First Birthday Extravaganza

On Saturday we celebrated Jak's first birthday. It has been months of planning and even though I know that we went overboard, I think it was well worth it.

The venue: Firefly Play Cafe. This is a great indoor space for kids. All of the toys are mentally stimulating, and require no batteries. Very cool.

The food: We catered in Raising Cane's chicken fingers and fries, as well as sandwiches, chips, and the usual party food. I also prepared brownie pops (which were a pain!) but they turned out well.

The theme: Yo Gabba Gabba. This is Jak's favorite show. She lights up as soon as she hears the theme song. We ordered huge cut-outs of each character. We had dozens of balloons that matched the color scheme.  We also ordered special M&M's with pictures of Jak on one side and "Jak is 1!" on the other. The party favors were lots of YGG goodies inside a DJ Lance Rock's boom box. Super cute! The candy bowls, the silverware, the tablecloths...it all matched our theme and looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.

The cakes: YGG themed as well, and made by my brother. The cakes were almost more popular than Jak was. They were outstanding! He is so talented. I told him what I wanted and he made it happen.

Jak: We had a special outfit made for her from Posh Birthday Shop. She was so cute I couldn't stand it. She had so much fun playing with everyone. When we sang Happy Birthday, she smiled so big as if to say "This is all for me?" Of course, I cried a little bit. To think, my baby is (almost) 1. It seems like yesterday I was going into labor. And here I am, the mother of a toddler. Where does the time go?

Enjoy some pictures from the party (taken by my good friend, Vincent).

Mommy and Mimmy bought her a bike for her birthday.

Jak's smash cake, courtesy of Uncle Jamie 

Birthday cake!!

Singing "Happy Birthday." Mommy cried.

Beautiful family

As our beautiful daughter turns one, I can't help but look into her eyes and think that she is here all because two people fell in love.

One small step for baby...one giant leap for babykind

November 20, 2011 - Jak took her first step. Yep, that's right! It was just one, but it was a step...on her own...towards me. It was so cute. She is getting so big. I'm very happy it happened at home and not at daycare. I've been worrying about that. She has a long way to go before she's walking, but she is well on her way. I have a feeling we'll have a walking baby by Christmas.

Ear tubes and first words

Well, last week Jak was diagnosed with her 4th ear infection in 6 months. Being a concerned mommy (with a high deductible health plan) I asked about the possibility of tubes. The doctor said it was time to discuss it. Since she gets an ear infection each time she has a cold - and it's not even cold season yet! - that it was certain she'd have many more infections. Rather than chance that he recommended tubes.

We had our consultation on Wednesday and her "surgery" is scheduled for December 5th. The process should really help clear out all that fluid, which the doctor said he could tell was still in her ear from her very first ear infection! My poor baby.

Good ears don't seem to run in our family. My brother had terrible ear trouble as a kid and we just found out yesterday that his 1 year old son (Jak's cousin, Owen) has to get tubes too...on the same day as Jak! As my sister-in-law said, the two of them can discuss the procedure at Christmas.

On another note, Jak has learned to say a few words. Right now her favorites are "bye bye," "uh oh," and "mommy is awesome." Okay, I threw that last one in there, but she really can say the other two. And she waves when she says "bye bye"...she is so smart! I bet next she'll learn long division and begin writing her memoir.

Here are some pictures from the past month or so.

Cuddling with Lablanc 

She has started doing this thing where she puts her

pacifier in crooked. It's so funny. 

Yo Gabba Gabba must be on. 

Eating the Italian sorbet that Mimmy got for her. She LOVED it! 

Getting ready for Christmas pictures

She likes to stand in front of the vacuum and pretend she's baby Beyonce.  

Yes, this is a different chair. A girl can't have too many seating options.  

First Halloween

Halloween turned out to be a bigger deal in our house than originally planned. We ordered Jak's costume in early September. I knew exactly what I wanted - a pink elephant. It was perfect...or so I thought. When it arrived, it was horrible. It looked nothing like it did in the picture, so we sent it back and looked for costume #2.

Meredith and I could not agree on anything. I really wanted to buy a peacock that I saw online, but I found out that Jak's friend in daycare had that costume and, well, it's completely out of the question for them to have the same costume. Finally, we saw a skunk that was pretty cute and we ordered it. We waited and waited for it to come and a week before Halloween I got an email saying that they were out of stock and were going to refund my money.

So the hunt was on for costume #3. We went to 3 different Halloween stores. We tried on a ton of stuff and finally it came down to a lady bug or a monkey. So...we bought both. We tried the outfits on for friends and family, took a poll, and ultimately decided to go with the monkey. So Jak went to her daycare Halloween party as a monkey, and boy was she cute! She even had a super cute post-costume outfit to change into at daycare, complete with orange tutu. They just don't come any cuter than my baby!

A monkey and a Mimmy 

A monkey with her mommies

 I LOVE THIS OUTFIT!

9 month check-up

Jak went for her 9 month check-up yesterday. Below are her stats:

• Weight: 16.7 lbs - 15th percentile
• Height: 27.25 inches - 30th percentile 
• Head: 17.1 inches - 45th percentile

She is right on track for her age...actually, a little advanced when it comes to her milestones. I'm pretty sure she's a genius. It will only be a matter of time before she is writing sonatas or researching the Theory of Relativity.

9 months is such a great age. I remember thinking when my nephew, Adam, was 9 months old that it was my favorite time with him. Jak is doing so many cool things. One of her newest tricks is to fake cry when we tell her no or she wants something she knows she can't have. She scrunches her face up and looks at me or Mere and then smiles and goes for it again. We say no, and she does it again. It's become a game. We never see any tears and she is usually smiling in between her fake cries. She has learned what "no" means and she knows she does not like that word. Sorry to say she probably has a lot more years of no's coming her way.

Top 10

Just before I put Jak to bed in her crib the other night, I took a moment to cuddle with her and enjoy some mommy baby time (mimmy was in bed with a headache). I listened to her breathe and watched her lay her head on my shoulder to sleep...and I started to cry, so overwhelmed by how blessed I am to have this perfect baby in my life. It's cliche, but I never knew I was capable of this much love. So that got me to thinking, what do I love about Jak? Well there are a gazillion things, of course, but I'll narrow it down to my top 10:

#10 She is fearless. She'll try anything. Climb anything. Jump off anything. She just doesn't care. And if she falls (which she rarely does because there's always a mommy around waiting to catch her), she gets right back up and does it again.

#9 Her baby feet. She has the cutest baby feet I have ever seen. And they are huge! Even when she was born, everyone kept commenting on her big feet and long toes. I can't wait to paint her toenails (which will have to wait until she stops sucking on her toes). Super cute!

#8 Hiccups. If you look at Jak the wrong way, she'll get the hiccups. She always has them. The smallest giggle sends her into hiccup frenzy. When I was pregnant with her, I would text Meredith 3 or 4 times a day saying "Baby has the hiccups." And it hasn't stopped yet.

#7 She always has to have her foot propped up on something. It doesn't matter if it's a chair, the shopping cart, the side of her playpen, on a stuffed animal....her foot is always on something. She is constantly relaxing. It cracks me up.

#6 Her personality. I see so much of me in her. She is fiesty, impatient, and wants what she wants...and she wants it now! Right now, it's pretty cute. In a few years, it won't be, I'm sure. :)

#5 The way she loves her mimmy. It is so cute to see those two together. Meredith walks into the room and Jak just lights up. She is always crawling to her or putting her arms up to go to her. When Meredith leaves the room, Jak turns her head to look around the corner to see where she is. I love the way they love each other so much.

#4 Her eyelashes. They are so long and everyone comments on them. They are just so beautiful. Movie stars would kill for her eyelashes. This is something that she got from her donor. His profile said he had "long eyelashes and almost perfect eyebrows"... and so does she.

#3 Her laugh. She has the best laugh. No matter what is going on in life, as soon as I hear it, all is right with the world.

#2 Her kisses. Every once in a while, she'll actually give you one when you ask for it. They're sloppy, and she hardly ever hits your lips, but she tries so hard and it's so darn cute.

#1 Her smile. Never ever has anything brought me so much joy as watching my daughter smile at me. She smiles endlessly and I love it. Everyone asks "Is she always this happy?" and we always smile and say "Yes. She is always like this."


There are a million more reasons, but I'll stop at 10...for now.

My wonderful little girl 

Jak-O-Lantern Time!

We took our little pumpkin to the pumpkin patch today. We all had so much fun! Jak cruised around in her brand new wagon, occasionally stopping for a photo op. It was unseasonably warm for Ohio in October - 82 degrees! I never thought Jak would have to put on sunscreen and wear a sunhat to go pumpkin picking, but we all had a good time anyway. Check it out!