A Memorable Birthday!

Peyton’s 2nd Birthday will be a memorable one! The week of festivities was filled with celebration, tears of sadness, family, friends and a massive gust of wind & rain that abruptly ended Peyton’s birthday party. Imagine 50 people trying to corral their kids and pack up the party as mother nature began to turn the celebration into a whirlwind mess. We’ll get to that in a moment.
Miss P’s birthday crept up on us this year. With a new job and a trip to Nebraska, P’s big day was here before we knew it. Last year, in the weeks leading up to June 23rd, I relived the first anniversary of every complication and pregnancy scare. It was torture. When the triplets birthday finally arrived, I was so busy and exhausted that the actual day ended up not being as bad as I imagined. So, I figured this year would be the same. Boy was I wrong! Instead of reliving every moment, I was busy planning a huge birthday party for my surviving triplet. My mom was in town helping out with Peyton and we spent much of our free time racing from store to store, picking out every perfect detail to celebrate the princess. I didn’t have time to mourn. But as the 23rd inched closer, my throat got tighter and the tears became more abundant. I was so grateful to my new employer, Newschannel 20, as my news director offered to let me take the triplets birthday off. I was planning on hiding the tears and working that day, but thank goodness he insisted on me spending the day with my family. Peyton’s birthday was a flood of tears. At one point, I literally curled up in a ball in bed and just sobbed. Birthdays are always going to be an emotional, bittersweet time for my family. But, I’ve realized that I need to mourn and that it’s OK to be sad. Grief won’t go away, it will just change over time. I’ll be sharing more of the emotional roller coaster of child loss, in an article I’m working on for the website, “Her View From Home”. Look for the link on my Facebook page on Friday.
Enough of the sadness! A pretty little diva gives me so many reasons to be happy in life. While her birthday was partly sad, I also cried tears of joy for how far she has come. Every single day, Peyton amazes me. This fragile little baby that was given a less than 10% chance of survival is now two years old! She keeps us on our toes and brings us so much joy and laughter. Peyton enjoyed a birthday filled with playing, eating cake and honoring her siblings. We lit a candle on top of a cupcake for Peyton, lit two memorial candles for Abby and Parker and we sang Happy Birthday to our triplets. Such a beautiful and sentimental moment. Peyton was thrilled to devour the first of many birthday sweet treats!
As the birthday week continued, more family began to join in the festivities. My dad arrived from California, followed by my brother’s family, also from San Diego. It was so special seeing Peyton play with her nearly 3 year old cousin! And by Sunday, we were ready for the big Princess Peyton bash! 50 people turned out at a local park the celebrate our miracle child. Anyone who knows me personally, knows that I pay attention to detail when it comes to planning a shindig. From the invitations to the party favors, I wanted everything to be perfect. So, you should have seen my face when the day didn’t start off as expected! Luckily, only my mom and Mr. Skry witnessed my chaos as the windy conditions made it difficult to follow through with my plans. The tables wouldn’t be covered, the center pieces fell over (even with lots of tape!) and the darling little signs were just one of many issues. But as Ryan reminded me, just go with the flow. The purpose of the day was to celebrate Peyton. Everything was still perfect and our friends and family had a blast. We had crown PB & J’s for the kids and Qdoba catering for the adults. We had Princess cupcakes and cookies thanks to Sugar Jar Bakery, along with activities stations letting the kids become royalty with their own crowns. They had a blast finding treasures in a pinata and blew enough bubbles to fill the sky. As the party began to wind down and we got ready to hand out cupcakes, a massive gust of wind caused quite the commotion. Decorations were swirling in the air and people scrambled to find their kids and take off before the storm fully arrived. I chased after guests, handing out our party favors and apologizing for the abrupt ending. And everyone pitched in to get our cars loaded up…we even left before the downpour began! Unfortunately, we were left with three dozen delicious cupcakes, so my family headed back to our house to sing Peyton “Happy Birthday”.

I’ve posted plenty of pictures below from Peyton’s party. I’m quite proud of how it all turned out! And the best part of the day, other than celebrating Peyton? We collected more than 30 books to donate to the Nicu in honor of Parker and Abby. It’s a tradition we began last year. Ryan and I wanted to find a way to keep the memory of our angels alive and to give back to the Springfield community. So we chose to donate children’s books to our local Nicu, since we spent much of the early days reading books to Parker and Peyton through the isolette doors. We asked our guests to bring a book, instead of a gift for Peyton. No one seemed to listened as Peyton received way too many gifts, but everyone brought books as well. It was a special way to include our angels in the celebration. And after the massive wind blew through our party, we laughed and said, “It must be Parker and Abby playing a fun joke on us from above.” Our two angels were with us all along!
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