Party in the Park

Skyler’s second birthday (I feel like I JUST posted photos from her first birthday – crazy!). This post will be short on words, but long on pictures!

Cooper, my parents labrador, joined us for the party.

Exploring the park with Granny

Blowin’ out the candle (with Daddy’s help!)

Sharing cake with Gramma Oswald, and then rounds of sharing with everyone else

This year she was much more into opening presents. Though she didn’t quite realize she was the center of it all, she enjoyed finding out what was under the paper or inside the bag.

Not too sure about one of her new tricycles

But once Daddy made it go fast, she was all about it!

Onto the playground for swinging, of course.

Climbing up to the slide

She wouldn’t go down without Mommy

But Daddy wasn’t as nice!

Playing on the bench by Uncle Sterling

and with Gramma and Grampa Kelley

Practicing her jumps with Mommy’s help

Uncle Matt and Darci got quite a kick out of Skyler’s various park antics

Partys over, time to go home and play with all the new toys!

September 11

On September 11th, 2009, Skyler turned two! But of course, she still didn’t grasp the concept of her birthday. We greeted her in the morning with Happy Birthday’s & extra enthusiasm for the day, but to her, it was any ol’ day, headed to Darlene’s for another play day with Riley, Sydney, Ella, and the rest of the kids she asks for when she wakes up. Lately she’s wanted to take along several items with her to daycare, so I found the cute kitty-cat backpack that had been given to her by my friend as a babyshower gift, and thought now is the time for her to put it to use! But on our way out the door, she threw a fit because all her things were inside it and she couldn’t see them.

I dropped her off at daycare and headed to work. Of course, since this day is also a mournful day in our country’s history, I listened to the various radio tributes the rest of my way to work and remembered where I was that day in 2001. That eerie sad feeling came back to me as it does every year. I don’t think that feeling ever fades or gets weaker as the years go by, and I’m grateful for that. It seems some have forgotten the cruel attack on our country and the many deaths of the undeserving.

But since this day on 2007, I’ve had to balance the mourning and remembrance with the celebration of Skyler’s birthday. And for that, I am also grateful. Many friends and acquaintances have commented that “it’s too bad that is Skyler’s birthday” and apologized for how hard that must be for us. But I disagree. Skyler’s birthday signifies hope and life, just as every other birthday, so what better day to celebrate, than a day when hope seems hard to find?

After work & daycare, we celebrated by going to dinner at one of our favorite (oops I mean Skyler’s favorite) restaurants, and then, I don’t know if I should admit this or not, we took Skyler to the toy section of Wal-mart to pick out her present! Is that tacky and unceremonial? We have an excuse: We had planned to have everyone chip in and get her a swingset with slide, because she’s so obsessed with them. That was the plan until last week, when Ronnie’s Granny offered the nice swingset at her house to us, for free! So I hadn’t even thought about other presents for Skyler, and still felt we needed to buy her something. So we decided to let her pick some toys out.

We get to Wal-mart, and what does she go for? A $2 plastic ball. Like she already has at home and at both Grandma’s, and at daycare. Really, child? We try to skip it because she doesn’t need another toy ball, and head for the aisle of age-appropriate toys. She proceeds to have a dramatic breakdown in front of the Dora & Elmo dolls, so we give in and let her have another new $2 ball. Even though that is all she cares about, Ronnie and I go ahead and pick out an educational Leap Frog computer thingy and a Magna Doodle Pro. Oh, and some magnetic letters for the fridge.

We have a party at the park with family this Sunday, so we let her play with the ball but we are wrapping everything else so she can open it then. She doesn’t care anyway, since the only thing she cares about is that cheap ball. Which she brought with her to bed for this afternoon’s nap!

Catching up – Part II: Skyler’s 1st Birthday

Skyler’s big day was great! I can’t believe it has actually come and gone already. And, I can’t believe I haven’t done any of the things that I’d planned to do for her birthday, like create a slideshow of her first year for this blog, and write her a letter on that day. I guess I could still write her a letter and pre-date it – she’d never really know, right?

So onto the party!

Skyler didn’t spend much time on her typical floor-level. One of her grandmothers always had a hold of her. Here she is first with Grandma Sandy, and then next playing “Trashcan” with Grammy K. You might ask what “Trashcan” is, and shamefully I”ll admit it’s a game that Ronnie made up where he basically pretends to “throw her in the trashcan,” meaning he sort of tosses her around while saying “I’ll throooooowwww you in the trashcan” and she thinks it’s the most hilarious thing ever. I know, it’s kinda sick. But even Grammy K was playing it.

And then the classic first cake photos. Skyler was very unsure about this. We showed her what to do by using our fingers to scoop up icing and put it in her mouth. She was not too impressed. I’m starting to think she did not inherit either of her parents’ sweet tooths, because she had very little interest in eating the cake.

She was more fascinated with the colored icing though, and liked flicking it onto the floor.

And I didn’t know it until I took the tray off the highchair, but she was wiping the pink icing onto her diaper.

After a quick bath, we got down to the gifts. This, she was much more into than I expected! She was very into pulling tissue paper and presents out of the gift bags all by herself.

She would then examine each gift once it was out of the wrapping. Check this one out – giant Lego’s!!!

Here she is showing me the flowers on her jeans

We tried for a quick family picture, but she wasn’t quite into it…

And finally, she’s had ENOUGH! (Is it wrong to think it’s hilarious when your child is crying for no reason and scramble to get a photo of it?)

Finally, after everyone was gone, Skyler had some fun goofing off with Daddy -

Just one…

I’m still waiting for photos from my mom before I post the birthday story, but here’s a quick one to share. Overall, it was a fun time, and Skyler got lots of great toys. I can’t wait for her to wake up from her much needed nap so she can start playing with them!

The Big One

Today was Skyler’s first birthday! It’s a kind of bittersweet to be so excited about today, when it’s also a day of mourning and remembrance for the events of 9-11-01. But according to the Bible, there is a time for everything. I love these verses because they help me focus on living a balanced life with meaning:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Today we didn’t do much for Skyler’s birthday because the big family celebration will be on Sunday. But Ronnie picked up a musical keyboard for her (it’s actually Hannah Montana – oh no!), and her first Care Bear, Funshine Bear. He cracks me up! We were going to wait to get Skyler something after the party on Sunday since we have no idea what others are getting her. But of course, Skyler’s Daddy just couldn’t resist!

Yesterday at daycare they made cupcakes for her birthday (she goes to my mom’s on Thursdays so she wasn’t there on her actual birthday). When I picked her up, she smelled like sugary icing, and apparently made quite the mess of herself. She was also in another outfit that wasn’t one of ours, so I asked if she’d made that much of a mess. Darlene, her teacher, just said “no, this is her birthday outfit that we got for her! Doesn’t she look cute?” It is a really cute outfit, and I thought that was so sweet of her to do! Skyler liked it too, so we got home and took a picture of her in her new birthday outfit:

It’s been fun, and surreal at the same time. And we haven’t even had a party yet!

Invitation

Skyler’s first birthday is fast approaching. We aren’t doing the big hooplah which a lot of people do for their kids’ first birthdays these days. I’m just not up to it, and frankly, I probably won’t ever make much of a big deal until she can remember it, in which case I might be inclined to throw the biggest and best birthday party ever, so she can brag about it to all her friends, and always be known as the kid with the best parties, with all the kids begging and pleading to be lucky enough to get an invitation to Skyler Oswald’s birthday parties. Oh wait, that sounds strangely like a ridiculous show on MTV, and no, I will not purposefully throw parties like that for Skyler. I like a good party, but in all actuality, we are a pretty laidback family, so we’re more likely to do some killer BBQing than throw the most coveted theme party around.

Anyhoo, we’ll just be grilling burgers and hotdogs with our families (the grandparents, aunts, and uncles, and maybe some great-grandparents if we’re lucky!). Maybe I can convince Ronnie to smoke a brisket or pork shoulder instead (like he did today that I got to smell all day but we can’t eat till TOMORROW. It’s been driving me nuts). I’ll pick up a sheet cake for everyone and of course we’ll take pictures of Skyler checking out her piece. I’m so excited that she’s finally taken a liking to feeding herself, so hopefully she’ll be into her cake. The pictures my mom has of my brothers and I at our first birthdays with chocolate icing and cake crumbs smeared all over our hands, chests, and faces are priceless, and I can only hope to get some fun ones like that of Skyler!

I even bought her a present today that I’ll wrap and wait to give to her on that day. It seems silly since she really won’t know the difference, but I guess the tradition has to start somewhere! I pickedup a cute bathtoy. All she’s had to date is one single rubber ducky. I feel like I’ve been a neglectful parent in offering her the same darn toy in the bathtub for over 11 months now, but hey, until she complains, no harm done, right? That’s the joy of an easy-going baby I guess. You don’t need as many toys to keep them happy!

The one thing I decided to do is send out invitations to the family for this party. Most know the date already, but I thought it would be a nice thing to do – people like those kinds of things for their fridges, you know? I started going to the online photo sites to find one I could upload a picture to and then get printed. But I couldn’t find anything I liked. If they weren’t cheesy, they were expensive. So why pay so much for something I could do myself? So I opened up Photoshop and got inspired. And here is the result (edited for security. Hopefully I’ll actually get these printed and mailed. That’s the hardest part!):