My Little Cookie Monster turns 1!

Well, it actually happened. Everett turned 1. No more babies in the Oerman household. I'm a little sad about that, but then I remember all the money we will be saving by not having to buy formula and that makes me very happy :) I'm a firm believer that bottles should be taken away after a child turns 1. I literally threw Everett's in the trash (Ryan had used these same bottles so they were beyond ready to be tossed!). I had whittled Everett from 3 bottles a days, to 2, then finally to 1. Two days before his birthday I scooped out that last bit of formula and almost did a happy dance! Now of course when the formula is gone, milk has to take its place (from a sippy cup....get rid of those bottles people!). We introduced Everett to whole milk a week before his birthday and let's just say....I've never seen him throw something that far. He didn't like it one bit. It looked as though he had tasted a lemon by the face he would make. I started to get a little worried because Ryan took to milk so easy, but I was determined to make him love it.

I kept giving him milk whenever he was hungry or thirsty. When the bottle was finally gone all he had was milk and I guess he finally figured out that he wasn't going to get anything else. He's now loving it and drinks it like a champ and I'm loving having my kitchen counter space back. Good-bye oversized bottle drying rack!

Now I have been planning Everett's party for a few months, but the week of the party I felt like I was in party planning over drive! Lucky for me, my meme came down to help me get things done. We made 42 dozen cookies, 15 tissue pom poms, coloring books, cookie crisp filled jars, and about a million other little things.

The day of the party I wanted to wake Everett up early so that he would take an earlier nap and be up and feeling good by his party at noon. Unfortunately a whole week of lack of sleep caught up to me and I didn't get out of bed until 8:30. Surprising however, Everett was ready for his nap by 9:45.....that never happens! Everything worked out perfect. My mom and meme arrived an hour before the party and I had them blow up balloons (note to self: never buy your own helium tank thinking you'll get the whole 30 balloons it promises, because you'll only get 18).

I was getting things accomplished and before I knew it it was time for the party...nooo!!! I needed at least 30 more minutes! Unfortunately this kept me from taking pre-party pictures of all the decorations with my nice camera and all I got were some quick (and crappy) snapshots. I even realized after the party that we didn't get any pictures of Jarrod...poor guys was stuck behind the video camera.

As soon as kids started to arrive I led them outside to the cookie decorating station. I think that was the biggest hit of the whole day! I've never seen kids scramble for icing and sprinkles so fast. I even asked a few kids if they wanted some more sprinkles to soak up some of their icing...it was literally oozing off the cookie.


After their faces were nice and covered in glittery, bright icing, we headed inside. The kids all pretty much went to Ryan's room and played dress-up while the adults took full advantage of the cookie bar. After lunch was served, Everett was given his 1st cupcake! I always do cupcakes for the kids' birthdays, it's a tradition I always wanted to start. I had made cookie monster cupcakes (hence the theme of the day), but Everett has a peanut allergy and I didn't want to take a chance with cocoNUT that was used for the fur. Silly, but that's my thinking process. Back to the birthday boy......so we all sang 'happy birthday' and Everett just kind of sat there looking at the cupcake. He had a cheeto in either hand and quickly shoved one into his mouth. I realized the only way I was going to get him to eat this cake was to remove all cheetos! He didn't like it when I took the last cheeto away, but I quickly scooped up some chocolate icing and shoved it in his mouth. "Hmmm....this is delicious!" was written all over his face and he quickly devoured the whole thing (or partially bathed in it).


After a mini bath in the sink, we sat down and started opening the huge pile of presents everyone had brought. Everett seemed to follow in his sisters footsteps and not really have any interest in actually unwrapping presents, so mommy was left to do the job (and I was totally okay with that! :) Once all the presents were opened Everett played non-stop. He loved every single thing he got! He played so hard he was passed out by 6 p.m. and slept until 9:30 a.m. the next morning. Now that some serious partying!


Thank you to everyone who came out for his party! We greatly appreciate it!