Nat's Birthday and trying to do things differently

So, my 'baby's' first birthday is coming up in 6 days. June 24th.

6 days?! I can't believe it.

With that in mind, please bare with me as this is a solely personal blog post regarding the party planning and thoughts behind why we do what we do.

We are in the midst of planning her birthday bash, and wondering how in the world we're going to fit 30 family members in our um, humble home. :) It will be interesting! But we're really looking forward to celebrating her big day with those that love her almost as much as her daddy and I do. :)

One thing that we really want to do, and we're not quite sure how to pull it off just yet, is to make her birthday each year a day of thanksgiving - intentionally turning the focus off of solely Natalie and gifts and all the other stuff that is thrown into that day by tradition, and making it about thanking God for her life, for one more year, and recognizing all (well, to the best of our ability) that He has done in the past year up until that point. The same goes for Christmas -we really want to try to get the focus off of gifts and 'me' and turn it into a season of giving for our entire family. We're definitely open to suggestions!

We're trying to keep things meaningful and fun, without going off the deep end and spending money that we really don't have on things that really don't matter. This isn't meant to come across as judgmental to those that do like the 'big' stuff. It's definitely fun. It's just not where we are, and really where we feel the Lord leading us regarding how we spend the money that He's provided for us.

I so often fall into the trap of tradition and what others may be expecting, and do things that mean nothing to me. And I don't even realize it I'm doing it. And I spend money in ways that are careless and not meaningful, and I'm becoming convinced that God has called me to be a better manager of what He's provided than I've been in the past. So, we're trying to be meaningful, personal, and prayerful about the traditions we start as a family.

Anyways, I mainly wanted to share this super cute graphic that Jordan edited for her invites. It is really nice to have a graphic designer in the household. Natalie adores this new show on Nickelodeon called "Bubble Guppies" and so that's the theme. We're gonna have the shows running on our TIVO throughout the party, with some other fun, fishy crafts, snacks (goldfish, of course), and water fun in the backyard. She's getting a little swimming pool for her birthday (shh...don't tell her and spoil the surprise!) and we're borrowing 3-4 other little pools for the other cousins that will be there. I sure hope it doesn't rain!

So, here's the graphic:



Cute, right? :) Anyways, we're looking forward to it! I'll be sure to post pictures following the big event on July 2nd.

Thanks for sharing in my joy for a minute! :)