This is Garrison, on his actual birthday, February 5, 2009.
This is the 3 of us at Garrison's 1st birthday party, February 6, 2010
Okay, on to the present and how the big birthday celebration weekend got started....
Terrell was able to get off early Friday afternoon so we loaded up everything and the 4 of us piled into the car with Bailey in the front with Terrell and me and the little man in the back. As we got closer to my parents' house, Garrison started complaining about his car seat straps being too tight and crying a little off and on. I could see that the straps were fine, so I just tried to distract him and told him we were almost there. We were about half way down Evergreen North, just a few houses from my parents', when the little man threw up his lunch and snack. Yuck. It went everywhere. He was covered and so was the car seat. It was his first time ever throwing up and I think it scared him because he started to cry and looked at me like get me away from this mess! Thankfully we were really close to my parents' house and my sister had just gotten there too so she could help us out. Terrell ran in and grabbed paper towels so I could try to clean Garrison up before taking him inside to change him while he attempted to save the car seat. So gross. To top it all off, it was raining like crazy and had been all day long. To make a long story short, we got Garrison changed, his clothes washed, and eventually the car seat cover washed as well. Thankfully, Garrison didn't get sick again (I was so nervous about him being sick on his birthday) and it appears he just got a little car sick.
The rest of the night went great. Garrison even got to open one of his presents early. My sister got him a grill and wanted him to be able to play with it while the grilling was going on for his party.
The little man with his card from AnAn
It took him a while, but he finally got all the paper off
Thanks for my grill AnAn!
Now I'll go ahead and grill up a burger and hotdog. =)
After he had his bath and went to bed, we got busy with decorating and tried to do as much as we could the night before. We made great progress, and I'm so thankful for all the help from my parents and sister!!
Saturday morning we woke up and immediately started talking about the party and telling Garrison "Happy Birthday". He had already been talking about presents and cake and telling everyone he would be two, so he seemed pretty excited and ready for his party that morning. We had to do some last minute things with the tables and the cake, but other than that we mainly started with the food preparations.
Garrison's adorable birthday cake. It turned out perfect!
The cake table
One of the things I really wanted to do for his party this year was something with pictures of him from the past year. Originally I thought about doing a picture from every month but then realized that wouldn't show a lot of growth and changes in him and if they were just random pictures they wouldn't be that special. Then, my mom or Anna (can't remember which) gave me the idea of just doing the major events and holidays from his past year. I loved it! I had already "stolen" and modified this idea from another birthday party and it turned out great! I'm so glad I went through with it because it was something really cute, memorable, and inexpensive. And it was a big hit with the rest of the family/party guests!
These pics are from his 1st birthday, Easter, Dollywood, and the 4th of July
These are from summer vacation, the first day of school, Halloween, and Thanksgiving (the only one you can't see is Christmas)
The presents table with Elmo and Big Bird at the head.
One of our centerpieces... Ernie propped against two Sesame Street books
Another centerpiece... his Sesame Street guitar on one side and Elmo book on the other
And on the big dining room table, we did Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, Abby, and Grover back-to-back so they would sit up
The birthday boy (refusing to smile) and Elmo
Enjoying his lunch
Time for presents! I love his expression in this one. You probably have to click on it to see it good, but he seems so "wowed"
Opening presents went great once he got the hang of it. He started off a little slow and I was starting to worry it would take us all day to open everything, but once he figured it out he got pretty fast. The cutest thing was hearing him say thank you to each family/couple for his presents. I hope you can hear it on the video that Terrell got because I always want to remember how sweet that thank you sounds.
Time for cake!
This is how he looked almost the entire time we sang Happy Birthday. His expression seemed to say, these people have lost it. I'm sure it's got to be overwhelming for a 2 year old to have 22 people singing Happy Birthday to him.
At the end of the song, everybody sort of cheered and the little man lit up. He was probably relieved the song was over. =)
Blowing out the candle with AnAn
Tasting his cake for the first time. He ended up eating every bite, plus ice cream. The cake was delicious if I do say so myself.
After everyone finished their cake and ice cream and we started cleaning up and people started leaving, the little man started playing with his new best friend, Meghan. He was attached to her the entire afternoon and still can't stop talking about her. It worked out nicely for them to have plenty of play time together since Meghan's parents stayed almost the entire afternoon. My cousin Kelly and her family traveled almost the longest distance for the party from Gainesville, but my aunt and uncle beat them out by traveling all the way from Suches. We were so glad they all got to come!
Sitting at his new table from Granna and Papa with Meghan eating the food they grilled
Putting ketchup on his hotdog. So cute!
I think Garrison's 2nd birthday party was perfect and I'm so thankful for all the help we had to make sure it was so great! Garrison racked up on presents once again and we're starting to have to get creative to figure out where we're going to put it all! I feel SO blessed that my little man is so loved by so many. His party was such a special day for him and for us and we're very thankful it was spent with the people we love most!
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