Eli's First Birthday!

In reality, I didn't write this until 3 months later. Whoops. Sorry.
My little boy turned 1.
I wasn't sad- no tears were shed.
We just enjoyed a beautiful day with family and friends.
I'll Let the pictures tell the story.
It was Woodland themed…duh.

Birthday baths mean that you get to have ALL your toys

 

Birthday Breakfast: scrambled eggs (he eats these almost every day), fancy fruit, and a HEDGEHOG piece of toast.

These aren't in order…you're just going to have to be ok with that (because putting them in order would take, like, an hour)

We had a play area for all the littles who came. It included this baby holder make-shift ball-pit

I worked herder than I should have on this, so yes, it gets a picture

Don't be fooled- no one in this picture can take any credit for this Trail mix bar masterpiece. It was ALL my mother-in-law

She's amazingly talented.

Gift table (in the gazebo): His cake smash photos are on that window pane

His monthly photos sitting in his owl chair

Grandpas everywhere!

 

Rico's cousin made these super fancy cookies and home made gourmet spreads/ jellies. There was rose water involved. She's fancy.

Eli's gift from his grandma got put into action early

Seriously one of my favorite photos form the whole day. Two of Rico's aunts just getting some Eli love

behind the scenes

Uncle Josh taking the cousins on a drive

Yes, yes I had centerpieces for a 1 year old's birthday party. Burlap runners,  sliced trunks, mason jars with chevron burlap ribbon (and baby's breath), sprinkled with pine cones. 

….and we hung lanterns in the trees

Look at ALL THESE GOODIES

Rico's aunt made her famous carrot cake (seriously, it is SO good)
The cake stand was a tree stump Rico's uncle chopped down and stained himself!

AND she made carrot cupcakes! Adorable. So, SO adorable.

Great grandma

He. Loved. His. Truck.

Look at that hat- it's from his great grandma and great grandpa

One thing is for sure- this little boy is very loved.
Obviously WE love him, but to be able to have so many friends drive all the way down to us and to have so many family members (the kid has FOUR great grandparents that aren't just present, but INVOLVED in his life weekly) that love him.

Favorite memories:
-Looking out and seeing Aunt Laura playing blocks with Eli and Lizzie. With their blonde hair (and difference in age from each other) it was like getting to look back and watch her with her two kids. I almost cried.
-Decorating the day before (my birthday). One of the "gifts" I asked for was that whenever Rico WANTED to roll his eyes and tell me I was going overboard, he would INSTEAD say something like "Wow, look at all this effort you are putting in, Eli is so lucky"
…I also had to promise not to go this crazy every year (which I FULLY intend to follow through with)
-Watching Eli go from person to person and not have any issues, because he gets to see them all so often
-The food. I pawned off delegated nearly every job for this party, especially food. Everyone knocked it OUT OF THE PARK. We ate the rest of the smash cake for the next week and I threw a little fit when it was completely gone.

Speaking of out of the park, that's my rough plan for next year. A park, some snacks, and a decoration or two (yeah, right).
I'm SO glad we went all out for this one, even though he won't remember it. I loved planning it! BUUUUT I don't think I'll mind scaling it down a bit either. I've already started thinking of a theme. So far we're at either construction (dump trucks with chocolate pudding "dirt" as centerpieces?!) or literacy themed (I could recycle all sorts of ideas from my sister's baby shower…a pinterest WIN)

We'll see what Eli is into.