Hard to believe but in just 1 month and 3 days, our darling Little Miss will be celebrating her first birthday. Already. I’ve been right here taking care of her, watching her sleep, playing with her, giving her baths, singing her lullabies – but all the same I wonder, where has the time gone? I know I say it all the time, but seriously, I feel like the past year has passed us by so quickly. Too quickly even. If you’re reading this and know me in real life, I know for a fact that you think I now sound like a broken record.
And you also know the fact that I’m going completely insane getting antsy with all the birthday party details that still need ironing out. Thank God we have the venue finalized. Now for the benefit of those who don’t know: we actually had it booked since May. What? We like to be prepared.
4 months ago, when My Man and I were thinking up various options for venues, we decided to try checking out the only one on our list we’ve never been to. I mean, we’ve been to Mickey D’s a million times and attended our friends’ kids’ birthday parties there (as with the numerous other fastfood places), so we skipped those and headed straight to Big Red Barn. The first thing we noticed was the spacious parking lot and commented about the convenience our guests will have finding parking spaces should we decide to have the party there. We checked in with the guard and stepped inside.
And. Fell. In. Love.
With the place, not the guard.
Inside was this humongous padded play yard for kids! We were pretty sure that our guests’ kids would just love it – and judging by the fact that the kids playing in it had our Little Miss’ undivided attention, she would too. It also totally worked to their benefit that at that precise moment, a waiter walked by with a tray full of goodies that looked and smelled good. A customer service assistant rushed to our aid and after almost an hour of walking us through their function rooms, showing us their menus, choices for decorations and all the other important elements we would need for the party we were almost sold. But not quite. We told her we had to taste their food before making our final decision, so she took our orders and sat us at a nearby table. The waiter brought out our food not too long after.
And. We. Fell. In. Love. Again.
With the food, not the waiter.
We are actually excited to hear what our guests will think about the food because we loved everything we ordered so much. The birthday package comes with a lot of freebies and is totally consumable of food, drinks and play time for kids! What’s not to like?! So we booked it, right then and there.
Only a few teeny, tiny details bothered me though. They have only one accredited cake supplier, and if we feel like bringing our own cake, we would need to pay a steep corkage fee. We haven’t tried this cake supplier and we have no idea how good their products are, so we are keeping our fingers crossed. They also offer party favors such as loot bags and invitations but whoa, they were so expensive! No matter, I thought to myself, we could get loot bags and have the invites printed elsewhere.
And that we did. My ultra-artistic Man designed the invitation for us and we brought it to a printer, who was able to deliver the prints to us the next day. Now, that’s what I call fast service! We’ve already mailed out the ones that needed to be sent via snail mail, handed a lot out to friends and relatives, but still have a handful we need to give out. We have an RSVP date set for October 2nd, so I am hoping we could get the rest of the invitations distributed by this week at the very latest. Not that people actually RSVP. And no, I’m not bothered by that at all, you know? Not one tiny bit. Nuh-uh. NOPE.
Okay, moving on.
Last Sunday, we went to this store that sells party favors. This store was really, really large. I was nearly overwhelmed by all the stuff I actually had to choose from, but I was excited to dive in and get all the items for the loot bags and find the perfect party hats!
I almost hyperventilated when, after a few minutes of searching for barnyard-themed stuff in that huge area, I finally decided to ask an attendant for help only to be told they. Had. None.
Zero. Zip. Zilch…
Oy. No bueno.
Now, this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if it weren’t me. The kind of person who had to have coordinated-everythingies. But it IS me, and I AM that kind of person who has to have coordinated-everythingies. Thank the heavens my sister C and cousin Z were there and calmed me down and reasoned with me enough to keep me from having a meltdown of massive proportions. Although I have to admit I am still iffy at not having at least loot bags that had pictures of farm animals frolicking on it. BIG SIGH.
We were originally going to have our Little Miss’ costume made at Bumblebee. But again with the hefty pricetags! Good thing my cousin Z referred us to an acquaintance of hers who makes costumes for TV commercials and such. Knocked off more than half the amount we were going to be billed by Bumblebee! If I knew how to dance, this is when I would have done the happy dance.
Also, my super amazingly wonderful cousin and sisters volunteered to come up with games and host it themselves because, they reasoned, what use are party planning geniuses if they let us go on and hire a host for X amount of money when they can do it themselves and with the added bonus of them pronouncing my daughter’s name properly? I couldn’t have said no to that! My Man and I were so completely bowled over by this idea (and of course, VERY THANKFUL), because that frees up some moolah for us to rent a TV projector for the AVP that again, my cousin Z and our incredibly talented friend are putting together for our Little Miss.
Oh, and did I mention just how blessed we are to have such exceptionally brilliant, loving family and friends? 😉
Some people have asked me if we really want to do this, if it will really be worth it being that my Little Miss is too young to understand and appreciate all this. And the answer is yes. We really want to do this. We know it will be worth it. She may be too young now, but a few years down the road, she will at least have, if not memory of it all happening, pictures and videos to see how much we wanted to celebrate the life she’s been given and the blessing that she is to our little family. How grateful we are to have her.
Hard to believe that our baby will turn 1 year old in 1 month and 3 days.
And so the countdown begins.

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