Happy 1st Birthday Colby!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLBY! Look how much you have changed in one year:

Colby has gone from this:

7 lbs 13 oz and 20.5 inches tall

To this:

24 lbs 8 oz (90 percentile) and 30.25 inches tall (67 percentile)

In just one year!!!

We had a really fun birthday party for Colby on March 4. We invited all of our family to come and we had about 40 people at our house to help us celebrate this great occasion!

Here is my big birthday boy:

Colby loves his balloons. He would shake them and pounded on them and has played with them ever since we brought them out of the store. Unfortunately one popped in the car on the way home because he was playing a little too hard with it I guess. Colby didn't mind though. He still had four more to play with!

While we were waiting for everyone to arrive to start the party, we enjoyed the beautiful spring day outside. I love that the weather is getting warmer and we can play outside without coats on anymore. We finally put up a fence on the side of our yard for a dog run for Clifford. Now we have our yard back and we can go outside without worrying about stepping in doggie do-do. (YES!!!) We do let Clifford out to play with us at least once or twice a day so don't think we have totally exiled our dog from the yard. I actually think he like having a little place of his own in the yard. We are happier with the dog at least.

Any way back to the party... Everyone showed up at 6 or 6:30 and it was present time:

I think Emily, Paul, and Alex were more excited about opening presents than Colby was. He definitely had a lot of helpers to get the presents open. Emily decided Colby was being a little too slow at opening presents so she decided to help him by opening everything for him. She would put the present on his tray, rip it open, and show it to Colby. He would scream with excitement and then Emily would take the present out of his hands and grab another gift and Colby was totally fine with it. The whole situation was so funny to watch. Paul and Alex kept asking if they could help Colby unwrap the presents and Jen kept telling them no but the excitement was too much for them and they kept getting closer and closer to the action even stealing a rip or two. Finally Colby did get the hang of opening the presents and we made Emily leave him alone so he could do it himself. He even tasted a bit of the paper too! Being the crazy parents that we are, we forgot to buy birthday wrapping paper. Okay I didn't forget, I just thought we had more than we did. I got out the paper to wrap at about 10 Saturday night and realized we only had enough for two presents! So had to revert to using Christmas wrapping paper so I got out the roll that looked the least Christmas-y. That's okay no one seemed to care especially the kids!

Next it was time for cake:

I made Colby his very own cake to eat. Traci had to hold his hands down while I took a picture because he kept trying to touch the flame of the candle. We didn't want him to get burned. Colby is the funniest kid. He does not like anything messy or sweet, and he doesn't like to feed himself so he wanted nothing to do with the cake. He wouldn't even try it even when I tried to feed him a bite! He also doesn't like to be the center of attention (unlike Emily). He kept wondering why everyone was looking at him and was starting to get scared. He was about to cry until I took him out of the chair and told him it was okay if he didn't eat the cake. He was much happier sitting on my lap and even tried some ice cream.

By this time, it was starting to get dark and cold so everyone started heading home. When everyone had gone and things calmed down a bit, Colby was much happier and relaxed. I got out some of him new toys and we played for about an hour while Russell and Emily took the chairs and tables back to their homes. I learned something about my kids today. I realized that they have very different personalities. Emily is outgoing, crazy, talks to everyone about anything and must have people around her all the time (kind of like Russell). Colby on the other hand is more relaxed, plays really well by himself in his room, doesn't like being bugged, and just kind of goes with the flow. He does like structure though and has since he was born. He likes to go to bed at certain times. Colby gets along well with Emily because he just lets her do her own thing and so far is okay with being told how to play. That may change as he gets older but for now as long as she is not bugging him to much he is fine. I think he is more like me.

Colby is growing up so fast! He loves throwing the ball back and forth. Colby loves being outside sliding and swinging and playing with Clifford. He is always following Emily around the house. He likes cruising around the furniture and climbing up to look out the windows but Colby can't walk on his own yet. He does like to walk while holding onto my hands though so he will soon be brave enough to let go and go on his own.

Well for Colby's birthday, we had a car themed party. Russell and I had a lot of fun making all of the food:

We had a lot of family over. Like I mentioned before, we had about 40 people. We wanted to make sure we had enough treats for everyone so we made extras. First we made car and firetruck sugar cookies. I got a big bag of cookie cutters at the DI for $2 and these cookie cutters were in the bag and they were perfect for the party. Next I made a big pan of cookie cake with sugar cookie dough. By the time we got to decorating it the night before, it was about midnight. Russell and I were tired by then and so we got a little crazy. We had fun decorating the cookie cake as a race track using licorice ropes. We had a lot of fun and crazy ideas but in the end, the race track turned out good. Next I made a personal sized round cake for Colby to eat but he didn't even want to touch it... And finally the dump truck cake turned out cute. It was a little harder to make than the picture in the magazine made it look but it works. It was a two layer cake with Ho Ho snack cakes for axles and mini doughnuts for wheels. Everyone thought it looked like Mater.

Another fun decoration I made was this "Watch Me Grow" banner:

I took some of the pictures I had taken of Colby over the last year and strung them on a string placing car cutouts in between the pictures. It was fun to see how much he had changed over the year.

I also had fun making some gifts for Colby. After a year of wishing and hoping, I finally made my first quilt! I love how it turned out:

Some day (hopefully in the near future) when we separate the kids rooms, we are going to do Colby's in cars and trucks and a red and blue theme. The material I found matched perfectly. The quilt was actually quite easy to make; I don't know why it took me so long. I even used my mom's walking foot to quilt it on my sewing machine. I made the quilt a little bigger than the crib so that it will fit on the toddler bed when Colby out grows the crib. I also made a valance for the window to match. I will be posting the completed room soon...I hope.

Next is this car caddy. I made one for Emily when she was about Colby's age and she loved it so I know Colby will too. He likes driving the little cars around on the ground and hopefully this will keep him entertained at church. And finally, also for church are some cute little ties:

These ties were quite easy to make and I will definitely be making more. Ties are for boys like dresses are for girls. Ties are the way to dress up a little boy for church. Colby looks just like a little man with them on.

Happy Birthday Colby! You are such a joy to our family. We love you!!