one whole year

How do you plan for a one-year-old’s birthday? He’s not going to remember it, but we certainly would as parents. We’re definitely NOT the type of people to do some big shindig with clowns or a restaurant or anything like that. To further complicate matters, his birthday would be on a Tuesday and the party not until Saturday.  Two celebrations? Most of all, I just wanted to keep it simple.

His favorite spot. Age one!

 I decided that his actual day would be full of his favorite things. If he could pick a favorite dinner, I would have let him, but he loves pretty much any and all food so that didn’t matter (although he is a big fan of Sizzler).  I was just glad that he hit that magical mark so he could eat things from the allergenic foods list: eggs, honey, nuts, seafood, etc. So I cooked some scrambled eggs that morning with a bit of cheese and we shared. He likes eggs! His dad left him a cute note under his door for him to wake up to. Then, Brian was able to come home early from work and we all went out to the beach for another one of Joseph’s favorite things, playing in the sand. He loves it! He also tries to eat the sand, which I don’t understand at all. Maybe he likes the salty flavor. Brian took him down to play in the water and he loved that. 

His hat is too small and he looks tired here, but I promise, he loved it!

 We stopped on the way home and bought him a jelly doughnut as his cake. I was planning on making him a cake for the party and figured that would be enough to max out my baking skills! We sang and Brian helped him blow out the candle. It was a good day. 

Family picture!

Saturday was the big party day! A banner, balloons, cake, presents, and lots of family to celebrate this awesome little man. He got great gifts from everyone. I am always overwhelmed at people’s generosity. I wanted to have some sort of activity for all the adults there, so I came up with the following activity that I was pretty proud of. It fit the bill exactly. About a week ahead, I went through Joseph’s pictures and picked one from each month to print out. I made sure they were of just him and relatively close up. At the party, I handed a picture to all the adults and they had to get together and put them in the correct order. It wasn’t easy! Brian tried it on his own and got only half right on his first try. I used a cheat sheet to help everyone move the ones that were out of place. Now I have those pictures in Joseph’s baby book. Then we had carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (my first time making it from scratch, and it turned out deeee-licious! Thank you, Betty Crocker.) and ice cream. Last was opening presents! Joseph was ready for a nap by then but the adults all stuck around and talked for a while.

Not too sure about this flame, this huge piece of cake, or the plate.

Alllll figured out.

A wagon! With big blocks I can chew on and wheels to turn!

Opening presents

What's in here?

Momma will help.

Going for a ride. Thanks Dad!

Look at me! I'm the birthday boy!

I think my favorite thing about Joseph’s first birthday was sitting down with Brian and writing out Joseph’s birthday letter. We want to do this every birthday, and we’ve been doing it for each other since we met.  It’s the best present I get, every year. I hope that someday Joseph can look at his collection of letters and know how incredibly loved he is on every day, not just his birthday.