A Homemade Birthday Party

Our little Nico is now 1 year old as of Saturday. To celebrate, we had a little family party at the house on Sunday. It was perfect. Quiet, small, and full of handmade, simple decorations and food by yours truly and big brother, Mikey. I went with a Valentine theme. I figured I could get away with the more feminine decorations since he's only 1. Hey, humor me; I'm a mom of two boys. I don't get many opportunities to buy pink so I grab onto them when I can!

Mikey and I started off by making a sign in honor of the birthday boy. Mikey did all the coloring and the entire time we worked on it he would say, "My daddy is going to love this." He did.

For decorations, The Mister, Mikey and I set about creating a picture mobile of Nico's 1st year. Looking at those pictures of him as a newborn tugged at the heart a bit, but I know the best is yet to come. We hung pictures of Nico immediately after birth from the light above the dining table. The rest of the pictures we stretched along our impossibly long, 8 foot slider. I was a little nervous about how people would receive this idea, but it was a hit. Sorry for the lousy pictures. My house is notoriously dark so I had to use a bit of flash for the pictures to come out but believe me when I say it all looked much better in person!

For favors, we made Valentine Hershey's Kisses Crackers. (As in firecrackers, not yum! crackers) Mikey and I made the wax paper together. It had hearts, "N"s, and Nico's birth date randomly through out.

We had a simple lunch of homemade enchiladas and brought in rice, beans, chips, and salsa from a favorite (local) Mexican restaurant. For dessert we had cake, of course. I made a Snickerdoodle Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream frosting and Breyer's "Fried Ice Cream". No one here is a particular fan of cinnamon, but I am impossibly anal and had to carry the Mexican theme to the end. Snickerdoodle cake isn''t exactly Mexican, but it has cinnamon so I convinced myself it all worked.

Parenting Tip: I know it's hard in this day and age, but don't give your baby any candies, sweets, cookies, etc. their first year of life. First of all, they don't need the sugar--if they want something sweet they can have a fruit. But, mainly, it's so you can see the look of ecstasy when the first bite of cake touches their lips on their 1st birthday. The looks on Nico's face was priceless. He couldn't get the cake down his pie-hole fast enough. At one point he had the entire slice in both hands and was trying to shove it all in with one bite. We couldn't stop laughing, and ended up giving him another piece just because it was all so amusing.

All in all, it was a great day. Thanks for letting me share it with you.