Monday, June 9, 2014

Finley's First Fete

In honor of Fin's birthday- one week away!- I wanted to share our first "birthday" celebration we held for her. This post was originally written September 15, 2013. (And finally finished last night. If we're lucky, her actual birthday will be documented in the same calendar year in which it occurs. No promises.)

This weekend we had a special little gathering at our house...to celebrate this little lady's first birthday!


Confused?

Well, it's a little tradition we've latched on to, marking the milestone of "9 months in, 3 months out". So though we only met Miss Fin three months ago, she's been with us for a whole year now! And since I need almost no excuse to throw a party, this seemed as good a reason as any to host a get together of our nearest and dearest.


And though it's a fun milestone to celebrate, I had to remind myself it's not her actual birthday, so any amount of effort in planning a party would be overkill (you know, even more overkill than elaborate parties are for real first birthdays. Excessive on top of excessive). It made the most sense to host it at our house vs. going out for a meal, because then the older kids could play (Fin is amassing quite the clan of older "cousin-friends"). So I agreed to keep it low key, and we planned a "Sunday of Sundaes". Just a few close friends, and a whole lot of sugar. I figure it's best to keep it casual, especially when the guest of honor might not even wear pants.

It was pretty much madness as we wrangled babies and toddlers who I swear were babies five minutes ago. So we didn't get a ton of pictures, but we managed to prioritize a few pics of the "birthday" girl before she fell asleep or puked on her outfit. (for you sentimental folks- it was a dress I designed, and her sister wore on her special un-birthday too.)



 Her hands kill me. Not to mention her face. 

 Seriously. The faces.


She was wide-eyed as ever, and tolerated the chaos and attention well...until...she didn't.


But her fury was short lived and she crashed peacefully on her daddy.


It was a bit more hectic than her sister's party, just over a year and a half ago. By the end we had a living room covered in toys, the boys were out back playing some sort of game they dubbed "smashball", Piper was crowded around a never-discarded Home Depot bucket with her friends, forming a subway-style toddler band, and we were organizing a KFC run for those still in attendance. So there wasn't much time for waxing poetically about what this community has meant to us, and no formal toast thanking them for being the net that gets us through the craziest parts of this life we've been blessed with.

But as they all scooped up their babies, or even just someone's baby, chatted between sticky bites of shared melty ice cream, and helped keep most of the popcorn chicken from ending up on the rug, I'm pretty sure they got it. We couldn't do this without them, and are beyond grateful to have this family of faith alongside us for the wildest of rides.

Happy Birthday, Fin. You are so very loved.

2 comments :

  1. So adorable, and what a great tradition! Happy birthday Fin!

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  2. i love this tradition and hate that you came up with it and I never thought of it. okay, kinda on that last part, but seriously, I love any and all reasons to celebrate- for more reasons to celebrate see here http://www.mhprofessional.com/templates/chases/

    please let me be the first to share that with you...

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