A Sigh of Relief!

So, it's been 4 days since Maddy's 1st birthday party, and I'm still exhausted from it! =) I have barely cleaned up LOL...we still have streamers on our ceiling, but at least all the balloons are gone! I have quite a few pictures that I want to post, so you'll have the bare with me :)

The one thing that threw me off balance that day was the fact that I TOTALLY forgot what time I put on the invites that the party was going to start. I had been thinking for WEEKS that the party started at 5pm-7pm, and was reminding a couple of friends about the time. Well, she calls that day just to verify the time, b/c I told her 5pm but the card said 4pm! YIKES!!! How did I forget that? So, I lost an hour of precious time to cook, clean, and organize everything. Then when I had Jeff go pick up the cake, which was supposed to be ready by 2pm, they were running late, and didn't finish by 2:30, then the people at the balloon store lost the slip of when we were going to pick up the balloons. So they didn't start blowing them up until Jeff got to the store! Those just peeved me, since I really needed him to be home to help put the decorations up, etc. But everything got done, and I think everyone enjoyed the food and the cake was SOOOOO delicious! There wasn't a single person who didn't say the cake was extremely good!



I had them make the very top layer a jumbo cupcake, so I could take that piece off and give it to Maddy as her own personal cake! It worked out great! And Maddy seemed to LOVE it! She almost ate the whole thing.



And this was Maddy right before we gave her the cake...she was patiently waiting ;)







"I WANT CAKE!!! I WANT CAKE!!!"









All in all, I think it went well...but it's so hard to tell when YOU are the one throwing the party, instead of enjoying yourself at someone else's party! I had a HUGE sigh of relief when all was said and done that evening! All the kids went to bed with no complaints, which shocked me to no end, since they had so much cake and ice cream right before bedtime. But I guess all the excitement from the day just wore them out. Sam and Cora were loving the fact that they had their cousins over so they got to play all evening. Okay, here are the rest of the pictures from that day that I wanted to share with you all...





This is just the view of the kitchen and some of the balloons that were up.

I got a shot of my sister's beautiful girls on the left sitting with Sammy and Cora on the stairs.















Here are some pictures of Maddy in her Korean Hambok. If you read my previous post, you would have seen Maddy in a different dress. I actually was borrowing the other dress from my sister, and was going to get Maddy her own dress at a later date...but my mother had made the comment that that was the whole purpose of the dress, to wear it on their first birthday. And I totally get that! So, my mother went out and bought Maddy her own dress, and I really appreciated it, since it was more expensive then I would have liked to have paid for! So that is why her dress looks different. Another Korean tradition that is done at the 1st birthday is what one of Jeff's friend's son so lovingly calls "the picking thing" LOL (you know who you are!). There are four things placed on a white table: some yarn/string, books, money, and some pencils. The yarn represents long life, the books represent being a scholar, the money (big shocker) represents fortune/prosperity, and the pencils represent a writer/creativity. These things are placed in front of the baby to see which one they touch or pick up first. Maddy immediately went for the pencils!! *clap, clap* I remember Cora went for the money, and Sammy went for the pencils too.





Maddy did such a great job blowing out her candle, of course, it didn't hurt that her big brother, sister, and 2 cousins were right there next to her blowing LOL!










Okay the last 2 pictures I wanted to share were of one of her presents. It was a stuffed bear from Build-a-bear, and she loved it :)





"NO DON'T TOUCH IT!! IT'S MINE!
















Big Hugs!











Another present that Maddy (and hey, let's face it, Cora and Sammy) LOVE to play with, is a big doll house that my sister and her family got for Maddy. Sammy will play with "the boy" which is really the Dad, and Cora will play with "the girl" which is the Mommy, and Maddy chews on the baby. It's quite adorable!



Oh, a funny, yet not so funny story that happened around 2am this morning. I had just got done waking Sammy up for his 2am pee-pee time (I do this b/c he doesn't always make it till morning, and I hate cleaning up pee sheets) and I had gotten into bed, when I heard Cora start screaming and screaming. She will do this 2 or 3 nights out of the week, so I wasn't surprised. But when I got into her room she was on one side of her bed, and her babydoll was on the other side. when I walked in she immediately said "Baby's.... EEEEYYYYESSSS (eyes)!!!" "They are closed! I'm scared! Take it out, take it out! You sleep with her, mommy". I was giggling so hard on the inside, but I didn't want her to think I thought it was funny, so I held it in. I think the shadows in the room made it look like her doll's eyes were closed. And this is a doll which she's had since before she was 1, and she's absolutely LOVED this doll to death and would never go to bed without her. I'm a little sad that she's so scared of it now, that she won't sleep with her, I'm hoping after some time, she'll be okay with the doll. She must have been really scared, b/c the first thing she talked about when she woke up this morning was how scared she was about Baby's eyes! hehhehe!