A Library Brunch First Birthday

I took an un-planned day off from my 31 days straight of writing yesterday... I just couldn't find a tiny pocket of time to squeeze writing into. Or rather, I could've, but there was absolutely nothing about yesterday I was willing to miss out on. I often get up early to write, but because Jaden's first birthday party was a brunch and started at 10:30, I was already up early getting ready for the party. I thought maybe during naptime I'd get a chance to write, but then nobody napped (birthday cake at breakfast time and all... I think they were all still on a sugar high). Then I thought maybe before I went to bed. We ate an early dinner, took a walk around the neighborhood together in the beautiful, brisk fall weather, and then put the boys to bed early. And I got some wonderful, much needed quality time with Shaun, which I absolutely was not going to interrupt with writing. And so, since my priorities are my people, and yesterday was just full of wonderful moments I was unwilling to miss, the writing waited until today. And today is perfect for writing... A quiet house, two boys napping, Drew watching Jungle Book here beside me, Shaun is playing paintball, and I have a cup of apple cider and a piece of oatmeal cake and my cozy slippers on... And it just feels right to write. :) 

So let me tell you about Jaden's first birthday party. :) 

When I took Jaden's newborn photos I used my nerd glasses in some of the pictures. And that sparked the idea to incorporate nerd glasses into his first birthday party theme. This was probably my most creative first birthday party so far simply because every idea came from my head, and not from any external inspiration, and for some reason it makes me so happy to feel original :)  

So I settled on the idea of having a "library brunch" birthday party, incorporating nerd glasses, book pages, and really fun favors (which I'll show you in a minute!)

My sister, who is a super talented graphic designer, made the invitations for me. I sketched out my vision, then described it to her, and we went back and forth revising until it was done. That process was so fun!! 

 I had taken Jaden to the library to take a few photos in order to use on for the invitation. Randi made them postcard size, with his photo on the left half, and I love the scrolling banner on the right hand side. Behind the banner are faint dictionary style words... I chose words that I felt described Jaden, copied and pasted their definitions and sent them to Ran to use. I love the finished product so much!!  

 The back of the post card is so cute too... It had all the party info on it and a little nerd glasses silhouette underneath the writing. 

In case you want to see a better quality of the photo of Jaden instead of a photo of a photo, here it is :) 

I took a few pictures of my littlest man before everyone got here. I got his shirt from baby gap, and had the leg warmers made from a shop on Etsy. The toddler nerd glasses came from ebay, I got enough pairs for all the kids :) (Thank you Salena for finding them on ebay!!!)

K, so you've seen the invites, his outfit, now the decorations and the food!

Phase one of the kitchen makeover was lighting... so our new pendant lights over the island and the recessed lighting were done in time for his party :) I made garlands of book page bunting from an old book.

I was so excited to do brunch... breakfast food is my favorite but we rarely get to have people over in the morning. So here was our menu: 

Blueberry Cinnamon Streusel Muffins//Banana Nut Bread//Pecan Pie Muffins

Ham & Cheese Quiche//Broccoli & Cheese Quiche

Mixed Fruit

Smoked Salmon

Apple Cider//Cranberry Juice with Lime

Birthday Cake 

(Oatmeal cake with a coconut glaze) 

I hung twine over the dessert table and used mini gold glitter clothespins to hang photos of Jaden from birth to now... An inexpensive, cute, and quick way to display photos.

I made a little cake for Jaden to smash, and I found a pencil with nerd glasses on top of it at Target that I used as his cake topper. I love seeing one little candle on a birthday cake :) 

 I added a little extra decoration with some of our favorite kids books. My sister gave them that super cool pop up Peter Pan book. (Nan- I purposely used that book and I lit one of the tea light candles you gave me to make myself feel like you were here.... Love you!)

 Favors!! I was so excited with this idea... I put gummi worms into glassine bags and sealed them with little stickers that I stamped the words "book worms" onto... The book worms, apples, and nerd glasses were our favors :) 

The bags were just so cute!

And now onto the people who made the party! :) 

We had a little bounce house in the backyard for the kids to play in.  

I am apparently a very enthusiastic happy birthday singer... haha.

 I think you can tell so much about a little one's personality from what they do with their first cake... Jaden was somewhere in the middle of Drew and Isaiah's reactions to their cakes. While Drew only got a tiny dab of icing on his one finger, Jaden definitely got himself a little messy, but didn't dive into the cake with his whole face like Isaiah did. He started with one little finger, tasted, liked it, tasted more, and eventually had his hands and face smeared pretty good. He seemed shocked when I set the whole cake in front of him! Ha! 

He had a little party of onlookers while he tasted :)

We played a game in the basement where the kids all had balloons tied to one ankle and had to try to pop each others balloons... but the balloons were made of some crazy, un-poppable material and we ended up modifying the game to whoever could pop their own balloon first. They were all sitting on their balloons and jumping up and down and still had a hard time popping them... It was hilarious.

 All the kiddos at the party :)

And, my new favorite photo of my three boys :)

So, there you have it. I had so much fun working on the details and I loved seeing it all come together. The first birthday is such a big milestone and I love making it special and celebrating it big. Thank you so much to everyone who came and helped make the morning special. We appreciate it so much. 

xoxo