Christopher’s 1st Birthday Party!!

AKA the longest post EVEEERR.

(Two weeks later, Momma finally writes about it!)

I decided at the beginning of the summer that I wanted to have Christopher’s FIRST birthday on his actual birthday, not the weekend before or after, and I wanted to be singing at 4:59. (That’s the time he was born.  It’s also one of the random fuzzy moments I remember from my C-section – Dr. M hollering out, “time of birth, four fifty-nine!” right before hearing Christopher’s first cries.)  I also decided to have a family-only birthday party, mainly because I’m sentimental and I know that he’s going to have lots and lots of big birthday parties with friends there, so I wanted this one to just be Stephen and me, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  I truly hope that I did not offend anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings by not inviting you; it was nothing personal!  This was just something I decided to do.  :)  It was also nice because I was in-between Summer classes and Fall classes and I knew that I was not going to want to have to deal with putting together a big party for a bunch of people during my break from classes.  Next year, I promise a big birthday bash. 

Anyway, back to the party.  I was undecided on a theme.  I knew I wanted to make my own cake or cupcakes, and I was throwing around a monkey/jungle theme, because that is kind of what his room is done in and I really like it.  BUT… when I saw these “Rainbow” cupcakes on Sarah’s blog, I just knew I had to make them for Christopher’s first birthday.  I thought they were so unique and different and I had never seen anything like them before!  I decided to just do a “1st Birthday” theme instead of something like jungles or monkeys or whatever.  The day before the party, I went to Texarkana to my favorite-ever party store there (the same place I got the decorations for Stevo’s 30th surprise party) and started looking for some sort of “1st Birthday Party” decorations.  They had several basic themes – then I ran across the perfect one.  It was a gender-neutral rainbow-colored cupcake theme!  Are you kidding me?!?  PERFECT!  I got so excited!

When I got home that night, I cleaned my house and went ahead a hung all the decorations so that they would be up for Christopher’s WHOLE Birthday!  I also made all the cupcakes that night --  I made the Rainbow ones and I made chocolate ones, because Stephen and his mom prefer chocolate cake to white cake and I wanted everybody to be happy.  :)  I also made a Cream Cheese frosting to put on both sets of cupcakes.  I was up late but it was SO worth it, because we had a blast at the party the next day.

Stephen’s mom made her DELICIOUS chicken salad, which we ate on croissants.  My mom brought fruit, and Stephen made bean and cheese pinwheels and a blue cheese dip to eat with potato chips.  We also had french onion dip, which is my favorite.  For beverages, we had tea, lemonade, cherry limeade, and water.  (The cherry limeade is from Kelly’s Recipes and it is SO good and ridiculously easy.  I’ve made it a few times and it’s always a hit, so give it a try some time if you’re wanting to do a special drink at a shower or party.)

It was such a fun and special time!  Here are lots (sorry so many, but they are all so good!) of pictures of the festivities. Look closely at the decorations in the pictures, and you can see what I’m talking about with the Rainbow cupcakes perfectly matching the decorations that I found!

 
{see the cupcake plates?} ^^^^ 
       
When I went back and looked at the pictures I realized I didn’t have pictures of some cute decorations that I had hanging from the ceiling.  :(  So, I dug them out of the closet, hung them from our bar, and took pictures.  Ha!  :)  Just pretend that these are hanging from above Christopher’s high chair, over the dining table, and above a random chair in the living room.  Ha!

The Loot.

{Yes, he is in a different outfit.  We had a “shoo-wee” that got a little out of control.}

Three hours later, we finished opening gifts.  Haha, not really!  :)  He is just well-loved!