The 1st Birthday Party

SO!!! Miss Claire officially turned '1' this past Sunday. I must admit, throughout the course of her first year I played with a million different ideas of how I was going to do her first party. I went from tea-parties, to tutu's, to Chuck E. Cheese (that would mostly be for my benefit - I rock at this one game where you can win 150 tickets at a time - I hit it TWICE in one turn - EXCELLENT skills if I do say so myself - but I'm getting off track here...) but I'm a bit ashamed to say that when it came down to it, I just didn't put too much effort into her party. Life gets busy, and the thought of planning a birthday party for a kid who can't walk or talk can be tough. Plus, I belong to a moms group where it seems as if 95% of the kids are born in April. So that puts 'competition' on who gets to capitalize which Saturdays. Anyway, we ended up having an 'intimate affair' after church. I think it turned out perfectly.

So I made little cakes for the party that were in the shape of different mini-veggies, and butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, and bumblebees. Super cute. I made one that just had chocolate frosting (with white cake - my favorite) for Claire. Honestly, she didn't care in the slightest. It just sat on her tray. She looked around, wondered why everyone was staring at her, and why mom had a camera in her face taking photos. I took a TON. But they all looked like this one.



We ended up just breaking the cake into pieces so she could eat it. We literally had to put pieces in her mouth so she would taste it. She played a bit with the frosting, but like I said before, she really didn't care. After a bit we just took her down. It gets pretty boring, pretty fast watching a kid NOT eat their cake.


So here's a photo of the the little cakes I made. See - I get these ideas of how I want things to look, but I never allow enough time to do them. First, don't start making cakes at 9pm the night before. That DEFINITELY doesn't allow enough time. I thought I had more piping bags and tips, which I didn't. So I used only 2 tips and ziplock bags. I actually like that way better as it results in quicker clean-up. Oh yeah, I also didn't get enough frosting to do all the colors I wanted. So I had to stick with chocolate and vanilla. The cakes are also a bit 'puffy' because I overfilled the cake shapes. Oh well. Next time they'll look better. One more thing, can you spot the two cakes that Bob said looked like a kindergartener made? (Gwen - that is NOT a slam against you)


Um... these are the rest of the cakes that I was too tired and bored to do the 'right' way. So they just got a quick coating of frosting. Good thing Claire's long term memory hasn't fully kicked in yet.


I love this picture of Gwen, Claire, and Kennedy sitting on the little couch that my parents got her for her birthday. Can you see Claire's little budda belly?! SO CUTE!!! (and she's not wearing a bow because she's now learned that she can pull them out. Much to my dismay)


One last photo. Claire is obviously checkin' out the goods. Thanks for the smile Gwen.

So to sum it up - it was a fun time, and I now feel like I'm leaving the 'baby' world behind. I can't wait to see what this next year will bring. Claire is changing so much and I never get bored of it! In fact, tonight, she actually said, 'mom-mee' I LOVE IT!!!!!!