L.J.’s First Birthday Party

We celebrated L.J.’s birthday with a small party. We invited our immediate family and a few friends – it ended up being just the right amount of people. I selected a “Winter ONEderland” theme and purchased these adorable invitations on Etsy:

I did a small tablescape to match the theme, including a banner that matched the invitations, a collage poster and party favors (hot chocolate with peppermint marshmallows) that featured one of his monthly photos.

I purchased the collage photo from Costco’s online photo center, and I can’t recommend it highly enough! It was the perfect decoration and easy as pie to make. All I did was upload photos and hit “Make collage.” I shuffled it a few times to get the layout I wanted and then it printed the same day at my neighborhood Costco. I absolutely love it – it’s hanging in L.J.’s room now.

After enjoying a nice lunch, it was time for the main event: cake smashing! We anticipated L.J. would make this quite the photo-worthy event and he did not disappoint!

He kept it nice and clean at first – he was a little surprised that we put such a large hunk of food on his tray. So he started off sampling the icing.

Then my mom showed him that there was cake – glorious cake! – underneath that icing. At that point, he dove right in and demolished/devoured almost half his smash cake.

Yummy cake!!

At one point he tried to see what would happen if he pushed the cake onto the floor. Fortunately, Aunt Becky’s quick reflexes prevented a literal cake smash.

After awhile he decided he’d had enough cake. Wiping his off with a rag proved fruitless, so into the bathtub he went!

Once he was nice and clean, it was time to open presents! He did enjoy ripping some of the paper, but honestly was more interested in playing with his doggie uncle Bogey than opening his gifts. His initial disinterest didn’t last though – he received wonderfully thoughtful gifts that he has been playing with at length!

What a fun afternoon to celebrate L.J.’s big day!