day in the life : 1 year

Back in August, I did a "day in the life" post for Barrett's 6 month birthday (see here).  I loved photo-journaling his typical day, but what I love even more is looking back on it now that he is a year old.  It's so fun to look back and see how we spent our days together 6 months ago and compare to our days now.  I know I'll love looking back on that one, as well as his "day in the life" for his 1 year too! This past year has been so fun and I am so thankful to have had him by our side :)

Good Morning!

Barrett wakes up around 6 am, I feed him, and he goes right back to bed until about 8/830 am. He wakes up so happy and chatty.

Once we walk in he has a huge smile, we bend down to give him a hug, and he proceeds to point at everything in his room and says "oh!" and then "dog" while looking out in the hallway for Jax.  He asks for him right away in the morning.

Playtime

We usually read books and play with toys in his room or downstairs before breakfast.  He loves "The Best Mouse Cookie", "I Love You Through and Through", "Goodnight Moon", "Curious George at the Zoo", "Mickey's Mealtime", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", and anything with a cow in it (which he then proceeds to say "COW" throughout the whole book).

Breakfast

This kid can put away some food.  Breakfast faves include: eggs, waffles, blueberries, and yogurt.

A little more playtime before nap #1 (and hugs if I'm lucky :) )  

He usually sees Dada for a bit before he leaves for work.

Naptime

First nap is usually a good one (1.5-2 hrs).  Blankie, bear, paci, and a little cuddling and he's out.

Lunch

Errands

Costco and Target are our most visited spots

I always have to have Cheerios on hand in case he decides he's done shopping. 

Playtime

Now that he's been outside a few times, he's obsessed with going out.  He walks to the door and waves "bye-bye". It'd be a lot more fun if he didn't try to run (walking is for slowpokes apparently) straight down the sloped driveway to the street haha.

Eat, Naptime #2, and then some Cheerio snack time 

Barrett loves Cheerios, and so does Jax.  This presents a confusing snack time of who gets the Cheerios :).

Make messes all over the house

Dinner

Bath

Bear loves bath time!  His favorite bath toys are cups and I spend the majority of the bath reminding him not to drink the bathwater out of those cups.  

Get ready for bed

Lotion, pjs, feeding, stories.  He loves helping with the humidifier-he holds the top part while I refill it :). We cuddle, rock, sing and he usually lays and looks up at the projector thingy on the celling and rolls over to his side to fall asleep.  Usually is asleep by 845/9 pm and sleeping straight until he wakes at 6am.  

These are the days :)

forest friends 1st birthday

As I started thinking about Barrett's 1st birthday party, I knew I wanted to incorporate his well-fitting nickname into it.
Bear.

Little man rocked his "Birthday Bear" shirt :).

This child has definitely lived up to the meaning of his name and his nickname fits him all too well.

I had a random thought in my head after I saw a picture of Barrett and Jax from Halloween in their bear and squirrel costumes to do a forest friends theme.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted something with bears and other little forest animals.  I sparked some ideas and gotreally excited to start planning!

I did little things here and there leading up to party and then pulled two really late-nighters with my mom and then Matt's mom the nights before the party. The table was my favorite part! I ordered some cute plates and napkins, found some straws that looked like birch wood, used wood stumps and pinecones for decoration, had little animals on the table, and framed these animal printables I had found.  We made cupcakes-some that we put the little forest friend cake toppers on and the other we frosted to look like toadstools, little acorn candies, trail mix, and strawberry toadstools.  A friend at work made Barrett's bear smash cake and it turned out so perfect!  I also made the "Happy Birthday" banner from a printable I found.

I printed out a bunch of pictures from Barrett's first year and made a collage of them in the shape of a "1".  There were pictures all over the house! Might as well display the thousands of pictures taken of this boy the past year :).  My mom made some felt animal masks for the little kids to play with and we made a teepee for them to play in too.

We had a ton of family and close friends who made the trip down for the party and we were so grateful! Barrett is one loved little boy.

Nolan was sick and couldn't come to the party so we took a picture with him on the phone! :)

We opened gifts which he didn't last all the way through and mostly just wanted the tissue paper.  We are so thankful for all of the awesome gifts everyone got for him.  We finished gifts while he walked around and then got him in the highchair for his cake! The candle was lit and we sang "Happy Birthday"! It was hard to believe we were singing that to my baby.  I just can't believe he's one!  He wasn't a huge fan of the cake and was more interested in feeding it to Matt and I.  We made sure to smash his hands in a little :)

perfect timing...gagging on cake

The party was a lot of work and he had no clue what was even going on, but I'm so glad we did it! It turned out much better than I even expected and we all had such a great time.  I now know why I am a registered nurse and not a party planner though :)

Happy Birthday, Bear!