FBA (First Birthday Aftermath)

I gotta admit, we threw an ROCKIN' Winnie-the-Pooh party for Isaiah yesterday. Here are a few shots of the set up. I had a BLAST gathering ideas (thank you, Pinterest) and then creating the ones that seemed the most feasible. This party was the perfect way for me to cap off Isaiah's 1st year and it was just the creative outlet I needed for summer break.

I found this adorable Winne the Pooh onesie on clearance at the Disney store. Then my sister cut off the long sleeves and turned them into leggings. How cute is this kid?! 

We had a wonderful time with our friends and family. Lots of people came to celebrate our big boy. We had yards games like Corn Hole, Kan Jam, and Polish Horseshoes for the adults. We had a pinata, a swing, and a Winnie the Pooh reading corner for the kiddos. And of course there was the cake smash. Let's just say this was NOT Isaiah's first taste of sweet stuff. So he knew exactly what to do when that cupcake hit his highchair. Notice the cupcake is upside down in the middle picture? That would be because Isaiah started with a fistful of icing, and never really made it to the cake portion...

 The only downside to the day was Isaiah's nap schedule. He only napped for 45 minutes after church so he didn't make it long into his party before he was ready for another nap. He went down around 3:30 and slept until 5:30. Just in time for his party to be over and for the present opening to BEGIN. Now, when I created the invitations, I specifically put "Gifts are not expected" so that people would not feel obligated to bring anything, but to just enjoy the party. Well... people brought gifts. LOTS of them! Since gift giving is a love language, we know for certain Isaiah is loved. (Notice all the random lids, hangers, and plastic kitchen utensils? Some friends asked what Isaiah liked to play with and I jokingly said "Oh you know, normal baby toys like bottles, tupperware, spoons, etc." So they went along with the joke and gifted their odds and ends to us. Gee... thanks Jake & Jackie.

Now we come to today.
I woke up with a pretty nasty headache and have fought it all day. And I have zero energy to do anything. I took Isaiah for his 1 year check up and was struggling just to focus on all the doctor was saying. Blech. With an active and very curious 1 year old running crawling around, not having any energy makes for a very messy day. Here's an example. I was laying on the couch with a cold washcloth on my forehead, trying to beat my headache whilst watching Isaiah empty a box of tissues one sheet at a time. He then proceeded to tear each tissue into tiny shreds. And I just watched him. I didn't stop him. I didn't even tell him no in the hopes that he's understand me and find a new toy. Nope. Just watched him enjoy what was likely the highlight of his little day (he is forever trying to get at that tissue box.)  At least one us has the energy to do something today. So I decided to name my troubled day. Yup, I made up a syndrome. I call it First Birthday Aftermath. I imagine I will suffer from this malady every year and will have to yearly update my syndrome but I also don't plan on throwing such a slam bang party every year. I think the only cure is to start planning another party...

Notice the tissues off to the right? Yeah.

The Throes of Labor

So exactly this time 365 days ago I was in the THROES of labor with Isaiah! My water broke at 7:30pm and I labored on the floor next to our bed all night. Daniel caught snatches of sleep, waking every few hours to see if I needed anything. Finally at 6am he called Dena, our doula and she came and helped me labor for another 6 hours before we finally went to the hospital! Isaiah was born naturally at 3:30pm Saturday August 18.

It's funny how memories can dim, even just after 1 year. I have ZERO recollection of the the physical pain of labor. I remember telling Daniel how badly it hurt. I remember begging for an epidural about 12 hours in (my labor lasted 18 hours) but I simply could not describe the pain of a contraction to you... It's odd really. I DO remember the feeling of that final push that fully released Isaiah and a feeling of shock and awe washing over me as I held my newborn son.

But of course it was worth it. I so do not regret having a natural labor. Isaiah was so aware and alert after I delivered him. I truly loved laboring at home instead of hooked up in a hospital. I am so so so grateful we decided to hire a doula to help us labor more efficiently at home.

And now here we are, 1 year later with an AWESOME, happy, heart stealing, blue eyed baby boy who is the light of our lives. Oh my how we love this boy. I have planned a SLAM BANG Winnie the Pooh birthday party for him tomorrow. I am very pumped about this party. All I can say is "Thank You Pinterest!" I am very excited to celebrate Isaiah first year of life. Be on the lookout for pictures soon!

4th Anniversary!

Yesterday Daniel & I celebrated 4 years of marriage! I had a great time updating Facebook throughout the day yesterday with pictures and time stamps of where I was on my wedding day. I won't use this public platform to share my heart about how much I love my husband but I WILL share how we celebrated!

Since our actual anniversary fell on a week day, we had our 'official' celebration last Sunday. After dropping Isaiah off with my parents we went to Carrabba's for dinner. (Many thanks to Tina J. for the gift card!) I LOVE Carrabba's. Their bread is so amazingly GOOD! While dining over crab fonduta, sirloin marsala, & cavatappi amatriciana we reconnected and reminisced about the last 4 years. After dinner we went to Washington Park in Over the Rhine for the CSO Lumenocity concert event. It was SO cool. The park was JAM PACKED but the event was incredible. If they ever do this again, we will be there.

Music Hall all lit up!

One of the things I love about Daniel is that he's open to me and my conversation questions. He is a great conversationalist and really thinks about the leading questions I ask.  But... like most couples (I would guess) we don't always do a great job of having deep, meaningful conversations when we've got the chance. So, thinking ahead I printed out conversation starters for us to ask on our date.
Lame? Maybe. Effective? 100 PERCENT!!!! 

Thanks to Pinterest, I found 2 websites with date night questions already written. I printed them out, cut them into strips, and dumped them in a ziplock bag. Then at dinner when there was a lull in the conversation, I sheepishly pulled out my ziplock bag, explained the game, and read a question.

Question #1: If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
But Daniel's answer was Cincinnati so he revised the question.
Question #1 Revised: If you could live in 5 cities (2 foreign, 3 domestic) where would it be and why?
The "why" part of the question led to some interesting conversation because justifying the city made the answer more interesting.
Question #2: What do you consider your skills?
We liked that this question  used the word "skills" instead of "strengths" because we had to think about our answer through a different lens.
Question #3: What 10 things do you want to be remembered for?
This one was HARD! It was tough to think of 10 things but 10 meaningful things made it even more tricky.

All in all, my ziplock bag slips of paper idea was a hit. The better the questions became, the closer we got to each other's hearts. We hit on a few more questions that really allowed us to open up and talk through things. Questions like:
Question #4: What concerns do you have that I do not seem interested in?
Question #5: What can I do to show my appreciation of you?
Question #6: What concerns or interests of yours would you like me to support?

If this concept intrigues you, here's where I got my questions:
http://zachterry.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/50-questions-to-ask-your-spouse-on-a-date-night/
&
http://cherishinghopesanddreams.blogspot.com/2012/01/30-things.html

Then, yesterday on our actual anniversary, we celebrated again! Daniel had to play a funeral that evening but he came home with LaRosa's! Meanwhile, I baked chocolate cupcakes (I needed the practice before I attempt to bake 60 cupcakes for Isaiah's birthday party next weekend, I justified.) When he got home we dined on pizza and cupcakes while we watched the video of our wedding. It was perfect. Oh yeah and I might have tried on my wedding dress. You know just to check that it still fits...

Happy  4th Anniversary to us!

Hope Deferred and Burritos Lost

Apparently Daniel & I have been on a contest kick this summer. We have currently entered 3 contests this summer. Daniel is the only winner in our house.

Contest #1."Anderson's Got Talent" show. Let's not talk about that except to say that I lost.

Contest #2. Graeter's coloring contest. We colored pictures and brought them to Graeter's on July 31st, the last day for free ice cream. The next day Daniel got an email saying he had won first place! He won a $15 gift card- not too shabby since we got free ice cream anyway just for turning in our pictures!

Contest #3. Adventurrito with Chipotle. If you have been in a Chipotle restaurant lately you will likely have seen the Adventurrito poster with the treasure chest of burritos, advertising the chance to win free burritos for 20 years. 20. YEARS. of Chipotle burrito goodness. Be still my salivating tongue. So, I think to myself "YES! This is worth my time!" I log in, create an account, and start the games, which consisted of 19 days of Chipotle puzzles. Some were easy Chipotle trivia, others took a little digging. I learned a lot about Chipotle, they earned a lot of my respect, and now I have a serious Chipotle craving. (Well done you sly dogs...) For the first 19 questions you could get them wrong and try again. Not so for day 20. You had one shot at glory, miss the question and you did not get entered in the grand prize drawing. Thursday, Day 20 was the final day. I click on the question... only to find that question 20 consists of 20 MORE questions. Oh boy. It's 10pm at night and I have just unlocked the puzzle. So we dive in. Daniel & I split up the questions and get busy googling. We did AWESOME! We are tag team rockstars, and for the most part we found the answers without having to use the cheat blog posts that others had written. It was fun doing it together too. I can't speak for Daniel but I had a good time agonizing over their silly/impossible/frustrating questions. At 1:30am, after having checked and double checked our answers, I hit submit. But there was no feedback as to how many questions we got right! So after all that work we weren't even sure if we would be entered in the drawing. So... we wait. Will we win free burritos for 20 years? Will Isaiah grow up having to never pay for Chipotle? Oh the possibilities! Friday, I hop on the Adventurrito website just to check and they had the answers posted! Ohh la la! I scroll down, we got every one right! One step closer to burrito glory. But wait... one of the questions went awry! Turns out Chipotle made a test writing mistake so they're accepting 2 answers. Except we didn't choose EITHER of their answers! We were confused by the 2 conflicting answers so we made our best guess. Which turned out to be WRONG.

Chipotle's mistake

So that's it. We're out of the running for 20 years of free burritos. We're out on a technicality! Not even entered in the drawing all because of poor question writing, or poor answer writing, or poor researching... or something! But then I think, "Well, maybe they'll toss this question out altogether. Any teacher worth their Master's degree knows that when writing a test, if a test question is compromised you can not hold it against the student or their final grade." Apparently the Adventurrito test writers are NOT teachers who hold Master's degrees. BUT THEN! Saturday night, this email appears in my inbox...

The title of this email should read: PSYCH, SUCKER! YOU LOSE!

Chipotle made me FEEL like I had won, but no. This is a loser's email. A "thanks for playing but ya missed a question" email. Sigh. Another contest lost. I'm so mad at Chipotle but I'm also torn. I want to boycott. To stay mad at them for ruining my chance at 20 years of burritos. But... I sure could go for a consolation burrito right about now. (Once again, well done you sly dogs...)