For Halloween last week, we attended a mommy & me yoga class costume party; I made Parker and her little friend matching hair bows for the day, we “marched” in a neighborhood costume parade and the three of us dressed up together to trick or treat at my sister’s. I don’t remember when I had a better Halloween!

Bert, Ernie, and their Rubber Ducky

I’m already working on her Thanksgiving morning family 5k turkey trot outfit! Then comes my personal favorite, Christmas!? Fuggetaboutit!!!

Yes, I have made my husband crazy all year long making sure we properly commemorate each first holiday with pictures and cards and and outfits and gifts, but firsts only happen once and and I want them all to be special for our daughter. I want her to look in her baby book decades from now and see how we celebrated the first year of her life. I want her to feel as loved as I did when I looked last year, seven months pregnant, through the baby book my mom made me.  So I will continue to search for her perfect gift, dress her in the cutest outfit and take her to fun events!

Yup, firsts only happen once and she is mine….I want to enjoy every precious moment.

-Jolynn Baca Jaekel has been a fitness professional for more than a decade. She just had her first child, Parker, with husband Rob last January. She and her family recently relocated from NYC to Washington D.C.