Monday, March 31, 2008

Birthday Details

Ok, I know, I keep going on and on about Creed turning one, but a forgot a few things so this will be the last birthday post. I guess I can't help it because Larry and I were so excited for his birthday. We were laying in bed the night before his birthday and agreed that we were both more excited for Creed's birthday than we've ever been excited for our own birthdays.

I forgot to post a picture of his party invitation so here it is.

I used an illustration of the darling duckies from Olivier Dunrea's Gossie Series. They aren't Creed's favorite board books yet, but hopefully someday they will be because I LOVE them.

I wanted to make at least one of my gifts to Creed so I made him a T-shirt to match the Ugly Doll that I made him. He loves feeling different textures so I use felt, fleece, and terry cloth so his T-shirt would be fun to feel. I love making T-shirts so whenever I see plain T-shirts on sale I always pick up a few to keep on hand. T-shirts for boys usually have pockets sewn on them, but I just pick off the pocket and give it a wash and you'd never know.

Does anyone out there have an great birthday traditions? We always got to pick the restaurant for dinner that night and had the usual cake and presents, but that's about it so I'm trying to come up with some new traditions. I'm adopting one idea that I got from Candice. I can't remember if I read it in one of her articles or something else that I read through for her, but she come up with the great idea of putting together an album for CDs for each of your children and on their birthday adding a CD of your child's favorite songs from the year. Wouldn't that be so cool to have when you're all grown up? Candice has been the best at tracking down some of our favorite childhood songs and they have so many memories tied to them that flow out every time I hear them. This year I had it easy because I already put together a CD of my favorite lullabies for Creed, but I think I will add another CD of Creed's favorite like The Hot Dog song by They Might Be Giants from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Hello Delilah by the Plain White Tees (Since Creed was about two months old he's been "singing" along to this song every time it come on the radio, which was a surprise because it wasn't a favorite of mine or Larry's).

And birthday tradition idea number two, I want Creed to also have a library of his favorite children's books when he's grown up so he can share them with his own family some day so every year I want to give him either a new book that I know he will love (like the new Mo Willems Pigeon book that comes out tomorrow) or his favorite book that we've enjoyed from the library (This year it was a tie between Dear Zoo and Where's Spot). He'll get the book for his birthday and then we will take a picture of him reading the book (this year, courtesy of Candice, it was a picture of him sitting on our laps while we read it to him). I'll glue a copy of the picture into the book along with a longer list of his favorite books form the year. It will be fun to interview him to create the list when he gets older. I think Kristi of Everything Pink buys her girls each a Christmas book every year and then writes brief synopsis of each child's year in their book so this is sort of a different twist on that.

I'm not a scrapbooker but between this blog, and some fun traditions like these, hopefully we'll have a fun record of Creed's life that he can enjoy when he gets older.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi stephanie!
you're not a scrapbooker? really? you are so creative and talented {based on what i've seen on your blog!} i love seeing what you're up to! and creed is such a cutie!

dawn

Marissa Joy said...

You're the best mom. What great ideas.

Kim said...

That sounds fun. The CD idea did come from Candice. I have her sample album book she made for the magazine.

Elisa said...

I love the shirt...and to have a matching doll, that is priceless!

Does it feel like you have been a mother for a whole year?

Poulsen Family said...

Wow, I think that monster and shirt are the cutest thing ever! I think I found you through the Children's Lit page, and I'm not sure now how I found that. Very creative!