Happy First Birthday Juneau!

This is going to be a long post with lots of pictures, so get ready! I want to write lots about Juneau's birthday for 3 reasons. First of all I have a terrible memory, and by next year I'll be like "what did we do for Juneau's first birthday?". Secondly, I want Juneau to be able to look back and read all about her very first birthday party. Finally, thsi is one of those times that we really really missed our family, and we wish you all could have been a part of this awesome celebration. Hopefully you will be able to enjoy a little bit of the party through the pictures and description.

Here we go...

This was Juneau's birthday invitation.
Her party was held at the most beautiful location at Hickam Air Force Base. It was a little pennisula that was right next to the Harbor. The water is always like 3 different shades of blue, and the weather was perfect. Breezy, and not too hot. There wasn't a drop of rain either!

The day started off a little rough when i arrived to the party spot, and went into the "kitchen" to cook the Popcorn Chicken and Mac and Cheese and found that the kitchen was actually just a sink and fridge, but no stove! PANIC!!! I loaded all the food back into the van, and made a mad dash for my nearest friends house. Luckily i have 2 friends who live in the same neihborhood, and we threw the mac/cheese and chicken into their ovens, and then drove back to the party. THANK YOU Brandi and Saioa! This made J-bug just a little late for her own party, but a rockstar is always fashionably late, right?

I think there were about 60 people all together at the party. For those of you not from Hawaii this probably seems a little over the top, but First Birthday's in Hawaii are a really big deal, so we were just going with the flow.

I had gotten an inflatable wading pool, and filled it up with lots of Juneau and Nova's toys. I also put 2 bumbo seats in there. It was a perfect place for the babies and some of the younger kids to hang out and play without getting into too much trouble, and they had lots of fun!

I also had a "hair salon" and "tatto parlor" set up. The kids could pick from several different colors of temporary hair spray and make a rock star hairdo. We had tons of temporary tattoos, and they loved picking out whatever tattoos they wanted and putting them all over. As you can see, Juneau's was a little on the White Trash side!

We had a karaoke station, but everyone was so busy with everything else we never got around to the karaoke!

On one of the tables we set up a laptop with Juneau's adoption video playing, and then put out some of the things we had brought back from Vietnam, including her little Ao Dai. We also had the book "When you were born in Vietnam", which is a children's book about adoption. We had several of the pictures that we had gotten taken of the girls when i first got back from Michigan (I am going to have to make a whole seperate post with those photos...they are so beautiful!)

The hit of the party was the giant water slide. I am still amazed that we walked away from the party with no broken limbs. Everyone had so much fun on the slide. when i saw that the slide truly was GIANT I thought that Juneau would be terrified of it, but she ended up loving it! She was the youngest kid to go down the waterslide, but she wanted to do it again and again. Even when the water completely splashed in her face, she kept doing her "more" sign in babysign. I'm not sure if the waterslide was a bigger hit with the kids or the grown ups....

The elephant bounce house was a hit with the littler kids, and those who didn't want to get wet. Juneau wasn't crazy about the bounce house, and definately preferred the water slide. Betsy had stayed up pretty much all night working on the food and making this Awesome Drum Set Cake. It was soooo adorable. It nearly didn't make it through the car ride, but it did survive, and was awesome!Both of the girls were so amazing the whole day. The only time Nova fussed at all is when Daddy and June-bug splashed her when they came down the slide. Otherwise she was a perfect little angel. She let anyone and everyone hold her and play with her. It wasn't until the end of the day that we realized the poor thing hadn't had her little diaper changed all day! Everyone was so preoccupied with everything else going on that some things got overlooked!

Nova Having a great time at Sissy's Birthday

Juneau Rockin' Out

Becca Rockin' Out

Juneau wiped out after the Party

Aunt Betsy wiped out after the party

We call this one "Truck Load of Fun" - it wasn't easy getting a hundred or so pounds of inflatable water slide loaded up on cris' truck - but it was soooo worth it

It didn't take long for J-bug to figure out how to rip open presents

The cool tunnel Grammy Saccenti sent

Juneau's First baby doll.

Juneau has just started to give hugs and kisses. She likes to pat Nova on the head, and when she does it she makes this sweet little "Awwwwwwww" sound. She gives hugs by pressing her head into your chest and making the same sound. It's so sweet. She loves to play and be wild so much that it is hard for her to find time in her busy play time to give hugs, but when she does it is very sweet.

Well, we are all wiped out. the living room is FULL of party stuff, there is pretty much a trail from the front door to the kitchen that you can sort of-kind of walk through, but the rest is full of toys and party gear. Cris and Juneau are fast asleep on the couch, and Nova is sleeping in her swing. I am amazed that we were able to pull off such a huge party, and it totally wouldn't have been possible without Betsy and my amazing friend Tracy(thank you thank you thank you!). We are so fortunate to have a little bit of family, and friends who are like family even though we are so far from home.

Yesterday I swore there was no way i was doing anything like this in 7 1/2 months for Nova's birthday, and that we better call up chuckee cheese to put in our reservation for May 4, but today i'm starting to think that even though it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun, so there just may be another huge birthday bash in store...