Parker's 1st Birthday Party

The good thing about having a baby on a Saturday (there are a lot of good things about it, I highly recommend it), is that their first birthday is on a Sunday!  So I knew that I had to have his birthday party on his actual birthday because this won't happen for another 5 or 6 years.

I wanted to do something low key.  Pinterest and blogs tell us that birthday parties and showers have to be perfection, you have to spend a lot of money and have every single thing themed.  And although I love looking at pictures of those parties, I knew that I didn't want to do that.  It was too stressful, too expensive, and Parker is 1, so he could care less.  I had a slight elephant theme and a few decorations and a whole bunch of pictures from his first year.

I decided to have our immediate family (parents and siblings) over for a lunch.  I made chicken lasagna, we ate on our fine china which doesn't get used much and Parker absolutely loved his meal.  It was nice to have something with just the people who are truly the closest to him.  

Then at 2 the madness started as I invited my extended family.  They love an excuse to get together, but we are a really close family.  We also invited a few of our friends who have kids the closest in age to Parker and who have been involved in his life over the past year.  That's what his birthday party was about for me, it was about spending time with those who have made his first year great.

Parker and his pals.  Three of my favourite little boys!

Parker chose not to nap yesterday, but luckily everything went really well.  I put him down at 5 and he fell right asleep until I woke him up around 7:30!  Then he slept through the night and I had to wake him up at 8:30 this morning for his doctors appointment!

The cake.  All I wanted was to watch Parker eat cake.  And do you think he had any interest in it?  Nope!  He didn't know what to do with it, he ate maybe one bite and he didn't even destroy it.  But then my sister gave him some ice cream and that caught his attention.  The kid loves ice cream.  I don't blame him.

Much more interested in balloons than cake

Ice cream!

It was a great day, and I only cried once while I was putting my one year old to bed.  Because how does that happen?  One day you have a baby and then you have a one year old and I feel like it changes nothing and it changes everything.