The First Birthday Party

The Boy turned ONE in May!

I come from a family where birthday’s are a big deal- we always have birthday celebrations- no ifs, ands or buts!  I also happen to adore party planning, big or small, so my husband and I took the task very seriously.

Planning our Blue Jays Baseball themed party was fun, but executing it was even better.  We had such a great day- from fabulous guests to fabulous weather- we couldn’t have asked for more.  There were a few things that we did to make sure his first birthday party was a success:

1) Keep the guest list smaller.  Our original list included over 50 people.  Seeing that The Boy wouldn’t even remember the day, we edited to a much more reasonable number that we could handle- closest friends and immediate family only.

2) Keep it short.  The party lasted about 2 1/2 hours.  Some people stayed a bit longer, but overall most people were really understanding of The Boy’s need for some semblance of nighttime routine.  Much appreciated.

3) Make it easy (for you). Other then grilling the hot dogs, everything was prepped the night before.  Yes, husband made the cake (I watched- always the cheerleader!) the night before. We decorated with blue and white streamers/balloons the night before. I had all the food ready to go the night before.  That way, we also got to enjoy the day.

4) Have a game plan. We (well, me, the anal one) had a plan for the party- I knew around when I wanted to have food out, when we’d open gifts (& where we’d keep them), and when we’d have cake.  It helped me be more relaxed because, once those things were out of the way, I knew I could just kick back and enjoy. Taking a few minutes to organize saved me tons of headaches.

5) Time it right. This is so key! Plan the party right- not when he’s hungry, not when he’s tired. We had our party at 3pm- around the time The Boy wakes up from his nap.  With a quick snack, he was good to go for the duration of the party and we saved ourselves from meltdowns due to sleepiness.  It also allowed us to serve more snacks then real food, saving us some further work:) 

So how did it go??
Well, he sure hauled in some serious loot!
His dad made him the greatest baseball themed birthday cake:
Which he totally enjoyed (first sugar- the bliss!!):
We chowed down on tons of baseball themed food- hotdogs, pretzels, chips, M&Ms etc…
And rode his brand new quad in the backyard:
Overall, a very happy boy learned that parties (especially ones for him) are the greatest!