Birthday boy

The following pictures are of my little guy on his birthday morning. The picture on the left is his new "picture face." I'll say, "Smile for mommy! I'm gonna take your picture!!" And that's what I get :) It's hilarious and charming and I love it! The only time I get an actual smile is when he forgets he's supposed to be hamming it up.

 

 

So as previously mentioned, I wasn't going to do a themed party for Tommy's first birthday because 1) he's too young to have any preferences and 2) I didn't have any idea what to do :) And I'm pretty much tired 24 hours a day due to the life I'm growing right now, so the thought of putting together a well-planned party was exhausting just to think about.

But then I started thinking that wasn't fair to Tommy. Why shouldn't he have a fun party for his first birthday just because I'm pregnant and busy? I didn't want him to look back on pictures and think, "Dang my mom was lame. No decorations or anything?!?" So on Wednesday (his party was on Saturday), I decided to go ahead and do it. I thought long and hard about the things Tommy likes--other than Ritz, goldfish and cheese--and finally remembered that he LOVES his sock monkey. He carries that thing around all the time. I went with a sock monkey theme. Mostly sock monkey colors for lack of time and sock monkey decoration availability :)

I borrowed these awesome drink dispensers from my friend Hannah (they will also be making an appearance at Brooke's wedding). We had water and Hawaaiin punch--didn't want to get too complicated.

I set up a favor station for the kiddos. It said "Thanks for 'swinging' by! Take home a bag of your favorite monkey treats!" Then we put out monkey mix (colored M&Ms), monkey vines (licorice), monkey wafers (vanilla wafers--original, I know), monkey bites (little chocolate sandwich cookies) and monkey pooh (whoppers).

I made these monkey cupcakes, which got mistaken for a moose and a lamb (don't ask). But I thought they turned out cute!!

We served chili, taco soup and ham and cheese sandwiches! It felt like a feast, but we didn't have much left over.

We ended up having pretty much everyone except for out-of-towners show up! Our house isn't small, but we don't have one big open area, so it was pretty full. I was so glad we have so many people that love our little boy!

After we ate, we went downstairs to open presents. Now, Tommy's party was at 2pm and he had not napped all morning. Usually he's taken at least 1 nap by then, but he wasn't having it that day, so he was exhausted. My mom had gotten him a wagon which he'd already opened, so we used it to put all the unopened presents in. It was a disaster. When he's tired, he gets clumsy. And man, was he clumsy. He fell directly into the wagon at least twice and got a HUGE knot on his head. It kind of took away from his present opening experience, but he seemed to get over it quickly!

The tears after the fall

Diggin the tissue paper!

He loved diving into the presents (PS--please ignore my outift. It's one of those "you think you look good until you see yourself in a picture and then you think what the crap was I thinking" outfits).

After presents, we went BACK upstairs so he could dive into his cupcake. And dive, he did. He LOVED it! In his first bite, he bit off the whole top of the cupcake (which of course, had all the frosting). He didn't even hesitate to make sure it was REEEEALLY okay that he was doing it. He saw his opportunity and took it!


Taking the first lick.......yup, he liked it!



Aunt Brooke decided to get in on the cupcake action too. Actually, I think someone shoved a cupcake up her nose, but I thought she would appreciate this super good picture of her being on my blog :) Love you sis!

Overall, the party was a big success and I'm glad I decided to do more than I had originally planned. Tommy had a good time and took a 3 hour nap afterwards! It was a great time and I loved having our house full of family and fun and people who were there to celebrate our sweet baby boy's birthday! I can't believe he's one already! Better start planning for birthday number two............. :)