The Schwartz's vs The Boys 1st Birthday

Many months ago Emily and I decided to have Cody and Henry's first birthday together.  Her in-laws live in Memphis so it made sense for us to do it here.  We won't do all the boys birthdays together but since this is the first we thought we'd make it special.  So I lost my ever loving mind and spent far too much time on pinterest and did one of those over the top parties that I love to look at pictures of but swore I would never do.  And now after doing it, I'm sure I'll never do it again.  But it was a great party and we had a great time so it was well worth it.

 A friend made the adorable invitations but I don't know how to blur out the personal information so I can't put it here.  And I even hand made the envelops that I mailed the invitations out in.  He also made a big poster to put up at the party.  And then he helped me make some smaller signs to line the path to the pavilion.

The rest of the decorations were done by moi.  So let's take a quick peek.

 Alright, so I didn't make Henry's photo garland.

 Tissue paper puffs.  You see them all over pinterest and they are super cute.  I made 18 of them and they got great milages.  1, the looked great hanging in the pavilion but then after the party Cam and Steff decorated Susan's car.  Then she turned around and used them to decorate Cam's car at work the following week.  Puffs, the decoration that keep on giving.

 I wrapped up the flatware.  And you see in the back under the food tent.  I made a watermelon basket. Cute!  I also made some cute cantaloupes and filled them with pineapple balls. Yum!

 This is one party decoration that I'll gladly do again.  It was quick and easy to rewrap water bottles in personalized papers.  And it's totally cute!  

 Cody's photo garland.  I love making these for the party because then I can pull them off the ribbon and slide them into the scrapbook. 

For the party favor we decided to a buffet.  We flipped around and talked about different things and then I decided on Trail Mix.  We had a good mix of things for the grown ups and the kids to stuff their bags with.  

Another thing we decided to do was have a photo booth to make sure we got some great pictures of all the guests.  I have a lot of great friends that put on the props and took some cute pictures.  

 Williams Family.  Mr. W made this AMAZING frame to use!  I love it!

 My teacher girl friends who put up with my crazy and save me from my kids when I'm going nuts.

 Combs family.  I had to pry Sarah out of their family picture.  I think she'd rather live with Jessie.  

 My awesome brother and his family (minus Logan who was at the play ground) drove all the way from Ohio for the boys party.

 Logan

 Jessie

 My church girl friends who I said, "hey we need to make sure we take a picture together..." Yeah, they waited until I was taking Sarah and Jessie to the potty to take their picture.  Are they trying to tell me something?

 Family Picture

 Nuckolls Family

 Me and Mrs. Christa

 The Cat in the Hat with Thing 1 and Thing 2

Sarah and her best friend Jessie

 Smith Family! 

Schwartz Family

We had a great time.  The park had a wonderful play ground for the kids to play on and lots of space to run around and kick soccer balls and play with the FoxTail.  Chris and his men folk manned the grill and Megan made the most delicious cake.  Everyone had a blast.

 Cake time!  Like I said, my friend Megan from Draper's Catering made the awesome cakes for the party.  They looked great and were very yummy!

Finally Cody and Henry were able to dig into the pile of presents.  Cody got a lot of cute new outfits and some pretty great toys.  He's been quite the happy boy enjoying all of his new things that aren't pink. 

 Chewing on Artoo

 Music table from Auntie Cam!  Now I can really shake my groove thing.

 I'm pretty sure Chris was more excited than Cody about the Star Wars pancake molds.

 Showing Grandpa his new latch puzzle.

 My awesome friends remembered Sarah and slipped a couple of new coloring books and crayons into Cody's gift bags for her.

All in all it was a lot of work but it was all worth it.  We had a wonderful time and it made me realize what great friends and family I have.  It was great to have so many people come out to celebrate with us.  But I am really glad that I don't have to do another big party for the boys for 7 more years.

The Schwartz's vs Cody's 1 Year Old!

Stats
Head: 17 3/4" (10th percentile)
Length: 30" (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs 8 oz (10th percentile)

Cody!  Cody!  Cody!

We did it!  You made it a whole year!

I'm not going to lie and sugar coat it.  You had a tough year.  I mean, let's look at how it started out.  You woke me up in the middle of the night, and then didn't have the decency to wait until we got to the hospital before you arrived.  From birth to now there has never been a dull moment.  There has never been a time when we just lay lovingly together and look at one another.  You are too full of, well, something to do that.

You had a rough start to the beginning of your first year sending us to the ER twice once with the beginnings of your battle with GERD and then with a small RSV scare (you didn't have it thank goodness!)  You suffered miserably with GERD for longer than most babies and even now (as in at your one year check up) Dr. Catherine still thinks it's affecting you and suggests that we put you back on Prevacid.  (We haven't decided yet.)  But being in constant pain while eating for so long has made you quite the picky eater.  Your favorite food is pretty much anything in a sandwich form (another reason Dr. Catherine thinks you may still have reflux).

You are busy and on the go.  You love to explore and crawl around chasing after your sister.  You love to climb!  You will often get yourself into places that you can't get out of and will cry your alarm until someone comes and gets you down.  It hasn't been anywhere dangerous yet thank goodness!  Normally just the kiddie rocking chair or your sister's bed.

You love cars and trucks.  Those are your favorite toys to play with.  You even make the "vrooom" sound when you push them around.  However, you also love to play with your sister's princess dolls.  Now don't be alarmed when you read this later in life.  You don't actually play with them per say.  You really just eat them.  They have rubber clothes and you chew on them like they are the most delicious thing in the world.


You absolutely LOVE to go shopping at any store any time, as long as it has a basket you can ride in.  As soon as we put you in the cart you just light up and love to look around at all the bright colors and people.  Right now you are a good cart companion, you don't reach for anything yet or try to knock things off shelves.

For most of your life you really haven't liked other people you really only wanted me and daddy to hold you.  But now you are warming up to select others.  Each day I've gone into the Y nursery this past week someone different has told me that you crawled up to them or let them pick you up.  And at church this past Sunday you let Bro. Martin hold you for a long time and you even crawled over to Bro. Gray all on your own and pulled on him so he'd pick you up.  It's nice to see you exploring your environment and feeling safe and comfortable enough to interact with other people.

As of now you still aren't free standing or walking.  And you are still doing your Mowgli crawl if you want to get some place quickly.  But you do pull up and cruise on furniture and depending on your mood you will attempt walking while holding hands with someone.  You have a couple of indoor push toys and you've gotten more adventurous with them but your favorite push toy is your brand new Little Tykes Cozy Truck that we got you for your birthday.  With it being bigger and a little heavier you can control the speed of it better than the little indoor push toys.

You have completely tranisitioned to sippy cups and whole milk.  I'd say you drink like a champ but let's be honest you've never been a fan of the liquid diet so once again we are fighting to get you the minimum ounces of milk into you each day.

You love to go down slides.  And it seems the bigger the better.  I'll set you in front of one of the little slides at the gym and instead you'll turn around and crawl up the stairs to go down the big curly slide.  You can even do the little booty scoot to get yourself started down the slide on your own.  You have a huge smile the whole time and giggle.

As far as developmental milestones you seem to be doing just fine.  We think you have 3 words, momma, dada, and no so that gets you a gold star and puts you right on track.  However we did have to give Dr. Catherine 2 "no's" at your check up.  You are not waving or pointing yet.  Uh oh!  I guess we need to work on that.  Since you haven't been a very social baby I'm not surprised that you aren't waving or pointing.  Both of those would mean that you need to interact with others and you really just don't do that.  But maybe if we schedule some more play dates with the neighbor boy you'll learn some new tricks.  After all, he's the one that taught you to wave.

It's been quite the first year bud!  And we are looking forward to many more wonderful years with you.

The Schwartz's vs Disney on Ice 2012

We have really awesome friends.  I know I've mentioned that before.  But somehow our awesome friends have once again made it so Sarah could have a wonderful and magical time at Disney on Ice.  Annie sent me a message a few weeks ago and told me she might be able to get her hands on a couple of extra tickets and asked if Sarah and I would like to go.  "Heck yeah!" Was all I replied.  And as per our tradition we decided to make the girls matching outfits for the show.  (Insert eye roll here Annie....)

Annie made the adorable skirts for all the girls and had her neighbor make the cute shirts.  My only contribution was the dollar store tiaras.  

Sarah was very excited to go to the "Princess Show" with her best friend Jessie.  But getting them to the suite was like herding cats.  They were all so excited they were going every which way and Sarah kept running the wrong direction like she knew where she was going.

 But as soon as we got into the box they were just mesmerized (except for a few much needed dance breaks.)

 We decided at intermission, before we broke out the snacks I may or may not have smuggled in under my shirt in waist band of my pants, to try to get a group picture.

Trying to get 3 little girls all looking at the camera and smiling at the same time is pretty much impossible.

 So this is the best we could do.

I'm sure I should have taken pictures of the show but I just didn't think about it.  It was a great show!  They did condensed version of the Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, and Tangled.  The costumes were great and the Tangled bit was the best.  They did some pretty cool Cirq-de-soli stuff during the Tangled part.  They had some fabric from the ceiling to represent hair and Flynn and Rapunzel "flew" around on it.  I was impressed.  I just kept thinking, 1) I don't have the strength to do that and 2) what if my hands were sweaty.  They weren't harnessed in or anything.  I really wouldn't be able to do that!

For the ride home Annie worked her car seat magic and somehow managed to fit 3 car seats in the back of the van.  We thought it might make the ride home a little quieter.  We were wrong.  But the girls really enjoyed riding beside each other.