1st and 3rd Birthday!

In 2009, we have already celebrated Adeline's first birthday and Will's third birthday! First up was Adeline in March. For first birthday parties, I think its best to just have a gathering of family and friends for a meal and, of course, cake!! I do minimal decorations with only a few balloons or other handmade items (see below).

Following in that tradition, Adeline's party was held at her Gigi's house (bigger than ours!) and we had a cookout. I included many kid friendly food items including cheese cubes, fruit salad cut small, goldfishes and juice boxes. Here is Adeline with her cousins, friends and Grandaddy. :)

My big birthday girl enjoying her gifts.

Here she is discovering her cupcake! You'll see from Will's party below that I'm a HUGE fan of cupcakes! I love to bake and make cakes, but when they're young - cupcakes seem SO much easier to dish out. So far, its what I've done for all four birthday parties I have under my belt.

For Will's birthday, we had his party about a week after his actual birthday. So, on his actual birthday we made it special all day long. He got to use the (Mom-made) special plate! Dad left him a card and he opened a few presents. We generally just made it a big deal all day long!

Will's birthday is in June - so it is the perfect month for a POOL party! We have been blessed with having a great "third set" of grandparents for Will (and Adeline). Sherry was Will's babysitter while I worked and she, along with husband John, love Will like their own. They offered for us to have Will's party at their house and use the pool. We said, YES!

Since it was a pool party, we went with general pool/beach things and bright, beach ball-like colors. This bucket was our "dirt" cake. Except, I made the top layer to look like the ocean and sand. The "dirt" thing didn't really fit the pool party - but we love dirt cake, so this worked!

I also made some cupcakes for those that may not like dirt cake. I feel like I'm a little slow on this one, but I (finally) learned that you should make WHITE cake if you want the colors and/or design of the cupcake liners to show. I usually do chocolate, but it ruins the cute colors of the liners. This time the paper was bright thanks to white cake!

This year, I made each kid their own birthday garland. For Adeline's, I used pink and green patterned fabrics. Will got bright colors. My intention was to use iron-on letters to spell, "Happy Birthday." But I never got around to it. It worked, because each kid now has their banner hanging in their rooms! I love how they turned out.

One last birthday tip - this is the first year that I've ordered paper invites for any party. I usually use a service like Evite, but decided to change it up this year. For both Will and Adeline, I was able to get plenty (at least 20) of these adorable invites, plus envelopes, for about $15 shipped. I almost couldn't buy cards and print it myself for that cheap. The website is VistaPrint and I highly recommend it!