The local tradition of taking pictures in bluebonnets really came into my life after the birth of our son in 2007. I didn’t take his picture in the bluebonnets his first spring (when he was 2-3 weeks old); I was too overwhelmed with parenthood! But last year I found a great location filled with many lush bluebonnets in a safe area. I met a friend and her daughter there and we took our first pictures in the bluebonnets. I must say, I was pretty excited to participate in this important Texas tradition. Photography is a hobby of mine and I jump at the chance to take more pictures of my son; throw in some vibrantly beautiful colors and I swoon at the chance to not only take a picture, but to create art. (Ok, that might be stretching it a bit but I do get excited!) Here are some pictures from last year:

We lucked out with an overcast sky which makes for easier picture taking and beautiful photos!

Even though bluebonnets can be seen in small patches along highways, it’s best not to take them there – it’s too dangerous. The key to finding a great (safe) location is to ask around! I am a member of a local moms message board and bluebonnet pictures are a BIG DEAL to many members. People are always sharing locations around the area and the pictures they took. We all want to find a nice, lush field.

Bluebonnet pictures are so popular that many area photographers have “bluebonnet sessions” which include approximately 20-30 minutes of shooting time and (most often) a CD with the digital images; some photographers do only offer prints for sale. I love looking at photographers’ bluebonnet work as I get to see many creative, artistic, and unique ways to take bluebonnet pictures.

To create a beautiful picture, I learned about color schemes of the child’s clothing. A popular choice is a white shirt with either denim or khaki pants. For girls, white eyelet dresses are beautiful! Last year I saw some beautiful pictures with the kids wearing red shirts with denim pants so that’s what I decided to dress my son in this year. Again, we met up with my same friend and her daughter (our kids are best friends). Here are a few pictures from our 2009 bluebonnet session:

It was a bit trickier to take these photos this year for a few reasons; the sun was shining brightly and our toddlers didn’t want to pose. Thankfully I was able to do my best with a little bit of photography knowledge and bribery (with cranberries).

I love looking back at these two years of photos; what a great way to see your child grow through the years! I love the beautiful colors! I love trying to capture a great image!

What are your local traditions? What traditions do you have with your kids that are unique to your area? Leave a comment and share; I’d love to learn about other local traditions. And they don’t have to include flowers or pictures, but they sure can!

I decided to make a small photo album with everyone’s pictures in it; something that our son could look at to help keep their names and faces fresh in his mind. When we were back home for Christmas I took pictures of everyone. I printed them out, mounted them on decorative scrapbook paper, and put them in a pretty brown Creative Memories album I had.

brown Creative memories album

Idea of what the album looks like inside (two of my sisters)

my sister's two cats made the album as well

I keep the album in the living room and a few times a week I bring it to him and we go over the names and faces. I started right after Christmas so everyone’s names and faces were still familiar to him. It’s so cute to see him seeing the pictures and saying the names! Here is a video clip of our son going through his little family photo album:

We knew he recognized our family members’ pictures but weren’t sure if it would mean anything when he saw them in person. Just a few weeks ago my husband’s parents came for a visit. When they walked in the door our son greeted them with an excited “Grandma” and “Grandpa” and was immediately wanting to play with them, show them his cars, and just happy to see them! I think his instant recognition and immediate warmup to them was due to that little photo album!

Wendy – Parenting Tips 365

Display In a Special Frame

I dislike clutter and messiness and I try to simplify when and where I can, so I love the idea of displaying one piece of artwork at a time in a special frame. I have come across several neat framing ideas:

1. I really like a floating or gallery frame as it works great for irregular shapes of art and the clear glass shows the color of the wall on which it hangs, therefore the matting matches your decor! A set of gallery frames like this would also be a great way to create an important display space (not the fridge) to display selected work. You could create this display in their play room, or better yet in an adult room, such as the living room or office, to show the importance of the art.
2. Lucite box frames work well, too. They can be displayed on tables or walls and are relatively inexpensive; they can be found in craft stores.
3. Check out this art frame: L’il DaVinci Store and Display Art Cabinet You can hold up to 50 pieces of art in one frame! It has hinges and opens like a cabinet. Very neat option!
4. Everyday Display, by Creative Memories: The Everyday Display features an 18×18 frame, with a 13.5×13.5 fabric covered magnetic board; matching magnets and clothespins are included. The Everyday Display comes in three colors (white, black, and chocolate) so you should be able to find one to match your room’s decor! Here is a picture of mine; although now it doesn’t hold art; just pictures in my son’s room.



5. Keepsake Display, by Creative Memories: Features a magnetized display board and includes matching magnets.
6. And to take framing to another level, check out this professionally framed collage of artwork, the Jan Eleni Collage. You send them your child’s art pieces and they arrange them and create this collage. It’s beautiful!

Whichever framing method you choose, be sure to keep the art rotating in and out of the frames and perhaps even toss some of it every now and then. Shocked? I have heard that new bursts of inspiration can come about by clearing out old art.

Make place mats by laminating the artwork. Use some place mats during meals and others for messy arts and crafts. Once you reach your limit of place mats for your household, they make great gifts for relatives!

Create a Clothesline

Screw wooden hooks into opposite sides of a wall in your child’s playroom or bedroom. String a clothesline between the two hooks. Add colorful clothespins along the line and attach artwork with the clothespins.

Make a Border

A neat idea I came across is to make a wall border with your child’s artwork. Paint stripes around the room, either at chair rail height or just below the ceiling. Use tape to make the stripes straight. Fill in the space between the stripes with your child’s artwork.

Bulletin Board

Put several favorite art pieces on a bulletin board; either in your child’s room, the hallway, or their playroom.

And a neat spin on the bulletin board idea is to use cork squares, magnetic squares, and pegboard squares such as these at Pottery Barn Kids. Alternate cork and magnetic squares, in colors matching the room, to create a hip and colorful display for your child’s art! Here is a great picture of a fabric covered pinboard, also from Pottery Barn Kids.

My friend decorated bulletin boards for her kids’ artwork. She purchased some wooden letters to spell each child’s name and painted them white and then put them down the side of each bulletin board. Here is one of them:

Make A Scrapbook

Create a scrapbook that’s dedicated entirely to your child’s artwork. It is easily displayed and takes up a relatively small space. Your child will love showing to to visitors; what a great way to boost their self esteem!

Store It

When it comes time to take the art down from its display area, you will need to decide what to do with it. Here are some ideas to help you with the next steps:

1. You may want to keep several pieces of art that are important; either to you or your child. (For example, a friend of mine always keeps artwork that has her children’s hand prints on them.) Sit down with your child and have them look through the year’s art and choose a few they want to keep. You can store the art in an art portfolio, in a flat box under the bed, or in a scrapbook.
2. You can save all your child’s artwork by taking a picture of each piece. Put all the pictures in a scrapbook; it takes up a lot less space and they can see every piece of art!
3. Have your child choose a few pieces of art to send to friends and family. Have them write their name and a message on the back. It will brighten their day!

And yes, the art that does not get stored in a portfolio or scrapbook gets put in the trash. *gasp* Don’t worry; remember, you are just creating room for more bursts of inspiration from your budding artist!

Wendy – Parenting Tips 365

Finger Paint on a Canvas

This is my favorite one and it’s the only one we’ve done so far. Each year on the child’s birthday, give them a few finger paints and a canvas and let them paint a picture. You can hang them in their play room or bed room. After a few years, you will have a nice art museum and see their art skills as they change throughout the years. To add a little extra to this tradition, you can give your child a theme, and they need to paint according to that theme every year. For example, our theme is “paint what you love”. So not only will we get to see his art skills, we will get to see how what he loves changes. And yes, I realize that my 15 month old probably didn’t understand how to follow the theme this year, but I just wanted to keep it on the “up and up”. (Yes, I am being honest. I didn’t get around to doing this until he was 15 months old; so sue me. Life is busy!) Here are a few pictures:

The Finished Product

Birthday Letter

Another special memory item is a birthday letter that each parent writes to the child. You can write one every year and give him the letters when he is 18. You can write whatever you want to; maybe wishes for their future, something special that happened recently, or your own private thoughts about the past year as a parent. Write what you love about them, what makes you proud, or maybe the challenges you faced as a parent this past year.

Time Capsule

Make a time capsule or journal about what he likes to do now. Write down favorite toys, sayings, foods, etc. This can take the form as a container with “stuff” in it, although that might take up some room after a few years. Or it can take the form of a scrapbook page or something similar.

Take Pictures

There are several unique photo opportunities for fun birthday memories:

• Each year, take a photo of the child at the exact time they were born! This is fun for most times of birth, except maybe 2:30am and the like. I like this idea and I think I will start it next year. Thankfully my son was born at 8:36pm! Although he’s in bed by then so they might be sleeping pictures for awhile. But I digress.
• Take a photo standing by mom and one by dad – or one by both of them. Over the years, you can really see their growth!
• Get professional portraits taken!

Yearly Personal Profile

Once he’s five years old, or old enough to write, have him write a few things about himself on paper. Help him if he needs it. Include information like the following, or anything else you want to add:

My name is ______
I am __ yrs old
When I grow up I want to be a ____
My favorite color is ____
My favorite TV show is _____
My favorite activity is ______
My friends are _________

You can start a special scrapbook with these included or just put them into a notebook in plastic sleeves. It will be neat to see the changes in his handwriting, changes in his favorites, in what he wants to be when he grows up, etc. The baby book my mom had for me had something similar to this in it and I loved it. (We laugh when we see that at age 5 I wanted to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader!)

Voice or Video Recording

If you have a digital voice recorder or a video camera, you can have him talk a little on the tape about himself; maybe some things similar to the yearly personal profile. Or ask him to talk about his birthday, what it means to be ____ years old, what he got for gifts, what he likes about his birthday, etc. It will be neat to hear his voice change over the years as well as his vocabulary.

Signed Mat for Picture Frame

Have guests at the party sign a mat for a picture frame. Take a group photo of all the party guests to put in that frame. Do this every year and you will have a wonderful set pf birthday photos!

Birthday Tablecloth

Using a tablecloth made of material suitable for painting, you can make a “birthday tablecloth”. Each year paint the child’s hand and/or footprints on it with the year and maybe a special decoration to symbolize the year.

Gift for Mom

I may be biased but I like this one, and I understand it more now that I am a mom. On the child’s birthday, help them get a small gift for mom. Since I am not into material things, I personally would prefer some sort of homemade item or card or thoughtful words, etc. Maybe a taped video message expressing their love of mom, or something equally cheesy. It is a big day for mom, too, as it is her “birth” day. The day of my son’s birth is so very important and special to me and I love remembering it!

Make a Special Birthday T-Shirt

Create a special birthday t-shirt for the child’s birthday. You can use iron on transfers or for an easier option, use Cafepress to have them printed (about $15 with shipping, and the Cafepress shirt will last a lot longer than the iron on transfer ones). You can use a photo on them or a few photos, maybe with a phrase or quote.

Save the Newspaper

Save the newspaper of the exact day of the child’s birthday. He may enjoy going back and looking at what was going on in each year of his life.

Stepping Stone

Make a stepping stone with the child’s handprints or footprints in it each year and put those out in your yard.

Video Montage

Take a few seconds of video at each birthday, maybe sitting in the same chair or something. When they turn 18 (or whenever) you can put the video together and show them growing up!

Wendy - Parenting Tips 365

Who to Invite

Many people choose to have first birthday parties be family-only events. Since we don’t have any family living nearby, we invited a few friends. (We lucked out as my husband’s family came down for their annual visit on the day of G’s party, so they got to be here for it!)

If your child has a little friend, invite him or her! To keep it from being too overwhelming, a good rule is that the number of kids at the party should be the same as the child’s age. At our son’s party, we did have one other little one there and it was perfect.

If your child has many little friends from playgroups, another idea is to have the party be a little playdate!

Location

Have the party at your house if it works for the number of guests you have attending. Since we just had a few guests attending, and his birthday was in March, we held our son’s party inside our house.

If the weather is nice, you can even have a picnic or barbecue in the back yard or even at a park. If the party is at a park, that would also help entertain any older kids that might be attending.

You can also rent a room at a local children’s play center or recreation center. If you have a lot of guests attending, this might be a good option. The children’s play center would have toys to use and you would have to provide food and beverages. Some places even have party options available. If you rent a simple room at a recreation center, you can bring a bunch of toys for the kids to play with. These options are great because you don’t have to clean your house before or after and they may accommodate more people.

Time of Day

At one year old, most little ones are still taking two naps a day so it’s best to plan the party around their nap schedules (that is, if you want a higher chance of a happy birthday boy/girl!). If you plan to serve a meal, having a party from 11am-1pm might be a good idea. And if you aren’t serving a meal, a party after lunch would work well. Our son’s party was from 1:30-3:00pm. I thought two hours might be pushing it for him, so I chose to have the party be just 1.5 hours in length. It worked out really well!

Food

Since our party was after lunch, we provided a few snacks. I made a spinach artichoke dip, had a fruit salad, and a few other snacks, as well as lemonade and water. I also has some snacks for the little ones, namely Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies! Of course there was cake, too! I purchased a carrot cake from Whole Foods for the adults to eat. I made G a carrot cake using a vegan recipe (which I modified to use eggs) that had no sugar in it, just applesauce. He loved it!

If you are serving a meal, you can cater in to keep things simple on your end. A barbecue or picnic is another idea. And I have been to a birthday party where pizza was ordered for everyone.

If you are having a theme party, your food can revolve around your theme.

Activities For Kids

For the little kids at the party, just having some play time with their toys is fun. Our son enjoyed playing with his little friend that came over, as well as the other adults there. Playing with bubbles is also fun for the one-year-old crowd. Or how about some music? I don’t think anything is cuter than some little ones dancing to some music! Be sure to have your video camera ready!

If there are older kids you need to entertain as well, here are a few ideas:

• If the weather is nice, have some water games outside. Maybe a Slip ‘N Slide or even the classic game of a water balloon toss. That one is even fun for adults!
• Pinatas are always a hit!
• For indoor activities, some coloring books or other similar activities might work well. And if you have a separate room, you can always play a movie if appropriate.
• Classic birthday party games like pin the tail on the donkey might be fun!

Activities for Adults

At our son’s birthday party, we had a game for the adults to play. I gathered 12 pictures of our son (one for each month), put them in frames, and placed them throughout the living room and kitchen. I labeled them with numbers 1-12 (obviously not corresponding to the correct month) and gave everyone a pen and piece of paper. The goal was to guess which photo was which month of his life. Everyone seemed to like that game! I provided a prize for the winner ($5 Starbucks gift card). (I actually purchased two in the event of a tie, but ended up giving the cards to the top two winners.)

The other activity we had at his party was a showing of his one year slide show we made. It was only six minutes long and was a montage of various pictures throughout his first year set to music.

The following picture shows the table where I had his cake and some framed pictures and flowers for decoration. The two pictures on the outside are used in the photo game (they have a small white piece of paper on them with a number).

The next photo shows another area with a few more photos in the photo game, as well as my son checking everything out!

Another idea I came across was to fill a jar with the birthday boy’s/girl’s favorite snack (like Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies or something similar) and have everyone guess how many are in the jar.

Decorations

If you are having a theme party, your decorations can revolve around that. I chose to keep decorations very simple. I used the colors from his invitation (below) as a guide and purchased a few balloons in those colors as well as a tablecloth to match. The cake was decorated (simply) with those colors as well. I purchased some calla lily flowers for the table and I think they were beautiful! The framed pictures from the adult game were also decorations themselves!

Invitations

There are many paper options for birthday invitation, but an easy (and cheap) way to send initiation is electronically, either by using an electronic invitation service like evite.com, by a simple email with the party information, or by creating a photo invite and emailing that.

Loving photos as much as I do, I chose to create my own photo invite and have them printed and mailed. I used a photo editing software (Photoshop Elements 6) to create this 5×7 invitation (personal information blurred):

I searched the internet high and low to find wording for the invite. To save you time from searching yourself, here are my favorites:

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He’s cute and sweet and so much fun…
Our little boy is turning one!

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{Name} is turning one!
Join us for lots of fun!

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Come too my party, celebrate a bit
See my first cake, I’ll be wearing it!

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It’s as simple as A-B-C
A birthday’s more fun
if you share it with me!

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This year has been so much FUN!
We can’t believe {Name} is turning ONE!

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Come join the fun!
{Name} is turning one!

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Come and celebrate some birthday fun
for a sweet little boy who is turning one!

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One little candle placed on the cake.
One first birthday wish to make!
{Name} turns ONE!

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I hope your little one’s first birthday is a special day for everyone! And I hope it’s not too much stress for you to plan. Remember, a first birthday is really for you and your family and friends. The simplest thing you can do is TAKE PICTURES!!!

Wendy – Parenting Tips 365