1 year ago today our sweet and beautiful little Vivian came into our life and what a joy she has been to our family. I've been emotional today thinking about her birth and thinking back on my feelings when she was born. She has seriously been one of those babies that every mother wishes for...she very rarely cried, went right to sleep when you put her down, smiled all the time and snuggled when you held her. When I'm standing in the checkout line with her in the cart or strolling with her in the stroller I always get oooohs and ahhhhs over her. She has the best little rolls of baby fat and chubby cheeks that are simply irresistable. She has these sweet little twinkly eyes and the cutest chuckle. She will smile for anyone!
Her brothers and sister just adore her. When she wakes up from her nap the boys argue over who gets to go get her up. In the morning if she wakes up before me, Isaac will get her out of bed and play with her until I wake up. I think "Isaac" was Vivi's first real word. She's been saying it since this summer. She also says "Zack and Daddy and hat and dog" and she has said "Mama" only 3 times. She cries when Josie is crying and loves when Josie plays the tickle game with her.
She just recently started playing this game where she gets on the bottom stair and then waits for me to look at her. When she sees I'm watching her she smiles and chuckles and starts crawling up the stairs as fast as she possibly can. She loves to stand at the dishwasher and hand me the dishes one by one as I put them away--when I'm trying to load the dirty dishes she comes over to play that game and gets frustrated with me because I won't put the dirty dishes away. One really funny thing about Vivi that I want to remember is that she never learned to roll over as a baby. When I would put her down on her back she was pretty much stuck in that position. She could sit and crawl and do all sorts of things but rolling over was not one of them. She's finally figured it out, but still if I lie her on her back to change her diaper or get her dressed she will start trying to sit up by doing a situp crunch instead of rolling over first. So funny. Maybe that's why she's been such a good sleeper, she's been stuck on her back!
She loves almost all food, but is not a big bread fan. Her favorite is fruit of any kind. She would get so excited when we would go out and pick berries off our strawberry and raspberry bushes. She would grunt and grunt until we would give her another one. She also loves noodles.
I seriously wish I could just freeze time right now and keep her a baby forever. I love you baby Vivian! Happy Birthday. I will forever miss you as a baby.
Here's a photo recap of this wonderful year...
I was tucking her in to bed and she said,
1 year ago today our sweet and beautiful little Vivian came into our life and what a joy she has been to our family. I've been emotional today thinking about her birth and thinking back on my feelings when she was born. She has seriously been one of those babies that every mother wishes for...she very rarely cried, went right to sleep when you put her down, smiled all the time and snuggled when you held her. When I'm standing in the checkout line with her in the cart or strolling with her in the stroller I always get oooohs and ahhhhs over her. She has the best little rolls of baby fat and chubby cheeks that are simply irresistable. She has these sweet little twinkly eyes and the cutest chuckle. She will smile for anyone!
Actually this picture brings back painful memories. We had hiked down to this beach and Zack got completely wet and had to hike back in wet jeans--ouch!
Another event that happened this summer that I thought I should post about for memory's sake is that Hammy (our pet hamster) died. He lived for about 1 1/2 years. Isaac got him for Christmas two years ago. I have been counting down the days for this to happen and I must say I didn't feel one bit of remorse. I couldn't stand the boys bedroom smelling like a hamster and I am NOT a pet person at all. The boys didn't seem too sad about it, they liked him, but were never too into playing with him. Josie, on the other hand, was sad about it for days. She would suddenly just get sad and say, "Mom, Hammy is dead!" Then the other day she was watching the movie "Land Before Time" and she started sobbing. I came downstairs and asked what was wrong and she told me that the Mommy died and was crying so hard about it. Then a few days ago she had a hangnail and was fussing about it and said, "Mom, I think I gonna die." I assured her she wasn't and she said, "yes I am Mom, every person die." 
When the kids arrived we had them order on their menus what they want to eat and then I gave them a sheet that they could use to design their own pokemon. I told them that they would be sent off to the factory and made into super exclusive pokemon cards that only they would have. After the party I scanned in the images and used this website http://mypokecard.com/en/ to create the cards according to the paper they filled out. Then I printed enough cards so everyone at the party got a copy of all the cards that were created and I wrapped them in foil and sent them with the thank you cards.
Here's a sample of the completed packs 
and these were the cards...
For the cake I borrowed one of those ball cake pans and made a round pokeball. Unfortunately I made it the night before and by the next day it was sagging a bit because I covered it in fondant. But we made these individual pokemon cupcakes for each kid to match their pokeball necklace we made for them. Thanks Kirsten and Eve for helping me with the cupcakes and cake...we stayed up way into the night the day before the party doing these. 
Then much to our surprise....Grandma sent Isaac a candy cake in the mail for his birthday. She has made him a birthday cake every year since he was born because we are usually in Utah on his birthday, but this year it didn't work out, so she sent this fun cake in the mail. It was a huge hit...do you wonder why???
We played a game called "Make Isaac a Dusclop" (a Dusclop is a mummy-looking pokemon).
We gave them their pokeball necklaces and sent them over to the park to collect all 130 pokemon that we had printed on cardstock and stapled all over the park. Then they came back to the house for dinner. Then we played this game where they had to throw water balloons at the pokemon on the fence to see how many points they could get...
Here's the birthday boy blowing out his candles...
This is the pinata we made to look like a pokeball. I just bought a soccer ball pinata and painted it. Although I should have made my own because it wasn't very strong and broke as soon as Zack got up to bat, so most of them didn't get a chance to swing at it.
It was such a fun party and I was so glad to have Nana and Papa here to help out and be a part of things. Isaac keeps telling me that it was his best birthday party yet. 
