tooth fairy payment...

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone from Tallulah.

  Today I'm thankful to the tooth fairy for starting to pay me back after all these years. Tallulah loves her new tooth...

party, party, party...

ok.  Tallulah is now officially 1 and we have had her family birthday get together on her actual birthday 11/16.  Tomorrow we will be having her Yo Gabba Gabba party for her friends...(our friends with kids around the same age).  Im keeping it simple.   Lots of balloons, lots of color, lots of music and videos...Yo Gabba Gabba of course.  Its the only thing that T will sit and watch for 30 uninterrupted minutes.  She loves it.  She talks (babbles) back to the screen, she swings her arms and kicks her legs.  Whats funny is that I am normally right behind her doing the same thing.  Its a great show.  We are decorating all of the balloons like the characters on the show.  Her cake is going to be a 3 layered cake to look like we stacked the 3 main characters on top of eachother.  Im so excited.  We are expecting about 15 people and i dont know how many kids.  For party favors, we decided to just get really cute colorful food cotainers and make sticker labels that say (Tallulahs Take Home Treat) and we are buying 1 extra sheet cake and slicing it up and putting them in really cute solid color backpacks.  They are little backpacks that hopefully the people can use over and over again.  We are also putting a rolled napkin and colorful silverware to enjoy the cake with later.  I have been to parties and received party gifts that i never really know what to do with and i feel guilty throwing them away.  Who throws away a back pack and a piece of cake...not me.  The bags are either orange, green, blue, red or pink,  the colors of the show.  Anyway,  i will post pictures of the party afterwards.  Tallulah doesnt know what to think with 2 parties...we are so excited.  We figure she spent 118 days in the hospital after being born.  She deserves 10 parties, but we will settle for 2. 
We are going to be busy today wrapping boxes to be background props behind the cake.  Speaking of cake, I am crossing my fingers on this one.  I found a really cute example online of the cake i wanted to get for her, however, every bakery wanted to make it in that fondont (dont know if i spelled that right).  I hate that stuff.  Its all thick and pasty and makes all of the cakes look pretty, but taste the same.  Sooooo, I have been watching the food network and am inspired by Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade show.  I went to the local grocery baker and ordered a flat square white sheet cake in yellow, no trim no writing.  A chocolate round cake in green frosting with no trim no writing and a miniture round yellow cake with pink frosting, no trim no writing.  My goal is to get them home and stack them and then draw the eyes of our 3 favorite characters.  I would post an example of what i want it to look like, but, i want to wait to see how mine turns out first.  You know how competitive I am.  I am going to cluster the balloons by color.  I am wrapping 5 different size boxes in tablecloths and then drawing eyes and mouths on them as backdrops.  Orange is the main Y.G.G. color so the plates and cups for the cake are in that color.  The food plates are small round red, small square yellow and big square red and big square yellow.  The silverware is bright green and the napkins are red.  I am going to try to wrap all of the art on the walls (we dont hang much) but what is hanging will look like the boxes on the table.  For food, we are getting Daddy's favorite Chik-fil-A.  Chicken nuggets and chicken strips.  A carrot raisin salad and a green salad.  Chips and dips and a juice bar.  I also have a bottle of Dom Perignon that was a gift when T was born that I have saved for this moment.  I figure all of the adults will take a celebratory glass with us.  Although it looks and sounds like its going to be a rain filled weekend, I dont care.  My sunshine has enough umph to outshine the rain.  We got her the most beautiful party dress.  She looks like a real cake topper in it.  She wont be doing the frosting eating again in this dress.  For those of you that dont know, I have major party planning anxiety.  This is the point where i normally start calling people and cancelling the whole thing.  I DONT KNOW WHY I JUST ALWAYS DO.  Not this time.  This is for my cupcake and no matter what (including a rain forecast) wont keep me from having this party.  It will be the second party I have thrown in over 25 years.  NERVES!!!!!  I just hope the rain doesnt keep people from coming...thats my worst fear...no one showing up.   I get the hives just thinking about how that would feel.  ANYWAY. 
I am off to start Yo Gabba Gabba-ing the house.  I will take pictures and share them with you later....wish me luck and patience and most importantly smiles......Papi

dancin 1 year old...

let the pics begin...

family birthday party...




yummy yummy...



candles galore...

birthday girl on her throne...

Grandma Jan and T...

Uncle Michael, Grandman Jan & T...

Uncle Michael, Grandma Jan, Daddy & T...

Uncle Michael, Grandma Jan, Daddy, Uncle Paul & T...

Papi & T...

Uncle Ramon, Papi & T...

Uncle Ramon, Papi, Grandma Lela & T...



Grandma, Tallulah, Lela...



hot stuff...

cake is good...

messy messy messy...

all cleaned up and ready for presents...

Great day for a great girl that has a great family...

Happy day...

more pics coming.....

happy birthday eve...

I am going to bed tonight with a tear in my eye for the year that it has been and a smile on my face for the years to come. Happy Birthday Tallulah. I am so happy to have found the friend I had been searching for my entire life...Papi

yo gabba gabba...

this is Tallulah watching her favorite show on televison Yo Gabba Gabba.

my yellow sunshine...

freeway of love...

what a difference...

the countdown to 1 begins...

Tallulah will be on on Tuesday November 20th.  3 days to go.  Her tooth is starting to bother her.  How funny that this will be the only time in life that I will get to refer to my babys tooth in singular form.  Her tooth.  That sounds so funny to not say her teeth.  Anyway, her tooth is getting bigger and bigger and she is starting to  play with it with her tongue and fingers.  Tallulahs almost 1...Tallulahs almost 1...

my baby is turning 1...

wow. Where do I begin. I haven't written in so long that i feel lost. Between Tallulah and her appointment, it the salon and my appointments. Tallulah is such a different baby than the last post I wrote. Her latest excitement is that her first tooth is starting to break through. Its the bottom left front tooth. Its sooooo scary that she is getting teeth. When i tell everyone that she is turning a year in less than a week they all say "wow did that year go by fast". Uh...no it didn't. It went by minute by minute. Second by second. Its the first year in my life that I could probably tell you where I was just about every second of every day. The first 4 months of Tallulahs life were so intense that it was like holding your breath for days on in. I look at her now and I see a healthy bubbly baby. Its weird. I NOW see why many mothers would cry when I would show them her pictures. I can now see just how fragile she looked. I always knew just how strong she was and just how much fight she had in her, but i do see her fragility. It takes my breath away now watching her videos of her struggling to breathe. Watching her try to lift her hands that were weighed down by 2 and 3 i.v.'s each. Watching her try to make a crying sound through the oxygen and feeding tubes that were in her nostrils and throat. I NOW can look back and realize the magnitude of what we were going through. I watch her sleep and still can hear all of the machines beeping and going off around us. I can smell the smells of medicine and hand sanitizer all around us. The salty tears that i would swallow as i walked down the hospital hallways so that i wouldnt cry in front of her. I can smell the hand soap that is in the NICU for parents to scrub up before we entered the unit. The pillow cases that we used to have to put our personal belongings in while in the room. I can still here the "SNAP" of the needle pricker that the nurses would use to prick her heel every hour on the hour to test her blood sugar. Sometimes they would try to keep a heating pad on the pricked cut so that it would heal up in the next hour so that they didnt have to prick her again. She is so much stronger than I could ever be. I mean, I cant imagine having 4 surgeries in 1 year, let alone 4 surgeries in my first year. Then to move on and grown and develop as well as she has....just humbles me. I dont know how else to describe it. Todays Tallulah is feisty, strong willed and determined. She knows what she wants and how she wants it. We are definitely having to stand our ground or she is going to run the show. The entire show. She loves lights, music and terra cotta tiles on spanish style houses....you figure it out. She absolutely loves them. She smiles and waves and kicks for them. She eats solids. She flips like a dolphin on dry land. Shes trying to stand and when her hands are held she lifts her feet like shes walking. She smiles all day long. She knows how to push out crockadile tears. She loves Yo Gabba Gabba and honestly so do I. She loves being outside and going for long walks. She loves window views and the car. I feel like im filling out a match.com form. I just want her to read this when she gets older and know that i live for every single detail of her being. From her sighs to her holding her breath to try to stand, im paying attention and soaking it all in. She just recently started doing what her baby book calls "baby squeeling". Its this hilarious woodpecker kind of high pitchy scream thing. She does it over and over and over and laughs. I love it. Looking back now feels safe. Its a place i can go to and not get overwhelmed. Thank god and goodness that she is so strong. I thank you all for your support, kind words, prayers and gifts. It truley takes a village and y'all are our village.
Tallulah will be turning 1 on the 16th. We are celebrating it on the saturday after her birthday which is the 20th. If you'd like to come by and celebrate it with us we would love to have you. Email me for directions. We will have a casual celebration from noon on. Tallulah is registered at babys r us if you are interested. Here is a link http://www.toysrus.com/registry/search/index.jsp?_flowExecutionKey=_c7699A15E-6440-4E93-E8BE-CCC30AFEAF1C_k7068062B-5C89-8510-8623-ED81494378CD&overrideStore=TRUS.

Hope to see you there and heres to Tallulahs next 200 years.....Papi

Babies"R"Us - Baby Registry

Babies"R"Us - Baby Registry


Tallulah is turning 1. Get her something! She will smile! R