PAR-TEE! PAR-TEE! PAR-TEE!

So, that title is our family chanting "party" before the big event.  And yes, I'm one of those mom's that (once again I vowed I'd never be) and had to invite a billion 26 people for Luke's party.  And 14 kids. 

YES.  It was a tiny bit insane.  But I "kinda" love to throw a party.  And since we never had a baby shower with our friends we used this opportunity to celebrate our little dude.

I actually took pictures.  LOTS AND LOTS of pictures (over 150!) so the good news is, some day Luke will know his mom threw him a killer party.  Until then, I'm glad birthdays only come around once a year!

The invitations:

And some decorations hanging the night before the party:


Comic book birthday banner

  

A picture from each month over the last year

 



A comparison of the first diaper size to now

 

Superhero cape for each friend



And of course there had to be a phone book for the transformation to superhero!





Setting up the dessert spread...

Which got a little out of control.  What can I say?  We like sweets!  There was cake.  And cake pops (like 80...oops).  And oreo truffles.  And candy.  So when I say setting up.  Seriously.  This is a small fraction of what we ended up with!  I could NOT have had all this yummy deliciousness (or the tummy ache that ensued from eating one of everything....again, oops) without my MIL's help.  She's a baking queen!



Luke's own smash cake


WHICH HE LOVED!!!!!

And the cake for everyone else was delicious too!

Disclaimer:  this isn't a picture of our cake, but it's what we sent to our cake lady.  Who managed to do EXACTLY what we wanted!  PRECIOUS!

Here's some of the cute guests:



















The Guest of Honor, aka mini Bat Boy









Yay!  Got a cute one by our photo booth (otherwise that would have been a complete bomb since the kids didn't want to stand still for a silly pic!)




Case in Point:

The older boys and some of the daddies  relocated to the game room for some fuseball...

The baking Queen (my MIL) loving on the guest of honor.

Luke had a batman cape since I had a hunch there might be a REAL superhero showing up!

 And there was lots and Lots of catching up with friends and eating good food!  I feel like as everyone was leaving I found myself saying "We miss ya'll!  Can we get together soon please?!?!?"  The thing is...I meant it with each and every one of these great friends.  Now that we live in the burbs...and we have a baby toddler...it's been so long since we've been able to have a big group over and we loved seeing every one of their sweet faces.

AND, you won't believe it, but look who showed up to surprise the Bday boy!!!

(Daddy, you're such a good sport.  I KNOW that was hot but you rocked it!)

Happy Birthday, Luke James.  You show us your super hero strength EVERY day (for good or bad)!  You're the coolest and we love you so much...MUAH!

We have ourselves a one year old!

WOW.  We have a one year old as of August 6!  CUH-RAY-ZEE.  I can't even put this past year into words.  I'm more than grateful at how far we've come -- as a baby, as parents, as a family.  I'm thrilled with Luke's progress, my growth as a mama and, let's be honest, really excited to be sleeping through the night.  But in a way, this was bitter sweet re-visiting all the memories of the fear and anxiety of a year ago.  Soooooo many times this week I caught myself remembering exactly what I was doing at that exact moment a year ago.  It's a strange feeling for me to re-live the past and something I don't find myself doing often. 
That being said, we partied like it's 1999 2012.  Saturday was Luke's birthday party, which deserves it's own post.  So let me back up.  Last weekend, I took pictures of Luke for his first birthday pictures.  Here's a couple favorites (but keep in mind I had to take over 100 pictures to get a couple gems...AND since I'm no pro, these are totally untouched)

Kinda in love with them, or just my lil dude. 

So, let's re-cap on the last year in a waaaaaay bird's eye view.

This time last year, literally about an hour ago, I was being wheeled into L&D and apparently the nurses all knew we'd be meeting our little guy pretty soon but I thought we'd head to dinner after I was monitored for a bit.  Oh, and we had our couples shower the next night so we didn't want to scare anybody so we could still go.  Ooops.  Within about 15 hours, we met our lil guy.  Since then he's gained roughly seven times his body weight.  He's gone from preemie diapers to newborn, 1, 2, and now 3.   We went from feeding him 1 ounce every three hours and now he's eating some solids (turkey, chicken, apples, and CHEERIOS!!!) and eight ounces of milk just at sleepy time (half cow's milk - yay!- half mommy's).  There was a point when he couldn't wear clothes because even preemie clothes were too big.  NOW, we've caught up and are mostly in twelve months.  And really - that's just the stats.  The reality of our journey this past year would be a book, not a blog post, so I'll just carry that in my heart for now.

For the current stats, check back Wednesday since we go for his one year on Tuesday afternoon.  And say a prayer that I can be as strong as Luke during his shots.  It's real humiliating to cry when your baby toddler is sitting all stoic. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET BOY!  You are the coolest kid I know. It was scary for a bit but we love that you march to the beat of your own drum.  Keep it up, kiddo!