Alice in Wonderland First Birthday Party for Gwendolyn

As you know, Gwen turned one on June 18th.  I started planning her party a couple of months ago and was really excited about the theme, Alice in Wonderland or you can call it, Gwendolyn in ONEderland :-)  I did a lot of research to get ideas and I made much of the decorations.  There was a bunch of stuff that I did not get to because I just ran out of time, but I am happy with what I did get done.  Take a look:

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, here is a peak at our birthday girl!

I love this cute dress.  It isn't exactly an "Alice in Wonderland" dress, but it is about the right color, it's pretty and it has a birthday cupcake on it.  Gwen's Auntie Rachel bought her this dress awhile back.  I think it worked nicely even if it didn't perfectly go with the theme.  I have to admit that the picture above was taken at least a month before her actual party.  I wanted to include it though because I don't have any really good pictures of Gwen at her party.  I don't really have any pictures of her smiling.  It is crazy for either of my girls to be caught without a smile, I know, but it's true.  Maybe it was because she was just getting over being sick or maybe it was just too overwhelming with so many people in the house.  Either way, it was clear to me that she had a good time and that is what matters.

The invitation that I ended up going with is this one:

I did add some personal touches to the text and formatting as well.

I managed to get the invitations out in plenty of time, but when 90% of our family lives out of state (waaaay out of state), it just doesn't matter how far in advance you plan.  I know that everyone wished they could be here for Gwen, but it just wasn't possible.  We did, however, have our cousins from three doors down, my sister and my new nephew, as well as friends and neighbors.  It ended up turning into a full fledged kids party.  I know, I know, it is a one year olds birthday party, so technically it is a kids birthday party.  But, all experiences I have ever had for CC's birthday parties included only a couple of other children.  Here in Georgia, all of our friends, family and neighbors have children, which meant that the kids practically out numbered the adults.  Actually, I never counted, but they may very well have out numbered the adults.   And yeah, kids party = CHAOS.  But that is totally OK.  They all had a great time and I think it went really well.

I set up a couple of crafts for the kids that were of course Alice in Wonderland related.  They could make their own mad hatter hats and/or tea pot picture frames. 

In addition to the crafts, I had the Alice in Wonderland movie playing in one of the rooms and the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack playing in another room.  It was cute to see the kids stop and watch the movie for a little while and then carry on running around like maniacs, oops, I mean little angels. 

As you can tell from my pictures of the table (way up above), I had a lot of sweets available.  In my defense, let me just say that I was going for a specific look and feel.  I wanted everything to look pretty and be miniature to go with the theme.  I did not consider the fact that there would be dozens of children (ok, well, not that many!) with full access to the cupcakes and brownies and petit fours and cookies .  . . need I go on?  By the time we got to the cake, no one really wanted it.  Can you say over kill?  Oh well, I stand by the fact that all of the desserts looked nice :-)

When it was time to open presents, I tried to wrestle the kids into one room. My Mom wanted to skype while we did it, which turned out to be pretty entertaining. I can only imagine what it looked and even more so, sounded like on their end. On our end it was something like this, AAAAHHHHHH, Give me that!!!, I wanna open it!, AAAAAHHHHH, more cupcakes!!!!, baby!!!, MY baby!!!, WAAAAAAHHHHHH!!, Over here Gwendolyn, Open this one, I wanna open it!

Somehow, and honestly I don't know how, but somehow we got everyone to be realatively quiet and still long enough to play "the game".  "The game" is the name I give to what we do for each child on her first birthday.  I have no idea what it is actually called.  I have read that it is a tradition in many cultures.  For us, it came from Nik's side of the family.  The deal is, we put out four objects and see which one she goes to.  Every culture has their own objects, but for us we used a bible, a cell phone, a small bottle of liquor and paper money.  The point of the game is that the object she chooses will give us insight into her future.  The bible is pretty self explainatory although besides from just standing for religion or being religious, I would guess that it could stand for literature in general, maybe even an educator or even less specific maybe art and/or a creative mind.  The cell phone stands for technology and innovation.  Skipping the alcohol for a minute . . . the money could potentially mean that the child will eventually be wealthy, know how to manage money and/or work with money, or maybe it just stands for greed.  I'll go with the first on that one.  I can't seem to figure out how to spin the alcohol in a good way.  From what I can guess, if the child goes for the alcohol, then she will be a drunk or an alcoholic.  Hmph, maybe we can just say that she will be very happy and like to party.  Yes, let's say that :-)  So, here we go . . .

What will she pick, what will she pick??

She is totally going right for it, she doesn't even attempt to glance in the direction of any of the other objects.

And yes, she is going to be a drunk!  Oops, I mean she is going to be VERY HAPPY!!  Just like her Dad :-)

She obviously doesn't know that she has to be 21 to indulge because she is totally going for it right now.

And now, here is some more going-ons of the party.  We had the little girls running around flashing everyone.  Seriously, I'm not kidding.  It was really funny though.  We had the boys and Gwen (and Gemma) racing those ride on toys back and forth.  Then we had the real little one's mostly just playing with some toys on the living room floor.  I think the parents tried to drink. a lot maybe. because yes, again, this party was pure chaos brought on by my need to provide endless sugar to sugar hungry children.  Your welcome :-)

My one year old

Gwen's first birthday has officially passed.  Her party was great (more on that later) and she continues to grow from a baby into a "big girl". I have some catching up to do in documenting what she has been up to.  Check out her firsts, favorites and achievements.

My wonderful one year old Gwendolyn . . .

-still only has one freckle, which is on her left knee.  I noticed it for the first time a few months ago. I'll spare you on the picture since it just looks weird having a close up of her knee.

-dances whenever she hears music.

-runs really warm. She sweats almost every night and every time she has a car ride. This is totally opposite from Christina who will ask for a sweater when it is 80 degrees inside the house (90+ outside).

-loves remote controls (doesn't every baby?)

-started giving kisses in April, open mouthed of course.  She opens her mouth really big and sticks out her tongue.  She gets so excited to give kisses and will lean over to do it several times in a row.  She especially likes to give kisses to her sister and Christina thinks it is just hilarious that she opens her mouth.  Christina then opens her mouth too and it gets pretty gross, lol.

-was in the pool for the first time on 5/13.  I took her by myself to our neighborhood pool.  I don't have any pictures of her in the water (since I had to hold her), but I have a picture of her before we left the house.  This is also the first time she has worn a bathing suit.

-loves to climb (stairs, the bouncer, chairs, the fireplace, etc).  Her first time climbing the stairs was 5/13 and since then I constantly have to pull her off of them.  It was really cute seeing her climb the bouncer.  She climbs up to the top and stands there bouncing, while laughing her little head off.

-wore jeans for the first time and looked ADORABLE (5/14)

-gives high fives as of 5/18 and loves giving them.  Her first high five was to Daddy of course.

-plays with the doors on our entertainment center all of the time.  She likes to open and close them a.k.a. slam them shut over and over again.  She recently discovered the volume nob and likes to turn it all the way down and naturally it is while we are trying to watch something on TV or when CC is trying to watch Dora.  She also enjoys pulling every single video game, DVD and Blu-Ray off of the stands which often leaves us a messy living room to clean up.  Then again, we have a gazillion toys that are usually left out anyway.

-initiates peek-a-boo on her own.  Randomly I will see her peeking out from somewhere and then when I call her name, she starts giggling and ducks down again to hide.  It is very cute.

-went in the baby pool in our neighborhood for the first time on 5/21.  She really likes the water.

-went to the beach for the first time (Jersey Shore) on Memorial Day, 5/30.  She absolutely LOVED the sand and played in it the entire time we were there.  At first she wasn't loving the ocean (hated the wet sand), but then she started to enjoy it and laughed whenever she saw the waves. 

-went on her first amuzement park ride at Pt. Pleasant beach, NJ.  She went on those Elephants that go up and down while going around in a circle.  I would think that it would be a pretty scary first ride, but she loved it!  Christina wouldn't even go on it, she was too afraid.

-finally started sleeping all night in her own bed, in her own room (6/10).  She previously either slept in the pack-n-play in my room or in my bed.

-is an awesome awesome eater. She basically eats anything I give her and now that she has FIVE teeth, she can actually chew and eat almost anything. She got her fifth tooth (the third one on top) on 6/13.  She will eat pretty much any vegetable, meat or pasta that you give her and she does not have a sweet tooth - which is a huge relief! She is mostly eating table food now although occasionally I will still give her pureed food.

-usually doesn't eat paper anymore, lol.

-started playing with baby dolls and mothering them.  On 6/14 she picked up a baby wipe, crawled over to her baby doll, put the baby on her lap and then started cleaning the baby with the baby wipe.  It was the cutest thing!  She will also pick up baby dolls and rock them in her arms.

-continues to breastfeed (we will probably continue for at least a few more months), but she is also drinking a little cow's milk here and there.  She had cow's milk for the first time on 6/19.

-enjoys playing independently, but still doesn't want to be left in a room alone.  She is pretty good at entertaining herself.  She also loves to play with her sister as well as her friends at daycare.

-likes to scream at the top of her lungs when she is really happy.

-lays her head down on the floor when she gets upset.  Sometimes she closes her eyes too.  It is so ridiculously cute, I just want to eat her up.

-is between the 10th and 25th percentile for height and weight.  At one year old, she is 17 pounds and 6 ounces (ten pounds lighter than her sister).

-says "uh oh" all the time when something falls on the floor (or when she throws it on the floor).  Her teachers tell me that she also says "more" and "ball", but I haven't heard it for myself.  The last couple of days she has been saying "thank you" also.  At first I thought it was just a coincedence that she was saying it and saying it at the appropriate time.  But, since then she has said it several times.  It doesn't sound a whole lot like thank you, but that is definitely what she is trying to say and she seems to know what it means.  Crazy huh?

-loves shoes!  It starts so young!  Any chance she gets, she will go over to where we keep the shoes and just start playing with them.  She picks them up, turns them around, looks at them, throws them in the air and sometimes crawls off with them.

-took her first step! (6/25) and then she started officially walking only a few days later! (6/28).  She still spends most of her time crawling, but randomly she will just get up and start walking.  She can make it about 6-8 steps before she falls.

-likes to hold a crayon in her hand all day long when she is home. She will crawl around with it, play with her toys, nurse, whatever, just as long as she can hold onto that crayon.

-went on a ride by herself for the first time and LOVED it (6/26), in fact she cried when I had to take her off.

-loves bubbles (another must for all babies and young children, I think).

-was sick recently with a virus of some sort. She only had a fever, no other symptoms. Even with this virus, this makes Gwen a much healthier baby than Christina ever was. What a relief. No trips to the ER with this one, at least not yet (let's keep it that way!).

-gave her first closed mouth kiss on 6/30 although she mostly still sticks to the open mouth kisses. Yesterday she blew a kiss to Grandma and Granddad over Skype too (7/3), which was the first time she has done this.  I could tell she has been working on this one for a few days.  It is adorable how she will smooch her lips together and make the kissing sounds.

-is such a sweet and loving girl, loves to give and get kisses, loves to give and get cuddles.

-continues to love toys and really loves all of her birthday presents! She rarely gets anything that is just for her because we have sooooo much stuff already. I really didn't think she needed anything, but it was really nice to see how happy she was when she got her own toys.

-loves the bath and water in general.  She played with water outside the tub for the first time on 5/7.  She enjoyed putting her hands in the water and sucking her fingers or the water guns :-)

-loves Daddy's Ipad.

-has a space between her two front teeth which is pretty much the only noticeable difference between her at one year old and Christina at one year old.  I find the gigantic space to be very endearing although Nik is hoping it will go away.  I'm sure both kids will get braces anyway, so I doubt it matters.

-still has blue eyes.  I think CC's changed by one year old, so it is looking like Gwen's beautiful light blue eyes are going to stick.

-loves babies, real and doll.

-can ride her ride on toys by herself.  She can move backwardspushing with her feet, but not yet forwards.  She also likes to push when Christina is riding, or just push it around when no one is on it.

-cries when she wants more food.  It is a bad habit that I just can't seem to break!






-saw CC jumping and decided that she needed to learn how to do it. She then spent the next ten minutes practicing trying to jump (7/3). She did a great job and actually did jump a little.

-likes to be chased and tackled by her sister.  They rough house all over the living room floor, rolling around, pinning each other.  It is really funny and surprising that she wants to and can do all of this stuff considering she is so little.  Of course I have to watch them closely and almost always have to ask Christina to let go or back off.

-still puts her hands in the air whenever she wants me to pick her up. It is cute how she always has a smile from ear to ear.

-hates having her diaper or clothes changed. She always crys and tries to get away. There is always something more important than sitting still. The same goes for trying to do her hair lately.

-loves to blow raspberries and still loves to get them on her tummy.