Thanksgiving 2011

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and I'm sure we've all moved on to Christmas preparations, but I just wanted to reflect on our past weekend. I love Thanksgiving. It's such a warm and cozy, relaxed holiday. Of course, I've never been the hostess so that may be why I think it's relaxing. :)  We are always so blessed when we visit family and Thanksgiving was no exception. Great food, lounging in pajama's all day, continuous football and of course awesome company. So much to be thankful for!

Ronan adores his family and I'm pretty sure the feeling is completely mutual. :)  He was in his element with so many people to play with and talk to (I'm pretty sure that by lunchtime Monday Ronan was completely bored with me).  And I sure appreciated not having to be the only one chasing him around! Talk about a vacation!

I wish I had taken more photos, but that's just how lazy I was being...

Ronan definitely loves his time with grandpa, especially tickle tackles

Such a little moocher

hehe. I taught him that. I may regret that one day

Patrick and Rachel joined up with some guys for a morning of touch football. Ro, Jaclyn and I went to cheer them on and get some fresh air.

Cheers to another great Thanksgiving!

Walking!

We finally caught it on video! Ronan is officially walking! He took his first couple of steps on October 12th.  I was completely shocked because he had just started standing on his own the week before.  For a couple of weeks, he would take a few steps here and there - usually 3 or 4 at a time.  Two days before his birthday, he was standing by the chest in our living room and started walking toward me and took 7 or 8 steps! He did it a few more times that night, but never for the video camera of course. He practices all the time but still finds crawling to be much more efficient. I love watching him walk. It is so stinkin' cute. I have to admit though, it's kind of nice Ronan is not a full fledged walker yet - he is already hard to keep up with!

In this clip, he actually started walking back by our dresser, but our camera took a few seconds to get going. Still, so awesome. Way to go bud!

Ronan's Wild Rumpus - Part II

We have such an amazing support system of family and friends and we were so blessed that they could help us celebrate Ronan's first birthday. We had about 30 people squished into our living room and kitchen. It was great!  Thank you everyone for coming! And a super special thank you to the awesome people who helped me get the last of the food ready before the party and who help clean up!!! :)

The birthday boy could sense the excitement and so did not nap AT ALL that day.  Considering that, he did really well during his party. He was so tired, but obviously enjoyed having everyone here and being the center of attention.  He really did not know what to make of his birthday cake, the burning candle or the paparazzi taking his photo.  He kind of looked at us like "what do you want me to do with this thing?" We stuck his fingers in the cake, but he wasn't impressed. He did like feeding it to daddy though. :)

crowned king of all the wild things

Howdy partner

Ro hit the sack pretty early and as an extra special birthday present to his mom, he let me rock him to sleep (so rare).  He was so zonked out, I got this picture right after I put him down.

Ronan's Wild Rumpus - Part I

Ronan is 1!!! Can you even believe it? I barely can even now and the big event happened a week ago.  Reflecting on his upcoming birthday was so bittersweet. We love him so much more now than we could have imagined possible a year ago. He is so fun and interactive and joyful, but we miss that tiny snugly, sleeping baby.  What a good year it has been! We're so thankful to have such a healthy and happy baby and that I've been able to be home and enjoy each moment with him.

Planning Ronan's first birthday party was a fun way for me to stay excited (rather than too reminiscent) for this big event and gave me a chance to use some of my creative skills. So fun. I love parties!

We decided to do a theme for his party (more fun for me!) and went with "Where the Wild Things Are."  Patrick and I both love the book, we even have a couple wild things magnets on our fridge. Ronan is definitely a "wild thing" in his own right, loves dancing and music (hence the wild rumpus), likes to growl at us...so we just thought this theme was perfect. 

For the first part, I'll focus on the theme and decor. I found tons of inspiration online.  I'm thrilled that everything was super inexpensive- The Dollar Tree, JoAnn's coupons and my basement storage areas were my best friends :)  Natural elements (grasses, dried allium, twigs), burlap and jute twine and the colors brown, green and yellow were the main components of the decor.  Luckily, this related so well to the book, because I already had most of it on hand :)

Welcome wreath: $1 wreath covered in burlap scraps. I printed, cut out and hot glued the flags to twine and just tied them on the wreath. I plan to redecorate it for Thanksgiving, if I ever get to it.

These banners are so popular right now, but I still love them! I originally planned to put this banner on his high chair, but that didn't work out. I like it here better :)  I think I spent a couple bucks on a yard of burlap which I was able to use for all of these projects.  I ended up having to hand lettering each flag which was SO much easier than my original plan. This was probably the easiest, fastest project I did and I love it!

Photo Collage - probably everybody's favorite feature, us included! I saw a similar idea on Pinterest, but had so many photos I wanted to expand each month's category to include 4 photos.  Lucky for me, Shutterfly was recently offering a 50 free photos deal. I already had the felt, twine and clothespins, so this project was pretty much free (except shipping cost for the photos)! It is so fun to compare each month side-by-side and see how much Ronan has grown and changed.

I saw this idea on Pinterest too and knew right away I wanted to do something similar above Ronan's high chair.  I bought a couple of packages of tissue paper at the Dollar Tree and used this tutorial. I found the honeycomb balls online and then Patrick had the awesome idea to use our twig ball lights (they are usually on the patio). I love the natural element they add. Way to go babe!

I sure like eating, but making the food for a party isn't really my favorite part :) So, I tried to keep the food simple.  As I was planning the food, I realized a lot of what I was planning was consistent with the color scheme. So I just went with it. Silly, but fun :)

I didn't want to pay a ton of money for a cake that Ronan was either going to smash and/or not be interested in (turned out to be the latter). Again, keeping it simple with boxed cake and canned frosting.  I made the little cake topper. Cute huh?

"Thank you for helping us crown Ronan king of all wild things." Yummy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for each person to take home.

Next up: Part II, focusing on the birthday boy and all of the fabulous people in our lives who truly made this a great party!

Just to prove I'm still here...

I've been a little absent from blogland lately. Or so I'm told ;)  We have had so much going on lately, including Ronan's first birthday!!!, so the blog has just plummeted to the bottom of the list. But I'm working on catching up, so there should be a good backlog of posts here pretty soon :)

I've been trying to get at least a few "1 year" photos of Ronan. This picture pretty much sums up how it's been going.