The Big Birthday Party!!

Okay blog readers..... this will be the longest post I have ever done or probably will ever do!!! This post has over 70 pictures, but I wanted all the special and sweet details of her 1st birthday party to be documented for her book, when I have all the blog posts from her first year printed into a hardback book!!!

I hope you enjoy looking through these pictures of our party as much as we enjoyed celebrating the first birthday of our angel Chloe Faith!!!

So lets get started.........

A couple days before her party, Auntie Jonie sent a whole box full of presents for her!!!

So I put her on the couch with all the gifts from them.  It was so very thoughtful for them to send presents all the way from New Jersey!!!

Now onto the big party!!!  I was so happy with the way her cake turned out!!!  I gave them the colors I wanted and didn't want included with minimal direction and boy they did an amazing job- an it tasted wonderful as well!!!

One of the big presents from Mommy and Daddy was this adorable wagon.  She loves being in it and couldn't take enough rides in it with her friends through out the whole party!!!  So here is Daddy pulling Chloe as we are waiting for all of our friend to arrive!!



Such beautiful smiles.....



This is Chloe and her great-grandma (my precious Nana), she sure loves her Nana.  My Nana prayed so long and hard for me to have a baby before she left this world, and it really warms my heart that she gets to see me as a mom finally and my baby to love her as well.

Daddy fed his baby girl a quick little bottle before all the festivities got started.....



Yeah!!!  Finally our friends began arriving....and so began the wagon rides.  It was actually cold, so all the little ones needed to have their little jackets on, to shield the wind.  Here is Chloe and her little friend Breahna taking a ride.

For the regular readers of this blog, you all know Sarah, our friend we seem to do most everything with!!!  She arrived to help us celebrate too!!

More rides........

We decided to have her party at this really neat park in our city called the Fun Forest, it has swings and slides and hideouts for kids of all ages, so I thought it would be a great place for all the little kiddies to enjoy playing since there is not too many games etc at a 1yr old's party!!!

The friends that had already arrived wanted to go check out the swings while waiting on our other guests, so swinging we went!!  Breahna and Chloe could stay here all day!!!!

and the birthday girl.....all bundled up  )

And look who is here now??!!!  It's my friend Holly and her sweet little boy named Logan!!  She started out as my realtor and has become a dear friend!!

Woooo hooooo, Sarah is getting some serious air under that swing!!!!  LOL

Taking another wagon ride, back to the party table now, to get this party started!!!!!



This was the setup, under the trees and just outside the playground, hence it's called the Fun Forest"

Look at all those presents she was showered with!!!!  Chloe is one loved little girl!!!

Silly silly Daddy, ever the comedian, I looked over and saw this.  Daddy was wearing Chloe's headband on his head,

and Chloe was looking at him and pointing like "Daddy, that goes on my head!"

So we all started to eat some healthy food, before filling them all up on sugary icing and candy..... Here is Sweet Sarah drinking her juice and eating a chip or two!!!

Logan too!!!

and little Bre was trying to figure it all out!!!

When it finally came time to sing and let her smash her cake, Chloe was not a fan of the

birthday hats!!  :)

I am so thankful my Mom thought to snap this picture of the three of us, or I wouldn't have a family picture from the whole day!!  Things get so busy, you just forget!!!

Another friend that came to celebrate with us, was our dear friend Erica and her little mini-me Serendipity, whom we have nicknamed "Seren".

We had people coming and going most of the party, but I tried to capture most everyone in this group shot, but of course my Mom was taking the picture, so she is not in this one........

But in this one we have grandma included, but somehow we lost Tonya and Sarah and Ginna and her baby Madeleine had not arrived yet!!!  And of course Chloe is not looking at the camera in any of them!!! Oh well!

 
This picture struck me as cute, the expression that Tonya was making just cracked me up!!!  Tonya you can tell me later if you remember what this discussion was all about!!!?

Finally......time to smash her cake!!!!  She was very apprehensive at first like I'm sure most babies
are at this grand moment......  but after a  little coaxing......

She decided she liked the sweet icing and she began to squish and smash it all her self.

  She wasn't too big a fan of having it all between her fingers, but

.......she is always willing to share with anyone as you can see.

This picture is one of the funniest from the whole day!!  She looks like she is

 saying "Here everybody, have some cake!!"



Grandma trying to help her out a little more before
we clean up and start opening presents!!!

Before we open presents, we found another friends who came to our party!!!  Ginna and her sweet little Madeline arrived to play!!!  Ginna is one of my sweet friends that I met through the Operation Hope group I am a part of, and I blogged about the group several months ago. 

Daddy had to take a peak at the damage as well.....

Yep, I think she pretty well took care of that smash cake!!!  She really enjoyed it!

So as I was helping Chloe open her presents, my Mom and Aunt were helping to cut her beautiful cake and serving cake and ice cream to everyone!!!  I loooooved this cake, I really hated to even cut it,
but that is what it was bought for--- to eat!!!

Friends making new friends..... Madeline and Seren were having a little "chat"  LOL

Let the present opening begin!!!!  Our sweet friend Sarah gave Chloe her very

own Graco baby doll stroller and her first soft baby doll!!!  She loved them!!!

Next up, she received a really fun book called "Tickle Monster!"  It is written in all rhyming words and the person reading can play with the baby and tickle all their parts being discussed in the pages.  Such a neat gift and we already loooove it!!!  Thanks Ginna and Madeline!!!

I love this picture, because it looks like Chloe

 is actually modeling the book for the camera!!  Ha!

She received new Gymboree outfits from Grandma!!! 

Makes Mommy happy, Chloe....not so much  :)

Auntie Joanie sent tons of little alphabet wooden blocks......  these are being put up right now,

but in about 6 months she will be all over these!!!  Soooo fun!!

New bath squirters for fun bubble baths that she is now old enough to enjoy!!!  YEAH!!

As I said earlier, she is no fan of clothes.....  I must try to change this in her....

Remember Chloe girls LOVE to shop... Love to shop!!!!!  She received a beautiful white

fur dress coat and pink fur lined boots from Aunt Betty!  Thanks!!

More fun toys.....  this is a cool remote controlled techno light up car from Robin and Breahna!!!  She loves this thing, it goes and goes and goes and......yeah!

Her first vanity case, complete with its own humongous lipstick  LOL- can you see it just to the left of Chloe's hand?  Its a big square red bottom and a pink plastic tip!!!  It sings and we get such a laugh out of it sometimes..

Then Mommy and Daddy gave her her second present from us, other than her wagon, we gave her this FisherPrice activity table!  She loooooved it!

Not only did Chloe love it, Sarah came over and wanted to check it out as well!!

I love it when the girls start babbling away with each other like they really are carrying on a whole conversation!! 

 then Madeleine decided she wanted to play too!!!  Hey the more the merrier!!  Because the girls were getting so into it, I took it partially out of the box, without putting the legs on it,

so everyone could play together!

and I really REALLY love this picture!! 

My girl and all her sweet little friends playing around together!

Well that was basically the party!!  So after all that fun, we were cleaning up all the trash and gathering up the presents and packing up food etc.  When I noticed that my Mom's present of this sweet little baby stroller toy had not been given to Chloe yet.  So I grabbed it, put it on the ground in front of her, and began to show her how to push it.......  Well let's just say we got the surprise of our lives!!!

She began to walk all over the place, like she had been doing this for ever!!!  I was jumping up and down and yelling as she was cruising all over the place!!

She had so much fun.......she was doing all by herself....

for the very first time!!!  She is so sweet, and so adorably cute while pushing this tiny little stroller with a special pink penguin in it, my Mom could not have picked anything more perfect for her!!

She was having so much fun!!!  And i was just snapping picture after picture!!!

Not long after that we loaded up and headed on home.  Chloe was asleep in her car seat before we even got onto the main road from the park grounds.  She literally wore herself out!

As we carried all her presents and stuff into our house, I thought I would take a few pictures of all her gifts together, so one day when she looks back at this, she can see how much she is loved!!!

One very blessed little girl!!!

and one very tired Daddy!!!

Sometimes I wonder if somewhere within me during those very hard days, when the thought of never being a mom washed over me like a grey cloud, there was a small part of me that knew;

a part of me that knew somehow I was being prepared for the 

miraculously beautiful journey Sweetness and I would soon be on.

This journey has been extraordinary.

This journey has been painful.

This journey of infertility, adoption and now parenthood has been divinely directed every step of the way.  We had no idea that the little girl that made me a Momma would be born with a complicated genetic disease that would bring me to the brink of my faith and back. 

But this journey has unearthed hidden treasure within me.  I feel it.  I like it. 

I love it.  I love being a mother.  I love being her everything (along with Daddy of course).

She makes me want to be a better person, she makes me try harder, and love deeper.

I am the most blessed woman in the world....Chloe Faith you are everything my heart dreamed of

and a whole lot more than I ever could allow myself to imagine.

This first year is only the beginning of our lifetime of love.  

You were not flesh of my flesh,

nor bone of my bone;

but still miraculously, MY OWN.

Never forget Chloe, for a single minute,

that you didn't grow under my heart,  but in it.

We love you so much!!! 

Love, Mommy & Daddy