Kana is one! My little darling is growing up too fast and I am going to miss her babyhood really much :’)
Here’s a late post of Baby’s birthday party last March.
We consider the ‘one year old’ a very special milestone, both for us as parents and for Baby herself. As we ponder on how fragile a baby she was when we brought her back from the hospital, how things could have gone wrong during her growing months, how things had been turned upside-down in our noob-parents-life and how these all are not to be taken for granted.. How faithful has God been!
How blessed we are!
That’s why we celebrate! 🙂
Thanks to my parents in law who came over to help and celebrate with us. We have the well-missed Indonesian home-cooked food filling the table to the tummies.
A special birthday cake, with Baby’s favorite little tortoise toy wishing her longevity on her first birthday (and it just so happens that for the Chinese, tortoise symbolizes longevity).
Thanks to our cell group’s friend who just started her very own home bakery, mommy Cindy for the wonderful birthday cake and the cake pops.
[Last minute] DIY decorations, again thanks to mommy Cindy for lending us many of the decorations props! The strawberries happy birthday banner was actually recycled from her daughter’s birthday party. What a great way to recycle, don’t you agree? 😉 (Well I dreamed about creating flower pompom and all other fancy decorations for the party but reality does bite, I just don’t have the time to!)
The balloons with the letters K A N A was truly our super last minute work. Initially I did plan to find huge letters for Baby’s name to go with the birthday banner but I couldn’t find any. Gave up and decided to just settle with having the strawberries banner alone.
10 p.m and standing in the living room staring blankly at the banner, I thought an idea came striking my head. In the props box, we have some left over felt clothes (used to make the happy birthday strawberries). Why not make use of them!
So there we go.
We drew and cut out the letters, pasted them onto the balloons, and tied them to the banner with transparent string. Never was I so glad that my daughter’s name is only 4 letter spelled! ;D
We had a bit of problem with the balloons since they couldn’t stop swinging and the letters just kept facing the other side. I remembered me and Hubby were quite annoyed from turning the balloons over for the umpteenth time before realizing that there was an invention called ‘double-sided tape’ which was just an arm away! (Okay, it was almost midnight and things are better when you are sharp, yes? 😛 ) So we put bits of tape between the balloons and voila! we had the letters bright and clear and kept in place. No more worries about your child being called funny names from the balloons twist game.
To complete the whole thing, we added balloons with the “I’m 1” letters onto the birthday girl’s highchair on the very morning as well.
Baby was born on the Easter day last year, so I thought eggs could not be any more suitable. For the Chinese, red eggs are also one of the compulsory food items for birthday since it symbolizes birth and good fortune. (Noodles are among the must-have food items as well, obviously for its long shape which symbolizes longevity heheh.)
We colored the eggs red and hang them as part of the decoration. The eggs were in the end given to the little-guests as part of the birthday favor.
Now, as to why I did not have the time to do my flower pompom, birthday banner, find the huge letters for the birthday girl’s name, and avoid doing things last minute-ly was because of this (and of course, mainly because of this too 🙂 ).
A photo-montage created for Baby’s first birthday. I think.. I am not the supermom who baked wonderful cake for her kid’s birthday, or who magically turned the party room into a wonderland with her creative handy crafts. I know not how to bake cakes, am not too great with crafts either heheh, but I do have my MAC sitting on the desk and some skills that I gained back in my university years. Those, can surely be put to good use. I think.. as a mom with degree in multimedia design, I owe my daughter at least a creative birthday present. 🙂
We had the montage played on the TV screen throughout the party and guess what, it proved to be a great babysitter! We were prepared to have the house roamed by the little people who, we supposed, would not prefer to sit still. But they did sit still in front of the screen (repeatedly asking us to play the video again once it stopped – the problem with no loop feature TV) and so the parents could have their lunch in peace! 😀
Finally, we were thankful for the people around us with whom we could share our joy (and sorrows too, we are sure) and our parenting journey ahead. In fact, it was one of our friends, Yopie, who actually captured most of the event since we were too busy hosting!
Blessed one year.
Thanking God for His blessings.
Trusting Him for the years to come.
Bring the Love Home 