Nolan’s 1st Party!

Hello!

Last weekend we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday with a big party! It’s been a long time since I have been at his house. I told my mom that he had to been around three months at the time, because Brandon and I were watching Black Panther after it just came out on DVD. It was very difficult to keep my eyes on the screen and not on a certain little baby in the pack-n-play! He was surprisingly very good for us, until towards the ending where he wanted to be fed quickly and he wasn’t – he wasn’t very happy! He has yet to grow out of that by the way!

The theme of the party had changed a few times over the coming months, but ultimately they decided on one thing: Llamas! So, in March, my sister found him this cute little llama stuffed toy at the store for Easter and he apparently liked it so much that she set out to find other items to fit in that theme, thus making the entire party about llamas. The only thing that wasn’t in a llama shape was the cake, although she did try to find someone to make one for her back in May!

One of my favorite things that had llamas on it, were our shirts that Blondie found for us. Both sides of the family were given customize T-Shirts of a black silhouette of a llama with whatever we are to Nolan. For example, I am his “auntie” so that’s what I got on mine, but both of his grandmothers have different names. My mom is “Mimi” while Brandon’s mom is “Grammie” to him. I have always had a small stack of tops that fit perfectly on my shoulders and if there was a special design on the front, it isn’t blocked by my hands the whole time the stack was even smaller! I’m very glad to tell you that I can add this to the pack! You can see everything, I love it so much!

My mom and I were the first ones to get there. I was greeted by Chipper and the cats. Chipper was SO excited to see us, but the look on Nolan’s face when he realized that Mimi was the one waking him up from a nap in his crib, was so cute! He was so surprised! He looked stunned when he found out I was there too! We were there about 10 minutes before my dad and our “uncle” Russell came over. Nolan was very happy to see his papaw! He just wrapped his small arms around his neck (and beard) and my dad was all too happy to deny him. Nolan was a little unsure about Russell at first but after a couple of minutes, he actually asked to be held by him and it was so adorable.

They were originally supposed to have 30+ people coming to the party, but since we were under a Tornado warning all afternoon, we were happy with the small get together instead. It was an interesting mix of people though, the best thing was everybody got along perfectly! We ate food, chit-chat with one another, played with Nolan. Our friend Jayde, who is expecting her first baby boy later this year, ate around three cupcakes. She and I made a deal that she could have the cupcakes and I can have the broccoli. I love broccoli! She fully agreed to that! I’m actually shocked on how little I snacked though, because I’m known to eat quite a bit at parties but there wasn’t a lot of room for me to eat by myself or have my mom feed me easily without being in the way of little guy eating his strawberries in his high chair! Honestly, I made myself a deal at the end of the party, I was going to have one vanilla cupcake. I did get my cupcake, but I almost regretted it on the way home…

After everybody grabbed a seat, we decided it was time to open some presents. He got a LOT of interesting toys for his birthday! The first one that “he” opened was from his Grammie and his aunties too. Blondie opened the cards first, which is always a nice gesture even though they are usually the last present anybody ever wants to open, because they usually have a message inside that could make you cry in front of your guests. Nolan was another story entirely, he loved his cards! The one that his Grammie got him had shiny glitter inside the number one symbol on the front, so you could essentially shake it like a snow globe and everything will move around. He literally did not want to put it down! It was in his right hand during the rest of the unwrapping.

These are some of the gifts that I could remember of the party.

• A small red and blue slide (that was wrapped in Batman paper! I loved it, and I’m not a big fan of him either!)
• A large stack of different summery clothes.
• Bubble making lawn mower
• Tool bench and belt full of tools he’ll need to fix my ‘broken’ wheelchairs
• A standing drum set
• A big yellow truck to put all of his toys
• Paw Patrol trucks with characters of the show
• A book for bedtime made specifically for him as it has a blond baby named Nolan.

There were a lot more that you will see at in the gallery below. He will certainly be really busy making lots of noises in the next few months! My sister actually sent mom a picture of him standing at the drum kit in the middle of the pack-n-play without any help of the walls after the party was over! We’re getting closer to seeing cutie pie walking around on his own.

Once we were finished with the presents, we moved on watching him eat his smash cake. For this, he had to become semi-naked and as much as he loves being like this, he absolutely hates taking off his clothes! After everything was off, he was placed in his high chair again. I will be inserting the before and after pictures of the cake itself in a minute, but Nolan isn’t necessarily a messy eater, he likes to inspect things so he was really puzzled by this cake at first. He literally only would stick one finger into it at a time. Brandon quickly realized that we’d be here forever if he continues doing this, so to make things go faster, he literally grabbed Nolan’s hands and planted them right into the cake! Nolan was not sure what to do with all of the icing on his hands so he was literally shaking his arms but he actually accepted the fact that it did taste pretty good!

The part that made me remember that I am still teaching him things without even realizing it, was when he started leaning his mouth into the cake. As everybody was laughing and taking pictures at this, I was like “oh, crap!” Whenever I eat in the kitchen, he is at the same level as me, so he can watch me like a hawk, because I do lean into my plate so my tongue can reach everything. So seeing the now one year old mimicking what I do for every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, was pretty cute! He was trying his best to get into it, to the point that my sister actually had to hold the cake up in front of him to reach with his mouth! He’s such a smart cookie!

Once he was done eating the cake–well, actually his mommy had to take it away from him! He wasn’t very happy about that, but after he was basically washed down with many, many wipes, he was rewarded with his new toys! He quickly went back to his tool belt and started waving it around in the air. This was also the time where half of the guests were leaving to go home. Russell and dad were one of the firsts to leave because we needed them to be ready to get back into the house, which was a fun mini adventure on its own!

My mom and I left about 10 minutes later, but we were going to get food from Applebee’s and it was roughly a 20-25 minute wait to pick everything up, we decided to go look at the expensive houses in town. I’ve been watching Property Brothers like crazy lately so this was my jam! However between the two of us, we realized how different our tastes in houses were as far as exterior design goes! I still love my ranch-style houses, but even I started finding some of these larger houses to be very beautiful, especially that Tudor house! Once our 20 minutes were up, we went to pick up our food and eventually made our way home!

I had an awesome time spending the day with a great bunch of people, and what I think really made it better was the fact that after the small storm we had, the sky actually perked up. It was sunny again, which was really nice considering how much rain we’ve had in the last couple of weeks or so! I also had lots of fan watching my little nephew enjoy time with each family and friends as well!

What do you think is the most weirdest theme for a birthday? What did you think of my day too?

Skull Inspired Wishlist

I’ve got two months left until my birthday! A few of you are probably looking at that sentence and going, “Meghan, September isn’t over yet!!” When your date of birth lands on the first of the month once a new month begins it’s perfectly acceptable to take that month out completely! Now that I have that part of the way, I can say that this really isn’t a birthday wishlist. I’ve been inspired by other bloggers and their different themed wishlists. One day I’ll have a cat themed wishlist on here, just you watch and see!

Back in late July, I made a homeware wishlist of different things to help my nana and I to bake things in her kitchen. I went looking for things that would be good for people who can’t grip as good as they used to, my grandparents are getting older and gripping certain stuff like pens and kitchen utensils are getting more and more difficult to do. So that’s why I wanted to do that post but by the time I had finished the post, it seemed too chaotic and I didn’t see a way to fix it so I just ended up getting rid of it. I might recreate a similar post one day, but right now we’re talking about skulls! One of my favorite things that apparently I don’t have enough of in my closet! I have like three shirts with skulls on them, that are not band related and I have two pants with different types of skulls on them. Like I said before, I don’t have enough! My mom would probably disagree but I know I wouldn’t hear a peak from my dad because he’s just as bad as me!

Skull Cut-Out Shoulder Top – Hot Topic //Skull Pink Floral Kimono – Hot Topic //Black Bow Headband – Hot Topic //Skull & Rose Watercolor Wallet – Hot Topic// Evil Skull Bank – Spencer’s

When I was going to find different things to include on this wishlist, I told myself “no band tees” because as much as I want new ones, I have enough! I think I had to tell myself about ten times while scrolling through both Hot Topic and Spencer’s. I had a lot of problems with what I wanted to include in this post. If you’ve read my previous wishlist posts before, you know I try to keep everything under $20 and this one I didn’t care what the price range was, I just went with what I liked for once! if you love skulls just as much as I do, you can click on each link underneath the picture and purchase the item(s) you like the most.

I went on four different websites, but ultimately got lucky with Hot Topic and Spencer’s. Let’s start with the shirts I’ve selected. I found the one on the left first. I actually love shirts like this, that have cut outs or fall off the shoulders completely, with Arthrogryposis, our shoulders are a little awkwardly shaped. They’re much smaller and so necklines that are wide are like our worst enemies. I’ve always had trouble keeping my shirts up on my shoulders. By the time I was in middle school, I had given up on fixing them and just letting them off. I love the cut outs on this shirt. If you click on the link, the back of the shirt has small cut outs. It’s pretty awesome! Another thing that drew me into the shirt was that fact it’s not just skulls, it’s got roses on it! I’ve never been a big fan of roses but I feel it’s most used flower to include with skulls. So I deal with it. The next one isn’t a shirt or jacket per se, it’s a kimono and I love how these are becoming a popular fashion trend! They’re light and soft, which would be perfect for my hands as they can be sensitive to different textures. I just loved this one! It’s so pretty, even though it’s pink! I like how I managed to pick two different items that have some girly touches to them!

Now onto the accessories! This was another thing I had to tell myself to stay away from but I mean it as stay from the jewelry! I have more than enough bracelets to last me a few years! I’ll say I have all these bracelets and I don’t even wear that much as I’d like to. I think I’m more afraid to wear my spikey ones because I’ve been told by different family members that they could be used as weapons! Anyways, I had to get creative with selecting other stuff. My hair is in that awkward placement where it’s not short, but not long enough yet to be put up in a ponytail so we’ve resorted to using headbands, but I only have a plain black one. I found this one and I kind of fell in love with it. It has skulls. It has a bow and it’s black! What else do you need? One of the things that women and girls have are purses in different sizes and quirky designs. I’ve had a few in my lifetime, but I’ve never had a wallet and I feel like that wallet was pretty cool! Not dark, but unique or I could just get that shiny gold skull on the left side of it. It’s a bank, can’t say it’s a “piggy” bank because it’s not a pig but look at it!! I love it! It’s so me right?!?!

So what do we think about everything I’ve included into this post? What would you buy first?