Hellobee

How?  How is it possible that I am full stride in planning a first birthday party?????

I must admit that I’m both thrilled and crazy sad/emotional that the Baby Dudes are turning one in less than 30 days.  Not that I’m counting or anything.  Someone commented the other day that they don’t look like babies any more.  Sob!  I guess I’m going to have to re-name them the Toddler Dudes.

Ready or not, their birthday is indeed approaching.  I have mixed feelings about first birthdays because I know that the Baby Dudes aren’t going to remember or, frankly, really care about any aspect of this, except maybe enjoying their wee bit of sugar and having some more boxes and paper with which to entertain themselves. On the other hand . . . We just survived the first year with twins, and you can bet your backside that I feel like that is worthy of a celebration. Mama just may be sipping margaritas out of her “coffee” cup the entire day!  Is a first birthday mostly for the parents??  Yep, and I’m 100% fine and dandy with that.  While I’m certainly not throwing a Pinterest-worthy birthday, I do want it to be something to commemorate this year, and we have a whole herd of grandparents and great-grandparents that want to be there.  I figure if we do it “big” this year, we’re off the hook for the next few years.  We’re just doing family, but it’s still what we consider a big shebang.

1. Tutorial available with membership from My Cake School; 2. Cake Central; 3.  Cake Central;  4. Lydia Bakes; 5. Tablespoon

Naturally, I’ve been pinning away some ideas.  Sometimes I wonder how people planned parties before Pinterest. Then, I remember I grew up with cake and ice cream with my cousins and thought it was legit, and my mom probably felt zero guilt about that!  Maybe Pinterest is the devil after all.  Anywho, here’s a bit of my inspiration and plans for our Two-by-Two: Noah’s Ark theme.

Growing up, picking your cake was a BIG deal. My mom would get out all her cake decorating magazines and we would rifle through them looking for the perfect cake for our birthday.  Then, my mom or grandma or a combination of the two would somehow put together something cool. I still remember with great joy the awesome princess castle cake my mom made me. Making a cake for our birthday was the way my mom and grandma showed us we were special and loved, and as a fellow lover of baking, making a fun cake for the boys is one of the most important things to me. I know I want to do rainbow layers to go with the Noah’s Ark theme and I want some kind of ark with animals on top.  Will it look like my inspirations pics?  Not even close, but it’s my little edible love letter to Elliot & Finn.

1.  Etsy Birthday Poster;  2.  Etsy Zebra Pom pom;  3. Candice and Ezra;  4. Little Brick House;  5. On To Baby; 6. Etsy Dolajabi; 7.  Etsy Wishes for Baby

I’m mostly doing some simple rainbow and and animal decor.  We’re having the party at the home of some family friends because our house is pretty small. I want it to be festive and cute, but I don’t want to go over the top in either set-up time or cost. We’re not going to do many activities because there won’t really be many other kids, except possibly three older cousins and three kids that are friends of the family. I love the doljabi tradition that I learned about on Hellobee, so I want to do that.

Other than that, the only thing I want to make sure we do is have our guests fill out a “Wishes for You” sheet.  The boys will have probably 6, possibly 7, of their 8 living great-grandparents at their party, which is crazy and super cool. I think it will be such a treasure to keep those for the boys. Our hostesses did this at our shower, and I loved it but most of our family couldn’t be there, so I’m excited to do this at their party. Last, since we’re only having family, I’ve decided it’s okay to let everyone know that we will be collecting some items to donate to the NICU where the boys spent the first week of their life, and that if they would like to add anything they can bring the items to the party. The hospital the boys were born at is an awesome teaching hospital; it’s also the county hospital, and there are a lot of babies in the NICU who didn’t have parents around to bring them outfits, blankets, etc.  It may not be technically proper etiquette to mention this in the invites, but I don’t think our family will mind and it’s for a good cause.

It’s fun to dream about a perfect, pinteresty party, but I really just want to have fun with our family and celebrate what has undeniably been the craziest, most exhausting, stressful, most beautiful, and best year of my life to date.  I’m so proud of my little almost 1 year olds!

What did you do for your LO’s first birthday?