This Life I've Found

Evie will be one on Tuesday.  We celebrated this weekend because during the week there are many nights that Evie is either already in bed or, at the very least, exhausted, by the time Scott gets home, so it made more sense to celebrate early. 

 In light of her coming birthday, I sat down last night after the kids were in bed, and I read back through the small handful of posts I have written over the past year.  And even though the posts were few and far between, I was so glad to have them to look back on.  Upon that realization, I press on with the blog...

I am not a big birthday party planning person.  I am big into celebrating my children, but I get very overwhelmed by the details of a birthday party.  I get very overwhelmed by the details of anything.   I also put a lot of thought into what my children will remember; what things we are marking as important to our family.  And I have realized that what is important to me about any of our birthdays is to celebrate the part each individual plays in our family.  So, we have, rather unintentionally, settled into a tradition of having fun family days for each of our birthdays.  If one of my children specifically asks for a birthday party, then I am fine with that, but I like to give them a little nudge toward choosing an activity instead.  It has become a fun time to go into Atlanta and do something that we would not normally do.  So far, to celebrate birthdays, we have gone to the aquarium, the children's museum, the American Girl store, and yesterday we visited Pink Pig at Lenox Mall.  Each of those outings also included a fun lunch out in Atlanta.  And John has put in a request to go see dinosaur bones for his February birthday, so a trip to Fernbank is forthcoming.  I am hoping this is a tradition that sticks because it has become a great way for us to step back from the daily grind and just have FUN together, and it doesn't involve the stress of planning a birthday party (because, like I said, party planning is NOT my strength). 

Because Evie's birthday is November, we thought we could combine her birthday with another Moore family tradition and visit Atlanta's Pink Pig ride at Macy's in Lenox mall.  John's first Christmas, we received tickets to the Pink Pig (not being from Atlanta, I knew nothing about it), and Ada has asked to go back each year.  It was a fun day, and it was fun to go to Lenox for the day.  I have fond memories of Lenox, because when I was first a stay at home mom still living in Atlanta, I realized that Lenox mall is very empty on weekday mornings, and I needed Ada to nap, so I would load Ada into the car, she would fall asleep on the way to the mall, I would put her car seat into her stroller, and she would nap while I strolled around Lenox, practically having the mall to myself.  I didn't realize how much visiting the mall would bring back those memories, but I was a little bit overwhelmed by the nostalgia.  Anyway...

 

 

On the way home from Atlanta, we stopped by Krispy Kreme donuts, and for her birthday, Evie had her first bite of a hot now Krispy Kreme donut.  She loved it, obviously.  What's not to love.

Bless her little heart, Evie pea was exhausted by the time we got home, AND we had already had donuts, so we decided to wait until Sunday afternoon for cupcakes and presents.  (I confess, the only reason I even gave her any presents was because Ada and John each wanted to give her something.  AND a friend gave us a really precious hand-me-down baby doll that her girls hadn't played with, so that was her birthday gift from us).  And the only reason I even really did the cupcakes/singing happy birthday scene was because I wanted a picture for the record books.  Plus, of course, Ada and John insisted.  I had the birthday candle from MY first birthday, and I really wanted a picture of that.  So, after lunch today, we put her in her highchair, grabbed the cupcake, recorded a quick video, and snapped some pictures.  Evie seemed very overwhelmed, and she wouldn't even touch her cupcake until we fed her some bites with a fork. 

 

 

 

Of course I have many thoughts and reflections about this first year that I hope to blog about, but I feel relieved to have the first birthday celebration recorded.  Though struggling, the little blog lives on...