A Great Day for a Party

Jack's birthday is Wednesday so we decided that today would be a good day to celebrate. At first I was going to stick with my tradition of not having a 1st birthday party for my kids because they don't know what's going on and it can be overwhelming. But as the date got closer I just couldn't stop thinking that I would regret it if I didn't celebrate this milestone with at least a small party. Since Jack is (almost certainly) my last baby I didn't want to look back on this and wish I had celebrated a little--more for myself, really, than for him. After all, he won't remember any of this but I am sure that I will never forget. We just had a few friends/neighbors over so that it wouldn't be too big of a crowd. The weather, which had been rainy and overcast all week, cleared up just in time for the kids to be able to play outside and burn off some of that sugar high from the cake.

Jack's very own little cake. The video will show how he did with this but let me just state for the record that he was the polar opposite of his sister. He didn't cry when we sang to him and he really enjoyed eating the cake. Avery had nothing to do with all that messy icing when we presented her with her first birthday cake.

Some of the table decorations.... I did a candy theme for the party so I used different sized glass containers filled with candy as frames holding pictures of Jack from various ages. I had another table with snacks and drinks on it but it didn't even occur to me to take a picture of that. 
As the favors I did multi-color containers filled with jelly beans for the kids. The little label says "so sweet of you to come. Jack's 1st birthday" on them. For the adults I made cake balls and cake ball cupcakes in the white packages. Same label on the back. 
Jack's big birthday cake. It is the same cake that we had for Avery on her first birthday. I wanted to carry out that tradition since I was breaking all of my other rules. :-)
Here are the cake bites that I made for the party (also used these as favors). It was a lot of work to put them together but I think it was worth it.  They were really yummy. 

Jack LOVED his cake. He had it all over him by the time it was all over. We had to go through an outfit change before we could keep the party going. 


Jack's favorite part about opening gifts was throwing the bows around. The kid loves to toss anything he can get his hands on if it reminds him of a ball. He laughs and has a great time when we roll the ball back and forth every day. I guess he thought the bows would be a good substitute.

I am so glad we decided to throw a little party. It wasn't much but it was just enough. I think Jack had a great time (which was secondary, of course, since the party was for me anyway) and right now he is sleeping extremely soundly. So is Avery which means the day was a total success.