Birthday/one year extravaganza!

What do these 3 extraordinary people have in common...........Birthdays!

I know most of you who have been following our journey know that Nick having my Grandfather Carmon's birthday was what we feel like was a gift from God showing us who was to be our son on that Crazy, Wonderful day in February last year. My sister had been fretting along with us about how we would ever "choose" a child....how could you choose one and reject the other? So, before we left, she made a comment to me that she would just pray that God would give us some obvious or weird sign that we would know.....and she then said...."like Papa Carmon's birthday or something".....well, as you all know, that was the exact day Nick was born on and I was stunned. I remember saying what birthday did you just say for that little boy and she repeated it. I remember thinking well isn't that something and then boom, my sister's comment came rushing back to my jet lagged memory (which is saying alot!) and here we sit one year later, almost feeling that same extreme jet lagged feeling only its because we have been going for 48 hours straight while we celebrated our sweet little boys birthday and our one year anniversary of that momentous bonding period as we became a family.

We have had a great weekend but this is the point where Advil becomes extremely important! I hurt, Pat hurts, even Amigo hurts! There are definite benefits to becoming "older" parents but the fact that our bones and muscles just aren't as young as they used to be is evident tonight! We have been cleaning, moving furniture for the onslaught of toddlers everywhere, shopping, and standing on our feet for hours and hours but all well worth it to put our precious son to bed tonight (early!) and sing Happy Birthday (louder, louder as requested by our son) one last time and send him off to dream land as our newly christened 4 year old!

We started our festivities Thursday night as we filled his room with balloons for an early morning surprise (we borrowed this idea from a new blog friend!). You can't see him but he is snuggled down in his blankets and oblivious!

He actually woke up when it was dark and missed the balloons completely so once the sun came up, I sent him back to his room to his big surprise! He was very excited!

We got dressed and headed out to speech class which unknown to us because we had checked the closed school listings "too" early (was open when we checked) was cancelled due to the ice storm! So, we went to McDonald's instead.......I needed tea and a breakfast treat for making the effort that the whole school district was apparently unable to make! ;) So, we headed home and started opening the presents from all of his out of town family! He got some great stuff and has played with them all. Auntie Tracey scored big with the Pirate Ship! Because he knows of pirates from the veggie tale movie, Jonah. Jonah is also included in his pirate play. It is too funny! Jonah gets thrown overboard often by the pirates. We had a good day playing with all the new toys! Thanks everyone!

We then took him for his birthday meal at the "CC's"...funny story....You know how CC's can be used as code language for Chuckie Cheese when you don't want the always listening child to know where you might go eat because they would be beside them self with excitement. Well, I kept referring to CC's for our dinner plans and then a trip to Sam's and Wal-Mart for party food. My very sweet and very literal minded husband drove us straight to "CiCi's" for dinner. Another chain of pizza places that is close to Sam's also. I got a bit suspicious when he drove past the shorter path to "CC's" and took the long way......now, already in almost 5 years of marriage, I have learned to just let him go the way he wants because my way is not always the only way ;) so I was quiet but then had to laugh when he drove in the "CiCi's" parking lot. He was so bothered by the fact that he did not "get" the code word and yes, we went on to "the Mouse"...our new code word and had a great time but I just had to laugh at how different we think sometimes! We figure it is just a good thing that we laugh about these times instead of bickering.....goodness, we would be bickering all the time then! ;)

We did commincate well the rest of the evening as we shopped until we dropped. I, as usual, over bought but that is just the way we do things in my family. If a little is good, then more is best just in case someone hasn't eaten in 3 weeks or so!

On to the big celebration day......we dressed our little Kazakh up in his traditional outfit and he actually wore his hat for at least part of the day. He was sooooo cute. We called it his Kazakh Crown for his "special day".

Nick did fabulous for the whole day. I don't know if I mentioned how we celebrated all four of his birthdays but basically each hour represented the year birthday (1pm -we celebrated his first birthday, and so on) We had pizza, make your own sundaes, appetizers, and cake! We sang at each hour and he loved getting to blow the candles out. We had to combine 1st and 2nd birthdays so it looked like we were celebrating his 21st birthday! Hee Hee!

He also liked wearing this other hat which he got at school last week. He loved opening presents and would barely let his guests get in the door without taking his gift, dropping down into the floor right there and ripping with extreme passion every little piece of paper off of the gift. We really got some great gifts. We are so excited to go thru and play with all of them tomorrow after church. He did not get nap but did awesome and only had two "moments". One when his little friend Ben wanted to share sprinkles with him and proceeded to shake them all over Nick's ice cream which just about sent him over the edge as he is a true purest when it comes to ice cream.....vanilla and plain, no toppings, please! And, then he and his fellow Kazakh buddy butted heads over a great garbage truck toy but we resolved it without any blood flow! Our only regret is that we were so busy with our 69 guests (!!!!!) over 4 hours that we did not get as many pics as we would have liked. But, we have the memories and feel so blessed that so many of our friends and family wanted to share this special day with us. It was awesome! We even had two waiting families come play with us that will be going to get their kazakh cuties in just a few months! We are so excited for them and glad they like to come play with us!

OK, now the important stuff.....THE CAKE ROCKED! It was sooooo cute and oh, my goodness, good! I will use this lady forever! He loved his rocket cake and we did too!

I like this next picture of him from the back as a little Kazakh cutie eating a post party snack. An apple! He then ate a banana! He was making up for all of the "junk" that we had all day! Glad we ended the day with a more healthy choice! We all crashed on the couch and watched some Dora to get him nice and calmed down and then bathtime and bed, heavenly bed.....which is where dad is already gone and I am close behind.....We are going to be a sight to see at the early service tomorrow.

Thought I would leave you with a family photo! We only took one and I think considering how tired we are and how un-napped Nick was, we look like a pretty happy one year old family, don't you think!?

Oh, and I mentioned that even Amigo hurts....well, he is exhausted from obsessively running around under every table and chair, every room, etc. trying to find all of the dropped children's snacks. Crazy dog!

We are so blessed by this boy and can't wait to share many, many more birthday celebrations with him (maybe just a little less big and long!) LOL!