name flowed and so I kept looking to see if there was another option I had missed.
Then I saw it. There was a birth certificate that had fallen into the bottom of one of the boxes and it said Kailey Something-or-other and it flowed and it was her name BUT the doll didn't look like her and the bottle that came with the baby doll was all chewed up. It must have been a return. I wanted that birth certificate so bad though. I only had two options in my mind at the time: either I buy the nasty-chewed-bottle baby with the right name or I open the box and slip out the birth certificate and slip it into the bottom of the box of the doll I want where nobody would ever see the extra birth certificate and then swap them out when I get home. So I started thinking... what if they catch me on the cameras, what if I get carried out in handcuffs screaming and yelling like a crazy woman, what if I can never shop at Toys R Us for the rest of my life and they hang my picture up at the front customer service counter with "most unwanted customer-DANGEROUS" written underneath. So I am thinking all these wild thoughts and then suddenly I like snapped out of it and realized that I was losing it! haha! I suddenly remembered that I haven't thought such crazy thoughts since that time I stole a little paper clip that said "Jesus Loves Me" on it from Christian Light Bookstore when I was 4 or 5 years old. I had to laugh at myself and at the same time worry a little. I went into crazy-mama-that-would-do-anything-for-her-baby mode. It was like that mode you hear of when a child is stuck under a car and the mother is able to lift the car up to save the child only not so heroic. It was like an out of body experience or something. I was definitely not myself for those few minutes of crazy thoughts! So that is how she got her cabbage patch kid. Someday I will be able to tell Kaylee this story of how she got Aileen Monica.

She fell asleep!! Poor baby!

My family had some nice birthday surprises for me too! My mom had watched Kaylee that week and took her to get her picture taken for me. I loved this gift. It was so awesome! Kaylee also got pictures with her grandma and cousin Audrey.

Kaylee seriously would not even wake up to eat her cake. This is so unlike her since she isn't the best napper. She really only takes one 1 hour nap a day if that and usually will wake up pretty easily.

Later, when we got home she was able to enjoy her cake and her Birthday Princess Hat. haha! I LOVE this picture!

Below: I love how she is using her little fingers like such a lady at first.

We got to play with cousin Alex a little before they headed back for Marlon's soccer game. (This picture is a little out of place...opps!)

Messy face!!!

Big Bite!!!

Kaylee ate the peep off of the top.

Mommy gets some cake too!

It doesn't feel like it has been a whole year since that exciting night/morning when I woke up at 2:50am on the dot (I grabbed my phone right away to check the time so I knew it exactly) and headed to the hospital. We were so excited and scared and anxious. I was worried that it wasn't real because I was so happy and pain free. Haha! I just remember saying, "When we leave here we are going to have a baby!"

19 hours and 33 minutes later we had a little girl. It was a bitter sweet moment though. My midwife had been following my birth plan to the T and I made it very clear that I wanted her right away and I didn't want them to weigh her or anything until I had held her. But then they took her from me really quick and I knew something was wrong from the face of the nurse and my midwife and there was no cry. After a few moments which felt like forever of thinking "God, are you really going to take her now?" and watching them rubbing her really hard and pumping her lungs with air and calling pediatrics and crying with my mom, husband and mother-in-law finally everyone heard our little Bird cry except me. Everyone was telling me "She's crying, she's crying..." and I just wanted everyone to be quiet so I could hear it for myself. Then I heard it and it was such a little cry and she was so amazing! The nurse held her up for me to see and I was just so relieved and grateful to God for allowing me to care for His little creation. I am crying now reliving it by writing this. It was the best day of my life by far!
Kaylee is the most amazing thing I have been blessed with EVER EVER! She is the coolest kiddo ever and I just love her to death. She is so fun. When she scrunches up her little nose and makes a cheesy smile (just like her daddy used to do when he was little) I just can't help but make a cheesy smile back. It makes me so happy to be with her. There is nothing I would rather do than hang out with her and play and laugh. I love her laugh. If I laugh at something she forces a laugh to mimic me. She loves her feet to be smelled and told that they are stinky and she loves to be tickled and to tickle with her little fingers while she says "tickle, tickle, tickle". She thinks burps are funny just like her mommy and Aunt Renee. So much that she tries to force a burp after she burps or mommy burps and almost makes herself sick (she actually did make herself sick yesterday trying to do a forced burp). She is so smart and just amazes me daily with the things she says and does. She loves to blow kisses and say apple and just started saying baby. She uses a sweet softer voice to say "Jordan" and she likes to walk up to him and put her head on him and then tries to open mouth kiss him on his mouth.
She loves to smack her hands on her knees and grunt and this either means she wants you to do what you just did again or it means that she wants you to grunt back at her like that. She does this to her Uncle Kenny when he is doing something silly like dancing. She loves anything soft and will hold it up to her face then lay down on the ground with it and say "Awww". She will lay her head on our shoulder and say "Awww". She says "All Done" and "More" and does the sign language to those words. She seems to constantly be learning new things and changing into such a little person. My little "girlfriend" isn't so little anymore! I am going to miss all her baby moments but I am really enjoying her as she grows and learns and turns into a little lady. I said to Josh yesterday that I can't understand people that have their second baby right away because it is just so fun right now that I want to give her all my attention and let her be our number one for a while.
I love my little Bird and was so blessed to have her on my birthday. She is by far the best gift of all time. I love her the sun and moon and stars!!!