31 inches means little miss finally got a big girl car seat! We decided to go with the Evenflo Procomfort Triumph. I really try to research any big purchases that we make for our bean. I felt like every car seat review I looked at it was pretty split with people either really loving it or hated it. My biggest concern was it fitting into my car. I drive a Honda insight which is a hybrid and it's a pretty small car. I know that all car seats are ultimately safe, they are all tested and run through the same safety tests. The thing that makes or breaks your car seat is making sure it is installed properly. This car seat was easy to install and I could get super tight where it doesn't have much wiggle room at all which I love. I still want to take it some where to have a professional check it out and make sure it's all good. I like that it has a nice head rest and it has a body pillow part which sits under her butt. I mean it looks comfy to me, I wouldn't mind sitting there. Another bonus is that it seems that it has a lot of room for her to grow, and by grow I mean a lot of leg room for her while she is rear facing. I plan to keep her rear facing until she's at least two. She's already pretty tall so we'll have to see how comfortable she stays. I also like the fact that her head doesn't hang when she falls asleep. I'm not sure if it's because of the recline of the seat while she's rear facing or if it's because of how well her harness clips her in but I really love that her head doesn't hang, that just can't be comfortable. The only thing that I have trouble with is when I need to tighten the strap it's really hard to. It has a knob that you're supposed to turn but it's really hard to get it to go, it seems tight enough but I wish it was easier to turn. Update: If you use both knobs at the same time that makes tighten it up much easier.
Ok now onto the fun part. Our bean had her first birthday! I sent out this invitation (except with her information):
And I used this background for a little tag that I included in the envelope along with her invitation:
I wrote on her tag "Please NO gifts. If you would really like to get her something please consider donating to her college fund." I went back and forth with this idea mainly because I didn't want people to think I was being a bitch. Long story short I just didn't want a bunch of crap taking up space in our house. Christmas is right around the corner and I can't tell people not to get her gifts for Christmas so this was the compromise. We decided to let her immediate family get her gifts (meaning grandparents and her aunts and uncles). It actually worked out perfectly. She got some new clothes which she needed (she's in 24 months now!) and just a few toys. Some people decided to ignore the tag which was fine, I mean I don't think I could not buy some clothes for a little kid, it's too hard to resist!
We had two separate parties, a family one that was on her actual birthday and a friend party the following weekend. We had to split it up because our family is massive, we had her family party at my aunt's house where there is plenty of room for everyone. I really tried not to go crazy. She's not really into anything yet so we went with a fall/pumpkin theme. I mainly focused on pumpkins and colors. I stuck with green, orange, brown and of course some pink. I headed to my favorite inspiration spot, good old Pinterest! Of course there were million of ideas to choose from but like I said I did not want to go crazy! I decided to do her birthday from 2 to 4 so I wouldn't have to do a meal, call me cheap but hey we're not made of money! We did provide snacks and drinks of course. We had pretzels, crackers, taco dip, chips, soda and coffee. I made cupcakes and a pretty sweet pumpkin cake!
Here's the cake, made by me!
Her cake set up!
Made this sweet little "I am 1" banner for her high chair! It didn't make it all the way through the friend party (it was only construction paper!) so I'm glad we got this shot!
For decorations I just did some fabric garland using the colors to go with the theme and I also made cupcake garland. This was probably my favorite decoration. All you have to do is take some cupcake liners, which is great because they come in so many colors and patterns so they can literally go with everything, you take them and string them along a ribbon and hang them up. It really doesn't get any easier than that!
I also made pumpkins for every month and put her pictures in it, just to show how much she's grown.
Some other DIY things were a birthday banner, and we got your normal party stuff like paper plates, cups and some plastic ware. I also really wanted to do a chalkboard poster but I didn't want to do a huge one. I wanted to make a smaller one so that we could keep it and display it. I used this tutorial, http://www.hausofgerz.com/2013/07/diy-chalkboard-poster/ and took some ideas from the ones I saw on Pinterest. I also printed out some pictures from her one year photo shoot and put those around too. My friend got some balloons and that was it. It was perfect! I think she enjoyed herself and I had a good time too! Looking at my Pinterest board there were a lot of decorations I wanted to do but I just didn't have time and I really couldn't find any good real pumpkins once Halloween was over, but it worked out well because I wouldn't have had any where to put them!
Here's her chalkboard poster!
I decided against goody bags. I know I personally don't need a bag of crap to take home. I mean let's be honest most of the time it's mostly candy with some dollar store toys thrown in that are going to get lost anyways. Don't get me wrong hats off to those who want to put together a goody bag but honestly I just didn't have time.I don't really have many pictures because at both parties I had no idea where my phone was (which I don't hate because it really allows me to be in the moment instead of constantly checking my phone or looking through the camera) but here's what I've collected from friends & families pictures:
I think she liked everyone singing to her!
Blowing out the candle!
She really liked the cake!
Her fabulous outfit! Which I got for $2.50 at Trendy Tots!
Love this one!
Opening presents!
Checking out the new stuff!
All the babies!
Hanging with Miss Evelyn!
I think I can safely say the party was a success, both parties actually. I think everyone had a good time at both parties and I really liked how everything turned out. There was just enough food and the party wasn't too long. I couldn't ask for a better family or a better group of friends to help celebrate our little girls birthday!
And here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving! Another great day full of family and fun!
Seriously? Could she be any cuter?! Loved this outfit!
My little family!
Mimi with her kids & grandkids
She loved the turkey dinner!
Baby Colton!
Cousins!
