Rowan's First Birthday Party

Well surprise, surprise!



Blogging Rowan's birthday party 2 weeks later! I am amazed at mommy bloggers who post everyday!

Rowan's birthday party at first felt like I was planning my wedding all over again. I believe the planning process started at Christmas. I  actually looked at venues, had my secret pinterest boards. I planned out projects, doled out duties to people, etc. I planned different outfits she would change to (which she did), etc. etc. Does it have to be this crazy? Absolutely not. However, being the person I am, I knew this wouldn't be a small affair. Yes, I do know she won't remember this party. I will though, LOL.

In my head, I wanted a decorated, from top to bottom party in my home. However, my home is more on the cozier side  (aka small) , and having up to 50+ people wouldn't work. My ideas of an over the top decorated party came to a crashing halt. I decided to rent out a park space. We specifically rented out a space at Derr Okamoto park in Elk Grove, which is a GORGEOUS new playground and water park nestled amongst some beautiful homes. My heart broke, because decorating for a park party is a whole lot harder. I knew I couldn't decorate how I wanted thanks to being in different elements. It had to be done a little simpler.

Rowan's party was a lot of work, but so much fun. We ended up having 40+ dear family and friends to celebrate our beautiful miracle baby. Really at the end of the day, that's all that matters. Rowan thankfully was very cheerful and happy to have all the attention. We laughed, stuffed ourselves silly, and enjoyed honoring the birthday girl! It was truly a wonderful day. One CRAZY thing though...Rowan HATED HATED HATED the cake smash. Honestly, I was pretty bummed. If you know my child at all, she LOVES food so much. I pictured in my head the traditional smearing of the cake all over, her gleefully enjoying it. Welp, just goes to show you, you can't plan it perfectly! Initially, it started to go well. However, she was getting tired, and realized she couldn't get rid of the frosting off of her fingers. After that, she straight up lost her mind! We got the funniest (but kinda sad) pictures of her screaming. It's kinda funny now:

Here's the breakdown of her party...

Rowan's birthday theme:

 Under the Sea

 She loves the sea animals in the show Baby Einstein, so it seemed appropriate! Pinterest has a huge SLEW of cutesy pins for it.

Decorations:

 Park birthdays can be a bit trickier to decorate. Some park areas are super easy, some aren't. Our section had a super high overhang where I couldn't necessarily hang things. So, we did table cloths on tables, topped with mason jars filled with sand, sea shells, and "1" and "sea shell" decorations in it. On top of each table was a framed picture of Rowan in different stages of her infancy. Not overly fancy, but adorable and sweet!

Next, I borrowed a pop up from my friend Eva. I made jelly fish from paper bowls (simply paint and poke holes on the top) and stapled crinkled streamers on them. I hung a total of 6 around the whole thing and it had an cute effect!

For her cake table, I bought "ONE" letters from hobby lobby. I put modge podge on the letters, and covered them with gold glitter. Once I shook off the excess, I hair sprayed the letters. Presto! At target, I bought this cute banner kit for $4! I also bought these gold stickers  and made the following banner, "I am one"

Her cake table ended up looking like this. This was also before we put out her cake and before more presents came

I posted a chalkboard, and on each side had a fun poster. The first side had Rowan's monthly pictures. I am SO happy I did this. It was super worth it and makes me cry to see how much she has changed. I bought a chalkboard looking poster board from the dollar tree and I was done!

On the other side, I bought a fantastic chalkboard poster from the lovely and talented shop Emma Joy Designs . The poster was only $14! It was perfect and I loved it!!

Food:

I am so disappointed I didn't get good food pictures at all. In the midst of party craziness, I didn't get any pictures of the food! Since it was at a park, we decided to have hot dogs as our main dish. For sides, I went with a sea theme. Despite the lack of pictures, these are some picture pins from other blogs I copied exactly for her party. Super cute and precious!

Cake:

I asked my sister, who is the queen of cake pops, to make cake pops for the party. She is extremely talented and didn't disappoint! They were beautiful!

Just perfect!

Now for the cake smash, I had the original intentions of making a rosette cake, that claimed to be easy.

In talking to one of my talented baker friends, who gave me great tips, I attempted to make it at 10 pm the night before her party. If you know me at all, I am not overly talented in the baking department and ruin the easiest of recipes. Needless to say, it was a little nuts and didn't quite turn out LOL...

My friend, who was so sweet, lovingly dubbed it as monster hair. Perfect for a Monster's Inc. type of monster! I ended up using it for her photo shoot. However, that presented me with a cake problem on her actual party day. At 7 am, on the morning of her party, I frantically ran into my nearest Raley's and explained my plight. They were amazing, and took a small square cake and redecorated it for $5. Why didn't I do this in the first place? At this point, I didn't need it to be fancy, I needed something semi presentable! Thank you Raley's!

Rowan's clothes:

Trying to figure out her outfit was like picking a wedding dress, LOL! She ended up wearing two outfits. When she first arrived, she wore her glitter "ONE" onesie with a scrappy tutu. The ONE decal came from the talented Jamie Van Nuys Designs for only $7. I had a onesie already lying around, so this was cheap! Now for her scrappy tutu! I came up with the idea after seeing this precious pin:

Making a scrappy skirt actually wasn't too hard. I bought a ton of super cute fabric on sale at Joann's. I plan on doing a tutorial on this, I promise. Anyway, her skirt came out perfect and looked like this:

After her cake smash fail, she changed into this precious first birthday pillowcase dress that belonged to her cousin Abby. I am so sad I don't know where it originally came from, but it was from an Etsy shop and my sister bought it 6 years ago. However, if I didn't have that precious dress, I more than likely would have picked this cutie from Carolina Kidz Clothing. Anyway, I loved the pillowcase dress she wore, because it was roomy, comfortable and lightweight, as it got pretty hot later. She even wore it during her photoshoot!

And for her final touch, her birthday crown! We got this gem from Think Pink Bows, for a steal for $6.95. I love this shop, and we have tons of head wraps and top knots from them. Their prices are amazing!

Us at brunch on her actual birthday, 4/19/15...that face LOL

If you stayed with me so far, thank you!
Overall, I was very happy with how her party turned out. I just truly can't believe she is 1!

Complete list of vendors/shops used:

Onesie decal: Jamie VanNuys Designs

Birthday crown: Think Pink Bows

Cake: Raley's

Venue: Derr Okamoto Park

All About Me chalkboard: Emma Joy Designs

Cake Pops: Connie Finney

Here are some of my favorite party pics!

Ruffle booty!

With her Uncle Kevin

I love my muggles!

My wiggly girl

Before she lost her mind

So far so good...

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!

Loving on her paci during gifts

My beautiful miracle baby!

My Potter tribe

Apparently, cake pops aren't offensive to her..

Happy cake pop covered girl

12 months: Happy 1st birthday Rowan!

month 1 vs. month 12

I'm typing this with a lump in my throat. This picture makes me cry.

My daughter is one! How the HECK did it go by so fast? This year truly has been life changing. I'm not going to lie, in the beginning it was hard and crazy. Her early birth stunned me and I battled some MAJOR baby blues. Honestly, I think I may have had a touch of PPD (may blog about this later). Our lives were turned upside down caring for a tiny premature infant with horrific reflux issues. We were up all night, worn out, and exhausted. Throw in the struggle to breastfeed and you've got yourself a big problem. There were many times I broke down, not sure how we were going to do it. However, with the grace of God, things got a little easier and MUCH better. What's funny is I miss those tiny newborn days. I wish I could have it back, lol!! I have been a teary mess for the last few days now. I know that sounds cheesy, but seeing how far my child has come, well, it overwhelms me in a good way. Rowan has brought a joy to our lives that honestly can't be explained. Our lives were quite fabulous before her, but it has gotten even better with her in it. I can't believe that I almost swore off having kids. I love being a mother, and she is truly a gift from above. This year has been monumental, busy, joyous and crazy. I wouldn't trade this life for all the money in the world.

Name: Rowan Decaris Potter

Rowan's age: 12 months old, 10.5 months adjusted age

Weight:
At birth: 5.2 pounds
Now: 24 pounds! Holy tank! This blows me away how big she has gotten! She is in the 92% percentile for her weight. Some people get all offended when people say their baby is chubby, but I LOOOOOVE it! Anyone who knows me well knows I love my chubbies! I love all her precious fluff and rolls! I know it will melt off soon, and honestly, that makes me sad :(

favorite foods:
Pretty much everything EXCEPT frosting. At her cake smash, she got frosting caked on her fingers and she about lost her mind. She threw the biggest diva fit, LOL! More on that later. At her well baby appt, we were given the green light to start whole milk, so we will transition her later this week. Other than that, Rowan eats a lot of what we eat!

Clothing size:
At birth: preemie size clothing, size 1 diapers (sniff, sniff)
Now: size 4 diapers, 24m clothing size and starting to wear 2T! Still super tiny feet!

Rowan milestones (for her adjusted age, 10.5months):

-Army crawling like a champ and is getting better at pulling herself up.

-Now she has officially 8 teeth

-Rowan can stand for longer periods of time. She of course has at least one hand on something.

- Can say : mama, dada, baba, dis, dat. Can say a whole slew of other sounds and blends that I can't quite make out quite yet.

-blows kisses

-When daddy asks "donde esta la luna" (where is the moon in Spanish) She immediately looks up and finds the moon! Also points a lot to her nose as we are teaching her where certain facial are. Points to everything and will say "dis" or "Dat"

-With the above statement, we are teaching her to be bilingual and is now responding to both languages. She can respond to a variety of different phrases. I credit this to my mom, who speaks to her in Spanish all day when she is watching her. Rowan is half Salvadorean, so it is important to me she knows her culture and language. It is incredible to me how quick she is learning!


-Rowan also tries to mimic our arm and facial movements. If we point to our nose, she will do it.

-When you take something away, she is extremely aware of it and will track where you put it, LOL!

 
 Rowan loves: 

-Lambs, thanks to Baby Einstein. She got a lamb who we call Goldie, and Rowan loves her. 

-HANGERS. Why on earth have we bought this child any toys? Rowan is the happiest when she is playing and eating hangers. SIGH.

-Loves her father. I know, a big fat DUH but seriously, this girl is ALL ABOUT daddy. I'm kinda jealous lol! SHe can be super crabby with me, but the minute her father walks in the door, she goes crazy!!

 

-ANy toy that lights up or plays music. Also loves her stackable cups.

 

-Despite thinking cake is the devil, Rowan LOVES ice cream. Oh boy...

Rowan doesn't like:
-being woken up in the morning. For the last few months, we have had to wake her up to get ready for work. She HATES it (don't blame her) and straight up acts like a teenager about it.

-Very demanding about food and throws major fits when it doesn't come fast enough :(

-Being held too long. She wants to be on the floor. This makes my heart ache a little.

-HATES being changed and getting a fresh diaper. She is apparently much too busy to be still!

New things/happenings this month:

Not a ton of "new" things, but still, it was a great month!

-Rowan celebrated her first birthday party! It was this past weekend and we partied hearty! A HUGE post will be dedicated to this.

-We did our final 12 month shoot on April 19, Rowan's actual birthday! We have been seeing Jamie Cardoza for all of our every 3 month sessions! She has done 3-6-9-12 months and IS AMAZING. A post is being dedicated to her! ANyway, we did our final one and Rowan did pretty well, considering she partied too hard the night before (already living the supermodel lifestyle, lmao!). At the very end, we did the cake smash and she SCREAMED like she got spanked! Oh my land, this girl!!! Somehow, Jamie STILL managed to get decent shots!

- We celebrated Rowan's 1st Easter! I can't believe I haven't blogged about this! GAH! It was so fun, and Rowan definitely enjoyed it! Did great getting her picture done with the Easter bunny, which shocked me!

-This isn't super new, but we have been getting busier with playdates. Rowan super enjoys them and really loves babies and kids.

-Becoming more a "fixture" at Daddy's practices and meets! People seem drawn to her and she gets lots of attention, which she of course loves.

 

How is Rowan's spit up?: Well, oddly enough, she was spitting up a good few times this month, even spitting up her whole bottle. Not quite sure what was going on, but thankfully it passed.
 

Sleep:
Still doing decent on sleep! If I am tired its because I chose to stay up! I am a little worried we had it too easy with her, and next baby (Lord willing we have another) might be crazy hard, LOL!

Rowan's personality so far: 
A sweet, joyful spirit is how I can describe Rowan. While she has a HUGE personality when she is upset, she is very good natured and joyful.

This year has been the most beautiful year of my life. It has had plenty of its ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade this job for the world. I can't wait to see what the next year brings! I'm debating if I will do monthly posts, mainly because I don't want to annoy people, LOL!

I am so thankful God picked me to the mother of this extraordinary baby girl! I love you forever Rowan!

My Rowan dump...on the very bottom is a picture of her at the birthday party (WAY more on that later) and some sneak peeks of her 12 month session: