Party time!

After a long weekend of partying hard, we are officially pooped! My parents decided to drive down to Florida at the last minute on Wednesday and arrived here on Thursday... after enduring 2 flat tires and an endless string of hotels with no vacancies! But I'm SO glad that they made it!! On Friday, Chase started his day with a birthday blueberry muffin for breakfast while we sang "Happy Birthday" to him! He LOVES blueberry muffins... I think he ate about 5 of them that day! The rest of the day was pretty normal... playing, grocery shopping, cleaning the house. Then when Eric got home from work we put Chase in his big blue chair and let him open all of his birthday presents from his grandparents and aunts! Just like Christmas, it took him a while to get the hang of opening presents. But once I got things out of the wrapping paper, he was all over the new toys! He particularly enjoyed the Color Wonder markers and paper, musical instruments, and train! My parents also gave him a tee-pee and a tunnel, which he crawled through about twenty times! Eric and I got him a basketball hoop (shown in the previous post) and a climber with a slide for the backyard. We decided to go out to dinner that night... probably more for us to celebrate than for him... we went to one of my favorite places: Longhorn! Afterwards we headed over to Petsmart to pick out some fish for our aquarium. It's always fun going to a pet store with Chase... it's kind of like going to a mini zoo. We saw dogs, cats, fish, snakes, birds, and rats! Chase picked out some awesome fish.

Then on Saturday, we partied. Well, first there was lots of cleaning to do, grass to be cut, decorations to be hung, and food to be prepared. There is no WAY we would have survived if my parents weren't here! My mom did an amazing job putting together all of the food and my dad helped clean the lanai, decorate the cake and put together Chase's climber. It was truly a team effort! We had everything set up outside on the lanai and in the backyard for our party, which started at noon. Guess what happened right at noon? It started to RAIN! Not just a little drizzle... we're talking torrential downpour!! The weather forecast had said "50%" chance of rain in the afternoon and honestly, it hardly ever rains in the winter here, so I didn't think anything of it. Needless to say, we had to change our plans quickly and we moved everything inside, or at least under the covered portion of the lanai. I was a bit frazzled at first because I pictured Chase's first birthday party outside in the yard, with his new climber and tunnel, under bright sunny skies.... and being cooped up in the living room and playroom with 20 people just wasn't what I had in mind. But in the end everything turned out just fine. The kids had a blast in the playroom... riding on Chase's rocking horse, scooting around on the retro rocket, and crawling through the tunnel inside. We all gathered in the kitchen for cake, but I think it was a little overwhelming for Chase! He normally loves eating a bite of cake at other kids' parties, but when I placed his cake in front of him, he just froze! He stuck one hand in and just left it there until I removed it 5 minutes later! I even tried feeding him some cake, but he made a weird face and even gagged on it! So strange! Of course, the next day he had no problem eating the cake... it must have just been too much pressure! Anyways, the party was lots of fun! The theme was "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish." This was the book that Emily gave me at my baby shower and everyone signed! It's one of my favorite books to read to Chase and I found the cutest Dr. Seuss invitations and thank you cards. We had live goldfish in a bowl on the food table (yum!) and goldfish snack crackers in a big fish bowl. On the wall of the lanai, I hung up construction paper fish with pictures of Chase from birth to 12 months. I couldn't find any other party stuff with the "one fish, two fish" pictures, so the plates, balloons, etc were all just red, yellow, green and blue. I got Chase's cake from Publix, and they painted the blue background on it, but my dad added the fish. I was so happy with how everything turned out! But mostly I was just happy to have my parents and so many of our great friends that we've made so far here in Tampa, all together at our house to celebrate Chase! AND I was really glad that Chase slept for 13 hours that night!

Chase's birthday