Nathaniel's 1st Birthday Party

This month has gone by quickly. I just realized that it is going to be March in a couple of days and I haven't posted about the big birthday party yet. So here you go. Sorry for the long wait.

Thank you to everyone who came to the party and celebrated with us, and to those who supported us from far away with messages and donations. We appreciate all of you.

Nathaniel's party had a hot air balloon theme. We invited about 100 people and about 40 showed up on Sunday afternoon for the party. We all had a lot of fun.

We colored balloon pictures, played pin the kid on the balloon, and had a piñata (which got broken accidentally right before we were going to do it, but was luckily able to be fixed with lots of tape). We had snacks, sang happy birthday (Abby blew out the candle on the cake), and had cake and cupcakes.



There was so much food left over. We still have a couple pieces of cake in our refrigerator now and that is after Dave brought a bunch to work a couple of times and we gave some to friends.

People brought books for us to donate to our local library. We also got some donations of books and money from family and friends that were not able to make it to the party.

Abby had fun unwrapping all of the books. Then she would make us read each one to her three times.







We were also given a few other gifts for Nathaniel's birthday. My sister and her family gave us this angel and child figurine. (We got a similar one for Christmas from my other sister.)

My friend Krystal and her family had some trees planted in a National Forest in Michigan for him.









I brought 42 books over to the library last week along with some cash donations. We have since gotten a few more books so are up to 44 now. The librarians were very excited to get all the new board books. And somehow we only got two duplicates.

After they are processed each one will have a book plate in it that says that they were donated in memory of Nathaniel. I'm excited to possibly be able to check out books for baby sister that were donated for Nathaniel.

Nathaniel Day 12 - a Play and Dinner

You can read about the idea behind Nathaniel Day and the activities of previous months here (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

This month for Nathaniel Day Abby and I went to go see some kids from church perform in the play hairspray. We had a good time. Abby was very excited when she saw the kids on stage. "He goes to my church!" She said the play was "like the Wiggles" with the singing and dancing. For some reason she didn't take her coat or hat off the entire hour and a half play and only took her mittens off at the end.

We spent the afternoon doing a little prep work for the birthday party. Abby helped wash all the strawberries, cut some cheese, and put crackers in a bowl.





After the party prep we (maybe just I) took a nap for a while until Dave came home.

Dave had made dinner reservations for us at Buca di Bepo, a fun Italian restaurant not too far from us. It was Abby's first time there. She was convinced they had macaroni and cheese. We weren't so sure, but she was right. They had it on the kid's menu. We all had lots of delicious food and even decided to get some cheesecake for dessert since we were celebrating Nathaniel's birthday. It was gigantic. All three of us shared it and we still brought half home.

Abby's kid's mac n cheese.

Our dinner: Chicken with artichokes and bacon with lemon sauce. 

The other half of our dinner: four different filled pastas

1 Year

Happy birthday baby boy! It's hard to believe that it's been a year since you were born. Today we don't have much planned. Abby and I are going to do something fun this morning and we will go out for dinner as a family tonight. 

On Sunday we are going to have a big birthday party for you. We invited 100 people! Presents have already started coming in from people who are not able to make it. We asked people to give board books that we can donate to the library. I have a feeling that the library is going to have a whole lot of new books next week.

We miss you and wish you were here so we could all celebrate your birthday together.

Mommy

Another Funeral

I have been to more funerals this year than in the whole rest of my life put together. Tomorrow there is another one, but since it is Nathaniel's birthday and I already had plans to go see a play with Abby I am probably not going. I expect to be a mess tomorrow anyway. Going to a funeral would probably not be the best of ideas.

I am planning on going to the wake tonight though. It is for the father of one of my good friends from college. I think I maybe met him once, but I know the rest of his immediate family a bit and want to be there for them.