1st Birthday

A baby’s first birthday is something so sweet and special. I think most mom’s go all out on decorations, food, presentation, invitations, etc. for the party and that is exactly what I did. Jon and I decided when the party was going to be back on February the planning started then. Before the craziness began I attended my good friend Courtney’s daughter’s first birthday. She did a fabulous job and worked so hard to make it really special for her little girl so I knew I had to step up my game to make Beau’s party great. Like I said, I started the planning back in February and the planning did not stop until about an hour before the party started. Today is Monday, June 2^nd and I feel lost because I am so use to looking at my endless list of things to do, buy and create after my busy work day.

My planning began with me starting a new page on Pinterest that I titled “First Birthday”. Pinterest is a wonderful thing and it really gave me some clever ideas and saved me some money. I would spend my evenings on the couch “pinning” ideas and then my weekends would be consisted of me recreating my pinned idea. It was so much fun!

We had a nautical theme for the party but not the classic navy and red but blues and greens with sailboats. We are a nautical type of family because we love anything that has to do with the water so I thought his would be perfect. Everything we bought or made was blue and green which turned out precious! I started off by ordering invitations which was the basis of the theme. I had a Chi O sorority sister create the invitations and they came out better than I could have imagined!

Once I got the invitations ordered I started collecting nautical items from stores like Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Target, Marshalls, etc. I bought a few yards of burlap and started all my creations. I made a few burlap flag pendants that said his name Beau and Happy Birthday spelled out. They came out really cute! I also made pompoms that hung from our light fixtures that were baby blue with white streamers. We had a cotton candy tree where I made cups for the cotton candy to sit in. I bought colorful paper straws, wooden cut outs of fish to hand on a metal tree in our living room, nautical molds to make white chocolate suckers, ordered a beautiful bouquet of balloons that were all colors of blues and greens from Party City, ordered a precious cake from Peggy Ann’s Bakery, flowers from Kroger and many other items to put around the house. Once everything was displayed it all came together great and looked so nice!

I spent months making lists, buying things, creating things and doing that over and over until my head would spin. Planning a party is a big undertaking, especially when you have out of town guests coming who have never seen your new house. Along with all the party decorations we had a lot of sprucing up in the yard and around the house to do. We spent a few weekends buying things at Lowes to make our yard and garden look good. When we moved in our house last year I was 7 months pregnant and we were only focused on unpacking boxes and fixing up our baby’s room. By the time it was summertime and time to cut the grass we were sleep deprived from a newborn so we were not concerned with our yard at all. Jon did good to mow the grass every few weeks.

My parents and brother came into town the day before and they were super helpful in getting ready for the party. Beau loves spending time with them! 

This year we had energy and were close to chasing a little boy around. He is not yet walking but he can crawl just has fast as I can walk. It is amazing! So many preparations went into the party and the day of the event was nothing but a whirlwind until guests arrived. Mom and I set out all the food, decorations, displayed the cake, hung balloons while Jon did the yard and my dad and brother did little things to help. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work. The house looked so good and right before the guests arrived I got to snap a few photos of the set up.

The guests started arriving around 1pm and I think almost every single person we invited came. It was great having so many people in the house and Beau enjoyed all the attention. He was a doll the entire day! We managed to get him down for a nap around 10am so he woke up about 15 minutes before all the guests which was fantastic. My biggest worry was that he was going to be unexpectedly crabby and he was not at all. He played with the kids in the front room and some outside. Everyone ate tons of food and enjoyed everything we had so I call it a success. We were going to open packages but I could not get Beau still enough to open any so we decided to open them all once everyone had left.

The most precious part of the birthday was when everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him. He had his birthday hat on and just looked at everyone in awe. I might have tired up just a bit because it was just that sweet. He enjoyed his cake but did not get it everywhere which was good. I think the last guest left around 3:15pm and my house looked like a disaster. I guess a messy house is a sign of a good time! We cleaned up and then opened all the gifts. Beau got some great things and we were so grateful for all the fun toys.

That Reynolds went home and my Aunt Becky and Uncle Billy stayed for dinner. We all relaxed and drank wine on the back porch while the chicken cooked which was fabulous. It was a great ending to a very wonderful weekend. I loved that my aunt and uncle got to come from near New Orleans. They are so sweet and I love how they think the world of Beau. My parents and brother were such a huge help that weekend and I was very sad to see them go on Sunday morning.

Beau is very blessed to have so many people who love him. Cheers to many more birthdays with this little guys!