We had a great time celebrating Emma’s 1st birthday on Saturday at our house. With an early August birthday, I figure Emma’s probably in for years of pool parties — school’s out and it’s 100 degrees in the shade — so we embraced the idea and invited a bunch of friends over for kiddie pool + slip-n-slide + cake!
Birthday girl enjoying the pool!
We got pretty lucky with the weather all things considered. It was stormy all morning, but the rain dissipated a few hours before the party. The clouds lingered long enough to keep temperatures in the high 80s until the sun started to peek through during the party. We set up the kiddie pool under our pop-up tent so it was niced and shaded, and by the time it started to get really hot, everyone was ready to head back inside anyway.
Jen & Gavin’s kiddos enthusiastically tackling the slip-n-slide
Everyone gathered to sing Happy Birthday and have cake!
I was oh-so-tempted to go completely Pinterest-crazy and DIY all the decorations…but in the end, saner heads (like those belonging to Jose and my mom) prevailed so we just hit up the party store. We wanted to do an “under the sea” theme and fortunately they had everything we needed to make it happen — tablecloth, plates, and plenty of decor. We spent Friday evening and Saturday morning cleaning up and decorating, and I thought the house looked great! In fact, most of the decorations are still up 3 days later.
I did really want to make the cake myself, but in the end I was reluctantly convinced to outsource that too. I gave HEB pretty minimal guidance but it turned out great, so I have no regrets there. Ironically, although Emma wasn’t a fan of the cake I did make myself on her actual birthday earlier in the week, she LOVED the light and fluffy HEB cake. Duly noted, Emma! (I have to admit, despite being from a grocery store bakery, the cake really was delicious. I was impressed. Yay HEB.)
The one small thing I made was a cute photo display to show off the monthly photos I took over the last year, and I was happy with how that turned out. I backed each photo on scrapbook paper and strung them together with ribbon. Months 1-6 were hung on the wall between the family room and kitchen, and months 7-12 were hung on the column next to the back door.
I always get nervous inviting people over to our house, because I feel a lot of responsibility for ensuring that they aren’t bored, hungry, thirsty, annoyed, or otherwise regretful of their decision to come over in the first place. But Jose and I had a fun time getting everything ready — with a lot of help from my mom as well! — and all in all it was a fun afternoon. Hooray for birthday parties!