Life Lately: Birthdays and Braces! - The Minimal-ish Mama

By far, the biggest excitement lately was Edison’s first birthday. We flew back to Iowa for a week to celebrate it with family and friends. I was planning on a low key affair, just grilling in the backyard, but it sort of spiraled into something bigger with a lot more people and decorations. But, the more the merrier!

Since we weren’t sure how Edison would react to cake, we did a practice run on his actual birthday. He thoroughly enjoyed it!

On the day of the party, of course, Edison refused to nap. That stressed me out considerably, but somehow, he made it through the day. We also narrowly missed being rained out. Instead, the weather was perfect!

The decorations were a mix of nautical themes, naturally. I bought plain cupcakes, and decorated them myself. I also made Edison’s smash cake!

Unfortunately, Edison was not a big fan of his party hat.

Once the hat was off, I cheered him up from the trauma we’d put him through by distracting him with his cake. Pro-parenting tip there – sugar rights a multitude of wrongs.

It took him a little bit to get into it, but once he did, he had a blast.

He put on a great show, laughing and giggling for the paparazzi.

Helped unwrap a few presents, but by then, the lack of a nap was starting to kick in.

He preferred to play with his new trucks and his cousin and leave the presents to his parents.

A few more photos from the day:

Edison and Addyson’s stuffed bunnies are from Cuddle + Kind. Each one provides 10 meals!

All the birthday photos above were taken by friends and family. Thanks so much everyone!

In all the business of getting home, trying to get Edison back on schedule, unpacking (it took me a full week!) and the house appraisal, I almost forgot about my birthday! Thankfully, other people didn’t!

We went out for dinner to Joe’s Farm Grill, one of my favorites.

Then came home for cake and presents!

My sisters-in-law know me so well!

Brian got me a necklace from Honeycomb Baby Goods! Edison approves.

After all the birthday festivities, we had a really rough week – Edison got a cold, that turned into a double ear infection, pink-eye, sore throat, cough, really high fever, and then after the fever, a rash. I stayed home from work with him a lot, which meant of course that work that week was really busy, and I started getting sick too. Then on Friday, I had two teeth pulled in preparation for getting braces. And Brian stubbed his toe, and thinks it’s broken. So, not a good week.

Lots of sleepy cuddling though.

But today I got braces! I’ve needed them for a long time, and we finally just bit the bullet. I have three baby teeth still that are wrecking havoc, so the two on the bottom were pulled, and the rest of my super crowded teeth will eventually fill in the space. On the top, that baby tooth will eventually be pulled, and I’ll need an oral surgery to fix a bracket to the permanent canine tooth and pull it down. It’s only two years, but sometimes, two years feels like forever. At least, I have clear braces on the top, so they’re less noticeable. And lots of people get braces as an adult, and everyone I’ve talked to has said that it’s been totally worth it.

Brace face!

But really, they do blend in pretty well.

That’s life lately! Soon I’ll post about what we’ve been doing in our kitchen, which I’m pretty excited about. Here’s to a better week!

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