.our family love story.: .nyah is one.

Last month, our little girl turned one. It seems like not that long ago, I held her in my arms for the first time and she filled our hearts with more love than we ever imagined possible. Everyday since that moment has been so special. I have really tried to hang on to and cherish every minute. The weeks leading up to her birthday were very emotional for me. I can't tell you how many times I laid with her, watching her sleep, listening to every one of her breaths (trying to cry silent tears so I wouldn't wake her up) wondering how I got so lucky. What an amazing first year we have had.

I pretty much had Nyah's birthday planned by the time she was 2 hours old. Ok.... maybe not that soon but you get the idea! I had my theme and decorations all planned. The theme was going to be "little lamb" and the colours were blush, cream and browns. I ordered our invitations off Etsy and it came with a bunch of different decorations that we could print... bunting flags, favor tags, food cards etc... It was awesome! Because the theme was "little lamb" I wanted to incorporate wool into the decor so I had this great idea to make yarn balls to display in glass vases and a yarn covered letter "N". Who knew I would be so terrible at crafts!!!! Luckily, Jay was Martha Stewart in a previous life and totally made ALL the wool decorations. He even painted a large canvas painting to put above the fire place that matched our invitations!

The party was on her actual birthday, Sunday, November 18 from 11am till 2:00pm, so I had planned to serve a lovely brunch. I had these great ideas... mini caramel apples, cinnamon bun pops with cream cheese dip, french toast skewers, mini pancakes...etc... that all went out the window! The Thursday night before the party I got really sick. I'm not talking "cough cough" sick, take a tylenol and feel better sick... I mean really sick. I was throwing up every hour and to make it even worse Nyah was of course still nursing throughout the night so I would just finish losing my cookies in bathroom and then I would have to nurse her. Talk about draining. I wanted to die. Thank goodness the worst of it only lasted 24 hours. The timing of this flu bug couldn't have been worse. I had to readjust some of my ideas and had to rely on a lot of people for help.

When it came to the actual day of the party, I was in way over my head. There was so much to do and so little time. Thankfully Jay recognized that I was on the verge of a serious meltdown and called in his family to help with the set up. And luckily a few weeks before I had recruited Deanne "the party planning expert" to come early and help me. Without their help, everyone would have starved and I probably would have had to been hospitalized in the padded room for the crazies!!

All in all, the party was a success. Nyah had so much fun and I got to enjoy watching my girl celebrate her first birthday with the people she loves (But we were missing my mom and dad because my mom wasn't feeling well enough to make the trip from Kamloops).

One of the best decisions we made was to hire a photographer to come and capture the party for us. It was so nice to not have to stress out about missing important photo opportunities. We have worked with Roger from m&m photographie before and his work is amazing. Enjoy his photos... there are lots... it was too hard to choose just a few!